Richard Dinham
The A$3.4 billion ($2.23 billion) Australian Food Super, which traditionally served the Australian meat industry, named a new CIO on Thursday, tapping an executive who built his expertise in retirement solutions at Fidelity International.
The fund, formerly the Australian Meat Industry Superannuation Trust, but now renamed and open to all, signed Richard Dinham as its new investment chief after he completed a five-month consulting stint with the organization.
Dinham replaces Murray Rutherford, who served as CEO and CIO when the fund was known as AMIST Super. Rutherford stepped down as CEO earlier this year and was replaced by Michael Sykes—a former chief executive of AvSuper, which served the aviation industry, and former deputy head of MTAA Super, which was the motor trades fund.
In replacing Rutherford as CIO, Dinham brings substantial industry experience to the role. Most recently, he spent six years with Fidelity International, where he served as head of client solutions and retirement. In that role, he collaborated with Fidelity’s investment teams to develop innovative solutions for wholesale and institutional clients across Australia.
Before joining the global asset manager, Dinham held several senior positions in the wealth management sector, including head of research in Macquarie Bank’s wealth management division; CIO at StatePlus before it was acquired by First State Super in 2016; senior consultant at Russell Investment Group; and head of distribution at Alexander Forbes Investments.
For the past two years, Dinham has been consulting independently for various investment managers, wealth managers and research houses.
The Australian Food Super fund had 66,744 members as of June 30, down from 67,652 the year before, according to the fund’s latest figures. However, average member account balances rose to A$51,000 from A$47,000 over the period.
A version of this article originally appeared in our sister publication, Financial Standard, which, like CIO, is owned by ISS STOXX.
Tags: Australia, Superannuation