The NZX-owned Smartshares has appointed David Wong to the newly-created role of head of risk and compliance.
Wong joins the $3.7 billion passive funds shop from insurance firm IAG NZ, where he was senior consultant regulatory affairs.
He will “provide management and oversight of the risk environment and the changing regulatory environment facing all financial institutions”, Smartshares says in a statement.
Prior to IAG Wong served in various positions for BNZ covering capital management, securitisation and economic capital following an offshore career that included a turn with Banque Indosuez in London.
He is also a member of the Orakei Local Board – one of the 21 sub-units of the Auckland Council.
The NZX manages about $3.7 billion via Smartshares exchange-traded funds and its KiwiSaver and superannuation scheme, SuperLife, on behalf of 70,000 investors.
Over the last year or so Smartshares has made a number of senior appointments including Helen McDowall as chief operating officer this June while luring ANZ veteran, Stuart Millar, to the newly-created chief investment officer role in March.
Former Schroders Australia investment director, Oliver Trusler, has joined Research IP, the fund research house headed by Darren Howlin. Research IP recently launched in NZ to compete against fellow Australian fund researchers, Morningstar and Zenith Investment Partners.
Zenith purchased FundSource from the NZX this May for about $340,000 with its inaugural NZ awards ceremony completed earlier in October.
Coincidentally, Research IP formally launched in NZ just ahead of the Zenith/FundSource awards. Research IP previously supplied qualitative manager reports to FundSource.
Elsewhere, Hastings-based financial adviser, Nick Stewart, has resigned as trustee of the Eastern and Central Community Trust (ECCT) after a short four-month stint with the $180 million charitable fund.
Stewart was appointed to ECCT board in the June 2019 community trust tranche for a four-year term. Community trust board appointments tend to be politically-charged, requiring government approval as a certain number of trustee positions rollover each June.
About a third of the 130-odd board positions across the 12 community trusts changed last year, Department of Internal Affairs figures show.
According to the ECCT website, three long-time trustees – Ron Garrod, Stephen Kerr and Mark Kilmister – finished their terms this May. In addition to Stewart, the June ECCT trustee replacements included Whiti Timutimu, Susan Davis and Levi Walford-Smith.
ECCT had about $183 million under management as at the end of March this year, up from just under $175 million 12 months prior. Michael Chamberlain, head consultancy firm MCA, serves as investment adviser to the ECCT.
Also last week, Trustees Executors (TE) ramped up its change agenda with two new senior hires including a chief risk officer sourced from the NZ regulator.
Robert Sloan, previously Financial Markets Authority (FMA) head of disclosure, takes on the newly-created chief risk officer role at TE, which last week announced a major board refresh.
In a release, Ryan Bessemer, TE chief, said Sloan had a “deep understanding of the regulatory and compliance framework in New Zealand”.
“Robert will bring a strategic and technical focus to our supervision business, whilst developing a strong culture of best practice conduct in the [managed investment scheme] MIS sector,” Bessemer said.
As well as Sloan, TE named Australian financial advice veteran, Geoff Rimmer, as chief operating officer.
Most recently, Rimmer was head of trustee and wealth services for Equity Trustees, the former home of current TE chief, Ryan Bessemer.
Before Equity Trustees Rimmer was chief of Financial Services Partners (FSP), which at one time was a top 20 Australian independent financial planning dealer group. FSP is now part of the ASX-listed IOOF, which picked up the dealer group as part of its purchase of ANZ Australian wealth assets last year. ANZ owned FSP courtesy of a 2007 purchase by the bank’s previous wealth management partner, ING.
“Geoff is an accomplished and very strategic executive who will assist me to develop and execute our growth strategy, which is underpinned by distributed ledger technology [DLT],” Bessemer said.
TE is in the throes of switching NZ registry clients from a Bravura platform to a new blockchain – or DLT – system built on technology developed by Australian firm, Grow Super.