How investment decisions create real-world impact

Over the long run, finance is really about changing the world, changing people’s lives.

Finance demands millions of daily decisions. Taken together, they transform the world. So every decision matters.

CFA Institute stands behind our professionals. Ethics, research, community and lifelong learning sit at the heart of all they do.

Rest has 2.1 million members and about 110 billion Australian dollars in assets under management. I regularly reflect on the fact that it’s a real privilege to be able to look after our members’ retirement assets in the way that we do.

Unfortunately, my very, very beautiful husband passed away. That was a shock because he was 68, and we thought we’d have, you know, all the rest of our time together.

I was lucky enough. I’ve got five grandchildren, and they came along and I had them to keep me occupied. And the next one, and the next one, brought joy.

Financial security is absolutely important.

You need to plan for your retirement. You need to make sure that you don’t just sort of finish work one day and then, then go into retirement and think, you know, everything’s going to work out. You actually need to, to know what you’re going to do before you retire.

For most Australian households, their superannuation asset, their pension asset, will be the largest asset that they have outside of the family home itself. So the real-world impact of what we do every day is super important to our members, gives them the retirements that they deserve and the best retirements they can have.

It’s really important to keep a sense of enjoyment and direction. Being able to spoil the grandchildren and being able to travel, all those sort of things. So it’s made my life so easy.

I’m blessed.

The CFA Program fundamentally changed my career in every way imaginable.

The role of ethics in the work that we do is really important. In 2018, there was a Financial Services Royal Commission. In that review, there was Queen’s Counsel. He asked the question, “What do these trustees do alone in the dark with our money?”

It’s a great question, and I both love and hate it. I don’t like the distrust that it implies, but I love that it acknowledges that on behalf of our 2.1 million members, we’re making decisions that they’ll never know about. But we need to make sure that we make them to a standard that addresses that question—that we are making the right decisions for the right reasons.

We’re all going to live round about 30-odd years after retirement. You need purpose. It doesn’t matter what. It’s whatever your passion is and what you want to do.

My advice is get your finances sorted. Go seek professional financial advice. You’ve got the advantage of time when you retire.

That’s sort of one of the great things about it. It’s just freedom and you can do what you want to do. Just make sure that in planning your retirement, you look after yourself financially, mentally and physically.

Me and my team are very significantly motivated to deliver results.

What I most want to leave behind is a track record of sustainable, consistent investment results that help members so they can have the best retirement they can.

The decisions we make today are relevant to the type of world our members will be retiring into, into the future.