Our business strategy
As a profit-to-members super fund, our purpose is to maximise secure and sustainable retirement funds for our members to improve their post-work lifestyles.
To ensure we achieve our aspirational position of being recognised as a leading fund delivering quality service, superior outcomes and advanced product features to meet the needs of aspirational people for their whole lives, our leadership team comes together every year to review our business strategy and plan. As part of this review, we ensure it reflects the environment in which we operate, maintains a long-term view, and is well-positioned to deliver strong value for members and employers.
How we've delivered value
We put members at the centre of everything we do
Our strategy — 2020 - 2025
HERE ARE THE KEY INITIATIVES WE DELIVERED THAT ALIGN TO OUR BUSINESS STRATEGY:
Superior quality and outcomes
- Strengthened our partnership with our administration provider Mercer to uplift the services provided to members and employers.
- Invested in operational resources and process improvements.
- Implemented a new insurance design to improve relevance, affordability and equity for members.
- Enhanced and diversified our investment research to reduce costs leading to reduced investment fees.
- Implemented a scalable advice model that covers general and limited advice through to comprehensive and complex matters.
- Enhanced our award-winning Sustainable Balanced option.
Member affinity
- Developed an omni-channel strategy to ensure members experience a consistency of service delivery across channels.
- Launched enhancements to website and direct communications to ensure functionality and content is accessible and member or employer friendly.
- Invested in research to strengthen our brand identity and refine our value proposition – critical to enabling us to build scale to deliver superior products and services to members.
Growth
- Expanded our partnerships in target industries to elevate the profile of CareSuper, to build membership and scale.
- Developed a strategic framework to enhance member and employer retention and support growth.
- CareSuper was selected by the Trustee Board of Perpetual as the successor fund for over 5,000 members in its MySuper product. Preparations were made for the transfer originally intended for May 2020 but deferred to October 2020.
Executive team
Our executive team is united by a shared commitment to improving our members’ lifestyles. Individually, they are responsible for leading their respective business areas, and together they are responsible for designing and executing CareSuper’s business strategy and plan. All executives have clear goals and their performance is formally reviewed at least once a year.
Julie Lander
Chief Executive Officer
‘Over 230,000 Australians trust us with their super to improve their post work lives. That’s a responsibility we take very seriously.’
Julie is the Chief Executive Officer of CareSuper. She’s responsible for developing the business strategy and plan designed to help members and employers get the most they can out of their super fund. She oversees the implementation of these plans across the fund, with the support of the executive team.
Julie is a highly experienced leader and has over 30 years’ experience in superannuation, including in senior roles across both corporate and industry super funds. Previously she was National HR Manager for a major employer organisation. She has also worked in human resources in the manufacturing industry and for membership organisations in the professional services industry.
Julie holds a Bachelor of Business, a Graduate Diploma of Organisational Leadership, and is RG146 qualified. She is a Director and Fellow of Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees (AIST), where she also serves on the Policy Committee. In addition, she is a Director of the Fund Executives Association Limited and the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals and a Member of AHRI and AICD.
Appointed: 2001.
Suzanne Branton
Chief Investment Officer
‘Delivering strong long-term returns to members is our goal.’
Suzanne is responsible for the management of CareSuper’s investment portfolio and leads a team of dedicated investment professionals. She works closely with the CareSuper Board and Investment Committee to develop the fund’s investment strategy for the benefit of CareSuper members while maintaining a strong focus on investment governance and risk.
A proven leader with more than 28 years’ experience in financial markets, primarily within superannuation and asset management, Suzanne has extensive, expert knowledge of portfolio management across asset classes. She is experienced in portfolio strategy and design, asset allocation, manager research and selection. Suzanne has managed the investments of profit-to-member super funds for the past 15 years. Prior to this, she held various senior positions in investment strategy and financial market economics at Goldman Sachs and JBWere.
Suzanne holds a Bachelor of Economics (Honours), and a Graduate Diploma of Applied Finance. She is a Fellow of the Financial Services Institute of Australasia.
