There’s been a lot of activity since Julie Lander took over as CEO of CARE Super, the $1.4 billion industry fund for administrative, managerial and professional people, in October 2002.
Just about everything has been revamped, from the insurance and other product enhancements to the fund’s look, its trust deed and its constitution.
“We’ve made lots of administration changes that may not be overt, but behind the scenes, they create greater efficiency and fairness,” says Lander.
On the investment side, CARE Super has added a sustainable balanced option, which brings the total number of investment choices offered to members to 10, and it has made its choices more flexible, removing some previous restrictions on how members could mix and match options.
“We’ve made great progress in cleansing our data base, to get a greater handle on our members and employers. We’ve also implemented a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) program so that we can deal with members and employers on a more personalised basis because we believe customer service is one of the most important differentiators in this game,” says Lander.
On the compliance side, CARE Super has just obtained its Australian Financial Services Licence and has developed more stringent compliance checklists as well as a new business and marketing plan.
On the marketing side, the fund started to change its image in 2001, creating a whole new, fresher look and logo. Continuing work has gone into modernising its brochures, web site and education literature, which has certainly paid off with the fund winning communication accolades at CMSF in the last two years.
On top of all of this, CARE Super’s balanced option was a top performer in the past financial year with a return of 4 per cent. In fact, the fund’s one year and longer term returns across all options have been outstanding.
Lander says her focus this year will be on successfully launching the new corporate super product and on increasing the fund’s profile.
CARE Super is one of the latest industry funds to develop a corporate super product to capture some of the funds considering the outsourcing route. According to Lander, the fund is already participating in tenders with this product even though it will only be formally launched in the next two months.
One way of enhancing CARE’s profile will be through targeted advertising. “One of our aims is to be better known as a fund, not only for administration staff, but also managerial and professional people,” says Lander.
Unlike other industry funds, many of CARE Super’s members are not covered by awards or agreements. This, according to Lander, offers the fund both opportunities and challenges.
“We possibly face more competition from retail funds and master trusts than other not-for-profits. Our target markets are more in the service industries, professional services firms and some recruitment agencies… We are across a wide range of industries while many other industry funds have a very clear industry focus.”
Also keeping the fund busy lately are the “beauty parades” as it gets increasingly invited to tender to take on the superannuation arrangements of smaller industry funds
“Some smaller funds are finding the compliance hurdles huge and that the economies of scale just don’t stack up for them,” says Lander, who confirms that CARE is currently talking to a number of smaller industry funds about rolling into the fund.
A recent win was the $17 million Shipping and Travel Officers Productivity Superannuation Fund (STOPS), which rolled into CARE in November.
What Lander most enjoys about her job is “working in an industry with the knowledge that we are all striving to give members a better future… that we are doing something good”.
With an extensive background in HR and remuneration and benefits, Lander initially joined CARE in 2001 as general manager of investments and member benefits. Prior to that, she worked at RACV and at the Australian Chamber of Manufacturers (ACM), where she had been secretary of the ACM corporate fund and an alternate director on the board of the Australian Retirement Fund.
In her spare time, Lander enjoys playing a bit of golf, likes catching up with friends and family, entertaining, reading (especially biographies) and if all else fails, a bit of retail therapy.
