It’s been the year of the regulator! That’s what our panel of judges concluded after they chose the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s (APRA) Charles Littrell and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s (ASIC) Pauline Vamos to jointly head Super Review’s listing of the Top 10 Most Influential People in Superannuation for 2003.
In addition to regulatory issues increasingly dominating the minds of those working in super, our panel noted that rising regulatory demands are accelerating the biggest trend in the superannuation market — corporate super outsourcing.
“APRA has made it clear to trustees that they must either raise their standards or merge, wind up or outsource their operations. Those who are finding the bar too high are disappearing,” noted one panel member.
With the regulators’ impact clearly felt, industry players were seen as trying to establish or increase their market position. “They are reacting to what is being done or trying to second guess what the regulators are going to do. It’s a changing environment and there are shifting sands all over the place,” said another panel member.
At one stage, panel members suggested placing former HIH boss Ray Williams in the TOP 10 because of the part he played in forcing APRA to shape up. All agreed that APRA had come out of the HIH collapse “looking very bad” and in need of change. “While trustees may have been left to their own devices thus far, APRA is now bringing them more closely into its net,” said a panellist.
Last year, APRA’s former CEO Graeme Thompson made our TOP 10. But with all the senior changes that have taken place at APRA over the past year, our panel struggled to agree on one key influencer at APRA. Finally, it chose Charles Littrell as the person making the most impact, largely because he has been high profile in communicating details about the looming licensing regime to the industry.
But while the panel saw APRA as only starting to cut its teeth and increase its surveillance of the super industry, ASIC was considered the watchdog with the sharper teeth and as being more proactive in taking action against problem super funds and advisors. Of course, with the FSRA licensing process well underway, ASIC was seen as taking up much of the time of super funds and their financial planners. And in this area, one face stood out strongly: Pauline Vamos.
“In terms of sheer energy, you’d have to say that Vamos is clearly out there. She speaks at everything and she gives of her time,” said a panel member.
No doubt, many readers will disagree with our listings. From the outset, we knew this could never be a scientific exercise and that the outcome would be subjective. But we hope that the results create debate and make for interesting reading.
Just how one defines influential is also debatable. According to the Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary, a person with influence is one that has an effect or power over another person. For our purposes, we decided that those who are influential are those who have had some kind of impact on the superannuation industry and have helped shape it over the past 12 months.
We started our search by asking a number of industry players, most of whom are themselves already influential in the super industry (see below), to nominate who they saw as being influential over the past year. These nominations were then put in front of our panel at a breakfast in Sydney in October.
Panel members included Bridgeport Advisers & Asset Managers’ Robert MC Brown, Jean Elborn, formerly of the News Ltd Group Super Fund, Frank Russell’s David Hartley, Nestle Australia Group Superannuation Fund’s Jacky Herron, Mercer Human Resource Consulting’s Russell Mason, Blake Dawson Waldron’s Michael Vrisakis and Brett Westbrook, who is CEO of the Energy Industries Superannuation Scheme and the Local Government Superannuation Scheme.
What was pleasing this year is that three super fund executives made the final list. In previous years, we have had to compile a separate listing of influential trustees or super fund executives because none made it into the TOP 10 list, with the exception of ex-Cbus boss Mavis Robertson last year.
Those chosen this year were considered “energized fund executives’’ who went beyond just acting for their own funds and made a strong contribution to the industry by participating in industry bodies, talking at conferences and doing things that others are likely to follow.