Appointed: 2015.
Belinda Ray
Chief Risk Officer and Company Secretary
‘We protect the things that matter – like your money, and the way it’s managed.’
Belinda leads CareSuper’s Compliance and Risk team in identifying and managing governance and risk. She is also the corporate company secretary.
Belinda has over 25 years’ experience in superannuation consulting, auditing and accounting, starting as an auditor for Ernst & Young. Later, she moved on to hold several senior roles at Towers Watson (now known as Willis Towers Watson), including Senior Consultant for corporate super funds and Head of Research, Information and Compliance.
Belinda holds a Bachelor of Business (Accounting and Information Systems), a Graduate Certificate in Organisational Leadership and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand.
Appointed: 2012.
Mark Lyons
Chief Capability Officer
‘A positive internal culture helps us build momentum, and in turn, create growth for members.’
Mark develops and implements CareSuper’s operational strategy across its people and culture, business intelligence, corporate finance, project management, internal communications and technology departments.
Mark has over 30 years’ experience working in financial services and other highly-regulated industries. He has held senior management positions in banking and local government, where he focused on delivering superior customer outcomes and business performance. His extensive experience includes corporate planning, governance, asset management and business improvement.
Mark holds a Bachelor of Business and a Master of Business Administration. He is a qualified accountant and a member of CPA Australia.
Appointed: 2017.
Peter Theodorakopoulos
Chief Marketing Officer
‘We’re focused on engaging and empowering our members to be confident about the future and improve their post-work lifestyles'.
Peter is responsible for building and evolving CareSuper’s brand to ensure it reflects and responds to the needs of our professionally minded members and employers. He provides strategic direction to the design and delivery of CareSuper’s marketing and brand strategy, and leads our product, digital, communications and customer experience capabilities.
Peter leads a passionate team of professionals to deliver and shape a marketing program that is distilled to a level that provides a clear, concise and effective focus, ensuring member outcomes are always top of mind.
He has strong expertise within the superannuation industry, including more than 20 years in various senior roles across both industry and corporate funds.
Peter is RG146 qualified, is a Fellow of the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) and has been awarded Marketing Executive of the Year by the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees (AIST) for his contribution and leadership to the Australian superannuation industry.
Appointed: 2002
Paul Northey
Chief Development Officer
‘Building valuable partnerships that last the distance is a huge part of what my team does.’
Paul drives the Fund’s growth and retention strategies and leads the client and member facing teams.
Paul’s experience includes senior executive roles in superannuation and funds management, financial planning, general and life insurance and banking. He was previously the General Manager of RACV Insurance and prior to that, the Director of Wealth Management for a prominent international banking group. He also led the distribution and marketing teams of major wealth management firms.
Paul holds a Bachelor of Business and a Diploma of Financial Planning. He is a graduate of the Senior Executive Programme at the London Business School and studied executive development at the Wharton School of Business in Philadelphia.
Paul is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Appointed: 2017.
Employee initiatives
We’re always striving to ensure that CareSuper is a great place to work, as we believe engaged and driven employees do their best work for our members and employers.
FOSTERING AN ENGAGED, HIGH-PERFORMING WORKPLACE
It’s important to provide a positive, supportive and collaborative workplace where employees are proud to work, are motivated to achieve and enjoy equal opportunity and fair treatment.
Each year we survey our staff to see how they view working at the Fund and we’re pleased to report they are strongly aligned with our purpose. The 2019 staff engagement survey showed strong results with resounding feedback that CareSuper employees value our strong member focus and the care shown through attractive employee benefits and an inclusive culture.
The majority of staff agreed that:
- We always act in the best interests of our members
- Their work group has a strong customer service culture
- CareSuper is committed to best practice in its industry
- They understand how their role contributes to CareSuper’s long term goals and strategies
- CareSuper’s chosen values and behaviours are demonstrated in their teams
- They are required to uphold the highest ethical standards
- CareSuper is committed to continually improving its systems, and
- They are proud to be working at CareSuper.
