The NZX is looking for a new head of funds management after incumbent, Aaron Jenkins, resigned last month to end a two-year stint in the role.
Jenkins, who took on the newly-established funds management position in May 2015, quit to “return home to Sydney” with his family, an NZX statement says.
As head of funds management he was responsible for bedding down the NZX $35 million acquisition, SuperLife, while also overseeing the expansion of the bourse’s Smartshares exchange-traded fund (ETF) range from five to the current 23.
According to the latest official data, the NZX boasts about $2.3 billion of funds under management (FUM) with almost $1.8 billion run by in-house manager SuperLife and over $550 million of external money via Smartshares. SuperLife had over $1.35 billion of its total FUM in Smartshares products as at April 30 this year, the NZX metrics show.
In April, Jenkins was issued about 123,000 NZX shares (valued at about $125,000 at the time) under the group’s executive share plan bringing his total allocation to 395,561 (or about $427,000 at current NZX share price).
Prior to taking on the head of funds management job Jenkins joined NZX as head of markets in January 2014 from Fonterra where he was general manager trading among farmers. Mark Peterson, who replaced Tim Bennett as NZX chief this April, took over the head of markets role following Jenkins’ move to head the funds management unit in 2014.
In a statement, Peterson said Jenkins would “continue in his role until we recruit a replacement” with an executive search now underway.
“… on behalf of the team at NZX, we wish Aaron, Tara and their daughters all the very best for the move,” Peterson said in the statement.
Before Fonterra, Jenkins worked in senior roles with online stock-broking pioneer E*Trade, which was acquired by in 2007 by ANZ – an institution he spent 13 years in various positions across Asia, UK, Australia and NZ.
He was previously Fonterra’s General Manager Trading Among Farmers where he designed and implemented the globally unique TAF ecosystem. Prior to this, he held senior technology and business roles with E*Trade, one of Australia’s largest non-bank financial services businesses, and spent more than 13 years with ANZ Bank in Australia, NZ, Asia and the United Kingdom.