Leadership Moves April 2024
Leadership Moves February & March 2024
Yellow Folder’s latest Leadership Moves Report is now available and highlights a number of shifts in executive leadership across financial services organisations for February and March 2024. The Reserve Bank of Australia bolstered their executive team, bringing in Andrew Hauser from the Bank of England as Deputy Governor and promoting Susan Woods to the newly created Chief Operating Officer role. AMP has seen several key staff members depart in recent months, who are now stepping into other leadership roles. Notably, Scott Hartley, previously CEO of AMP’s disbanded domestic wealth management business, has become CEO of Insignia Financial. See LinkedIn for the report
Director Pay Report
Our latest (ASX 300) Director Remuneration Report is now available for download. Click below to find out more about Australia’s highest paid Board roles, the gender pay gap for directors, and above-inflation increases in pay for Chairs and other Non-Executive Directors of ASX 300 companies. We created this comprehensive report with Donald Hellyer and his team at Open Director, and it has been reported on by Patrick Durkin and The Australian Financial Review. Read the Australian Financial Review Article This is the second year that we have teamed up with Open Director to produce this report, and the data shows a mixture of ongoing and shifting trends. Median pay is up for both Chairs and other Non-Executive Directors (NEDs), yet underlying these headline figures are a variety of experiences by sector and company size. Gender representation and pay both remain issues, though to differing extents. Read Director Remuneration Report 2023
Highest Paid Industry Super Executives in February 2024 Executive Index
Australia’s highest paid Industry Super executives have been revealed in Yellow Folder Research’s latest Executive Index, showcasing the leadership and pay priorities of the for-purpose segment that holds $1.3 trillion in member funds.Mark Delaney, AustralianSuper’s Chief Investment Officer (CIO) and Deputy Chief Executive Officer, topped the list as the only executive paid over $2 million. Yellow Folder assembled this data from the latest round of financial reporting, with remuneration captured for the year to 30 June 2023. Click to view full table: YF Index Feb 24 – Pay for Industry Super Executives In second and third places were the CIOs of UniSuper (John Pearce) and AwareSuper (Damian Graham), reflecting the central role of investment returns for these funds. The top three remained unchanged from the previous financial year.Rounding out the top five were the highest paid CEOs, who were in fourth and fifth places overall, namely Host Plus’ David Ella and AustralianSuper’s Paul Schroder. Fund size clearly played a significant role in driving pay, but it was not one-for-one. Australia’s second largest fund, the Australian Retirement Trust, only appears at eleventh place, with CIO Ian Patrick paid $1.2 million. This finding may be contingent on the fact the fund was only formed in early 2022, following the merger of Sunsuper and QSuper. Yellow Folder Research’s Managing Director, Julian Doherty, said “Our regular Executive Index is part of a series that highlights significant underlying trends in today’s economy by analysing top executives of Australian companies.“ “Our latest release showcases the key executives who hold great responsibility in their positions, being required to make decisions that affect the retirement savings of all Australians.“ “Our data adds to the debate around whether this level of remuneration is fair, whether the financial year 2023 increases are justified and whether total pay is appropriately balanced towards variable pay.” Further key insights revealed: The top 25 were paid $28.5 million in total for the 2023 financial year, averaging $1.1 million each. Variable remuneration, or incentive driven pay, accounted for 22.4% ($6.4 million) of the total paid to the 25 individuals, with the proportion earned by each person varying dramatically from 0% to 53.7% of total remuneration (UniSuper’s CIO, John Pearce). Variable remuneration was also weighted towards the short term, with 19 of the 25 earning some sort of short-term incentive for the financial year. In contrast, only five individuals – four of whom worked for Aware Super – were paid a long-term incentive. Despite lagging behind CIOs on total pay, CEOs enjoyed some strong gains in remuneration from the financial year 2022 to financial year 2023. For the Top 10, the largest annual increases were enjoyed by David Elia (CEO, Hostplus – up 16.3%), Deanne Stewart (CEO, AwareSuper – up 20.1%) and Debby Blakey (CEO, Hesta – up 25.8%). Unlike the other Industry Supers in the Top 10, HostPlus paid their CEO David Elia more than his CIO Sam Sicilia, by $271.7k in total remuneration. The highest paid executive that was not a CIO or CEO is Peter Curtis, AustralianSuper’s Chief Operating Officer, remunerated at $1.0 million for the 2023 financial year. Yellow Folder is an Australian consulting firm operating at the forefront of market trends, providing market insights, succession planning, and remuneration intelligence advice to boards and executives that helps their businesses gain a competitive edge.
Leadership Moves December 2023 & January 2024
December 2023 and January 2024 saw a number of leadership changes across financial services and superannuation, including the departure of Corrin Collocott after 9 months with Mercer, following its acquisition of BT Financial Group, to join IAG. Take a look at our market update for more detail. View the report on LinkedIn
First Executive Index release shows top performing CFOs
Australia’s 25 top performing Chief Financial Officers have been revealed in new research, painting a picture of business value growth and delivering a who’s who of future company leaders.Whitehaven Coal’s Kevin Ball came out on top in the first edition of the Yellow Folder Executive Index, which this month ranks ASX Top 100 Chief Financial Officers against market capitalisation change over the past three years.
Moving Beyond BAU in Hiring: A Panel Session
In October 2023, for Rubberband’s Bounce 3 event, our Managing Director, Julian Doherty, joined Raj Gopiraj and Mia Baldock from Vicinity Centres in discussing how to move beyond business in recruitment and hiring. In this panel session, the following insights came out: Offering an alternative process makes for a more inclusive hiring experience Hiring Manager training developed internally can have an immediate and practical positive impact Focusing on potential capability vs previous experience opens up excellent internal mobility outcomes for mid and senior roles Using Yellow Folder market insights allows Vicinity Centres to assess talent gaps and opportunities, justify talent investment decisions, and review external comparisons