We also completed a number of minor surveys throughout the year to check the ‘pulse’ of the organisation and gather feedback on how we could better support employees throughout COVID-19 and in a remote work environment. We used the PERMAH model, a globally recognised wellbeing framework, to assess how our staff were maintaining their health and wellbeing.
2019/20: Our staff levels of resilience and wellbeing have remained above the national average, even in this challenging climate.* Our voluntary turnover was seven per cent, well below the financial services industry average of 12 percent.^
*Australian HR Institute (AHRI), Wellbeing Lab Workplace Survey 2020 ^Financial Institutions Remuneration Group, Policy & Practices survey 2019.
Good to Great
To build momentum around employee engagement, in 2018 we established ‘Good to Great’ – a cross-functional working group which aims to take our workplace from good to great in a continually evolving landscape. It has identified and implemented several key initiatives for employees since its inception, including an enhanced health and wellbeing program and a revamped reward and recognition program.
Alignment and development
Attracting, retaining and developing skilled employees who embody our goals and values is crucial to maintaining our status as a leading super fund.
We again held our internal national staff conference, which aims to develop our employees and promote engagement and alignment to the high-performing attributes of the Fund. We were delighted to win an award for this conference – for Best Internal Communications Campaign at the 2019 Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustee (AIST) Awards.
Employee support during challenging times
Recognising the unique challenges that this year has presented, we implemented additional initiatives to support our employees. This was done to ensure they could continue delivering their best for our members and employers, especially from March when they were set up to work from home. These included the expansion of our in-house coaching program, wellbeing workshops and activities, mental health training, home ergonomics assessments and a family resilience seminar.
We value diversity
It’s our view that diversity enhances results. We believe that having a broad range of views, perspectives and experiences represented at board, executive and staff levels is essential for quality decision-making. We seek diversity across gender, age, skills and professional backgrounds. This is also represented in our Diversity and Inclusion Policy.
When we’re seeking to fill director vacancies, we ask nominating organisations to consider gender diversity in addition to skills criteria, when proposing candidates. Similarly, we recruit staff on merit, considering the skills, qualifications, experience and other attributes required to perform the role and contribute to the team, and we consider gender balance when recruiting and promoting staff. Through the annual remuneration review, analysis is conducted on outcomes based on gender and other factors. CareSuper offers flexible work practices to enable staff with family responsibilities and for other reasons to work non-standard hours or from home. We’re proud of the diversity of our team, noting the gender-based statistics below.
Gender diversity at 30 June 2020
| Category | Women | Men |
| Board | 5 | 5 |
| Executive team | 3 | 3 |
| Middle managers | 8 | 9 |
| Other staff | 59 | 45 |
Gender age split at 30 June 2020
| Category | 20-29 | 30-39 | 40-49 | 50+ |
| Male | 4 | 24 | 22 | 7 |
| Female | 7 | 30 | 27 | 6 |
Staff remuneration
How we remunerate staff
Our remuneration policy directs that:
- We provide staff with a fair, equitable and competitive remuneration framework that recognises and rewards individual contribution
- We attract, retain and reward our people appropriately
- Our remuneration reflects the market we compete in for the capabilities we require
- Our remuneration is consistent with our values and profit-to-members ethos.
We remunerate our staff via fixed salary packages. Each position is assessed on the skills, experience, level of responsibility and other relevant factors required to fulfil the role. Annually, we source relevant market data to benchmark the salaries of each position within our Trustee office. All staff are paid within the range for their role. The annual salaries budget and total increases are approved by our Governance and Remuneration Committee.
Staff total salary package range at 30 June 2020
| Salary range | Number of staff |
| $50,000 - $100,000 | 28 |
| $100,000 - $200,000 | 85 |
| $200,000 - $300,000 | 7 |
| $300,000 - $400,000 | 5 |
| $400,000 - $500,000 | 0 |
| $500,000 - $600,000 | 1 |
| $600,000 - $700,000 | 1 |