AustralianSuper promotes risk executive

Mathew Dive
MATHEW DIVE
AustralianSuper - Senior Director - Investment Risk
APPOINTMENT
AUSTRALIANSUPER
Date: 23 September 2022
Position: Senior Director - Investment Risk
By Elizabeth Fry

AustralianSuper has confirmed the promotion of Matthew Dive to the role of senior director of investment risk.

Part of the mega fund's total portfolio management team, Mathew Dive is responsible for the investment risk framework covering market, liquidity, and counterparty risk across AustralianSuper's multi-asset class investment portfolio.

He joined AustralianSuper in  2013 to help build AustralianSuper's approach to portfolio risk and governance arrangements for internal management of investment strategies, which started around the same time.

Three years later, Dive joined his current team to rebuild AustralianSuper's investment risk framework and integrate it with its investment strategies.

The investment risk expert was promoted to director in 2019 and senior director this month.

Before landing at the country's largest super fund, Dive did a five-year stint as manager of market and sovereign risk at the Bank of England.

Before working at England's central bank, he spent eight years at the Reserve Bank of Australia, where he was most recently the manager of financial markets infrastructure and policy.

The importance of the total portfolio management approach was underscored recently by Alistair Barker, AustralianSuper's head of total portfolio management and Dive's boss.

Barker explained that the fund's single objective of reducing the exposure to interest rates and duration at a total portfolio level is central to this investment strategy.

This approach eliminates distractions as everyone has an eye on the main goal rather than on a particular strategic asset allocation.

"Duration comes in many forms," Barker told Industry Moves.

"It's not just whether we hold government bonds. There is the embedded duration in the equity market, and we see it in unlisted assets so trying to aggregate up what everyone is doing and see how we are positioned at a macro level is critical."

"Otherwise, you could end up with opposing positions in a multi-manager hybrid model or with a concentration of positions, too much risk in one area or with one view of the world."