Russell appoints new head of investment consulting
Industry veteran Greg Liddell to drive expansion of investment consulting business in Australia
AUGUST 25, 2009 – Russell Investments today announced the appointment of Greg Liddell as its new Head of Investment Consulting for Australia.
Mr Liddell will spearhead a renewed focus on investment consulting in Australia as part of Russell’s restructured global consulting business. In addition to heading the local investment consulting business, Mr Liddell will join Russell’s Global Consulting Leadership team, working alongside Russell’s most senior pensions and investment consultants from around the world including Janine Baldridge, John Stannard and Don Ezra.
Mr Liddell brings more than 20 years’ experience in the investment and superannuation sector working across the spectrum of issues facing investors. He joins from Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC) where he spent five years overseeing QIC’s implemented equities program. This program invested up to $17 billion in local and global assets managed in a multi-manager framework.
Prior to QIC Mr Liddell spent 10 years with Mercer Investment Consulting most recently as Head of Fund Manager Research for Australia / New Zealand.
Today’s announcement reinforces Russell’s move to focus even greater energy and expertise on managing the evolving investment challenges faced by the world’s most sophisticated institutional investors.
Mr Chris Corneil, Russell Managing Director Australia and New Zealand, said Australian institutional investors were demanding a combination of traditional asset consulting expertise as well as more practical investment experience from their advisors.
“The diversity of investment consulting relationships continues to expand as Australian funds grow larger and grapple with the challenges of the changing regulatory and market landscape,” Mr Corneil said. “Greg brings a valuable combination of traditional consulting experience with hands on investment expertise gained from managing one of Australia’s largest portfolios of assets. The combination of consultant and investor experience will be vital in driving the evolution of our consulting services going forward,” Mr Corneil said.
Russell’s investment consulting business provides advice and thought leadership on a range of topics related to the planning, structuring, managing and implementing of investment programs for large investors such as pension/super funds, charitable institutions, insurance companies and other financial intermediaries.
In May Russell’s CEO Andrew Doman announced the creation of five new global service lines: Consulting and Advisory Services, DB/DC Outsourcing, OpenWorld® , Retail, and Russell Investment Services (RIS). The new global service lines work with the regional business units, leveraging the firm’s global resources and enhancing Russell’s ability to deliver innovative intellectual capital and investment products and services to any client, anywhere in the world.
Ms Janine Baldridge, Russell’s Global Head of Consulting and Advisory Services, said Mr Liddell would form an important member of Russell’s Global Consulting Practice.
She said Russell’s broad spectrum of consulting capabilities allowed the organisation to focus on partnering with clients with complex investment requirements. High growth sectors within Russell’s sights include Australian industry super funds, the world leading Dutch pension funds, sovereign funds across Asia, Middle East and Europe and Japanese public pension funds.
“In Australia and around the world sophisticated investors are seeking advisors who can not only provide tailored, long-term solutions to highly complex investment scenarios, but also guide them through the intricacies of effective implementation,” Ms Baldridge said.
Mr Liddell will be based at Russell’s Sydney office and starts in September. He will be attending Russell’s Australian Summit which is being held in Melbourne on Thursday 3 September and Sydney on Friday 4 September.
Russell Investments has also expanded its senior consulting leadership team in New Zealand with the recent appointment of Andrew Johnson, who will be looking after Russell’s institutional clients. Mr Johnson most recently held the position of Head of Relationship Management at AMP Capital Investors in New Zealand.
1. http://www.openworldinvesting.com
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