Russell head leaves to get ‘hands on’ at Sunsuper

Russell Investment Group has lost the head of its investment consulting operation in Australian, David Hartley, who will move to private sector superannuation fund Sunsuper as chief investment officer, a role which he expects will allow him to be more actively involved with implementing investment strategy.

Hartley, who had held the senior role since he joined Russell’s Australian based operation in 2003, will be replaced by senior consultant Andrew Lill.

Before joining Russell in 2002, Lill was a partner and head of manager research at Lane Clark & Peacock’s (LCP) London office. Prior to joining LCP, Lill was an investment analyst with Watson Wyatt Investment Consulting, also based in London.

Lill has played a critical role in the development of Russell’s consulting practice over the past two years said Russel Investment Group managing director institutional investment services Stephen Roberts.

“During this time we have expanded the team to include a specialist alternative asset and strategy research group, as well as a capital markets research group.”

Roberts said the specialist asset and strategy research group was responsible for identifying implementation strategies for global and Australian private equity and infrastructure, as well as global multi-strategy hedge fund-of-funds and timber, oil and gas.

He said the firm has also made a recent appointment in its capital markets group, with Melbourne-based Dennis Sams joining as director, capital markets. Sams works with Dr Craig Ansley and Yvonne Ooi.