Leaders In Funds Management – Shali Lingaretnam Head Of Investments – CCI
Brief overview of career to date
I started out my career in investments in 2001 at Bendigo Bank whilst completing my undergraduate degree. Over the years I have held a range of investment roles at Aviva, IOOF, Lonsec, Macquarie Bank and now CCI. These have covered equities, fixed interest and derivatives. In 2012, I completed my masters degree in applied finance.
How did you get your first position in the industry?
I was in my first year of university and found that I had the opportunity to work part time whilst juggling my university workload.
There was a role advertised for a part time para-planning and compliance officer at a firm called Bendigo Investment Service (a joint venture between Bendigo Bank and IOOF). The role was to offer administrative support to the financial planners and compliance manager. Given it was a small organisation, I had the opportunity to grow the role to encompass investment research and make recommendations for investments to be included on the Approved Investment List. This launched a passion for investments and career spanning 19 years within investment management.
How did you get the opportunity to become a head of investments?
I was in the role of portfolio manager for roughly nine years working as 2IC to the chief investment officer (CIO). Over this time I was responsible for managing our equity research teams and portfolio management of both our internal and external assets. I was very fortunate to gain a lot of hands on experience from the CIO and learnt a lot from him. Following his departure in 2017 and an internal reorganisation, I was offered the opportunity to step up into the newly created role of head of investments.
Can you provide an overview of your position? What do you do on a daily basis?
As head of investments, I have primary responsibility for managing our Insurance portfolio and portfolios of our clients through CCI Asset Management. The total book is over $2Bn in assets across multiple asset classes. On a day to day basis I am responsible for making decisions with respect to the asset allocation and investment strategies that underpin the management of these portfolios and achieving their investment objectives.
You are passionate about ESG issues. What are the implications for CCI investment portfolio for screening investment opportunities for ESG
Managing assets for charitable institutions has meant that ESG has always been at the forefront of our decision making process. We are highly cognisant of our clients ethical investment desires and this drives our ESG framework. Over the years, as the industry has matured, we have been able to evolve our ESG framework from an exclusion based process to that of active ownership incorporating proxy voting and impact investing.
If you could give one piece of advice about developing a career as an investment professional within funds management what would it be?
Never stop learning, whether this is through formal education or informally and never fear reaching out to peers, managers, specialists to further your knowledge.
Kaizen Recruitment specialises financial services recruitment across funds management, wealth management, superannuation, investment consulting and insurance. We are based in Melbourne and Sydney. For assistance or further information please telephone our office at +61 3 9095 7157 or submit an online form.
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