106: Tuckwell Family Office's Craig Dandurand
Conversations with Institutional Investors
Release Date: 11/18/2024
128: MLC Asset Management's Dan Farmer – Active Management, Private Equity, AI and the Early Days at Telstra Super
Conversations with Institutional Investors
In this episode, I'm speaking with Dan farmer, who is the Chief Investment Officer of MLC Asset Management. We talk about Dan's early days managing an internal Australian equity portfolio and getting involved with derivatives at Telstra Super, almost straight out of university. We talk about some of his mentors, including Steve Merlicek, and the influence they've had on Dan's investment philosophy. We also touch on the merger between IOOF and MLC and the new capabilities this has brought to his team. __________ Follow the Investment Innovation Institute [i3] on Explore our library of...
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127: Frontier Advisors' Kim Bowater – Consultants in a Changing Industry, AI and Gender Diversity
Conversations with Institutional Investors
In this podcast, I’m speaking with Kim Bowater, who is the Director of Consulting at Frontier Advisors. Kim has spent 23 years at the firm and saw the asset consultant grow from a small advisory firm with just 13 people when she started in 2002 to the leading asset consultant it is today. She is one of the driving forces behind a number of key initiatives that have supported Frontier’s growth, including the establishment of a technology platform that allows clients to access research online and the initial set up of the retirement business. In this episode, we discuss how the continuously...
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126: Professor Scott Donald – Should Trustees Use AI?
Conversations with Institutional Investors
In episode 126, Scott Donald, Professor at the Faculty of Law and Justice of the University of New South Wales, breaks down how artificial intelligence is reshaping the work of superannuation trustees. Efficiency is the big draw, but legal and ethical risks mean trustees are moving carefully. AI is already embedded in parts of the finance sector, from document summarisation to risk management, yet its tendency to hallucinate and behave inconsistently remain serious hurdles. Scott explores where AI can genuinely add value and discusses its application to investment strategy, compliance and even...
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125: The Devolution of Neoliberalism – UTS Finance Department Roundtable
Conversations with Institutional Investors
In this special edition of the [i3] Podcast, in collaboration with the UTS Finance Department, we explore how the neoliberal model of economics, which largely ignored politics and focused on financial metrics, has eroded over time and made way for the rise of populism, which has exerted its influence on economies around the world. Why did the guardrails that neoliberalism provided slowly disappear and what are the consequences of this? Is there any model that will replace it? Political Economist Elizabeth Humphrys, Geopolitical Specialist Philipp Ivanov and UTS Industry Lecturer Rob Prugue...
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124: Fidelity's James Richards – Investing in Energy Transition Materials
Conversations with Institutional Investors
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123: Cbus' Linda Cunningham – Pricing Risk in Debt Investments, Private Credit and the Impact of Retail Investors
Conversations with Institutional Investors
Note: This episode was recorded before the release of ASIC's Private Credit Surveillance Report 820. The ASIC report mentioned in the podcast relates to the Private Credit in Australia Report 814, released in September 2025. In this episode of The [i3] podcast, I'm speaking with Linda Cunningham, who is the Head of Debt and Alternatives for Cbus Super. We talk about some of Linda's core beliefs when it comes to debt investing, including the banking 101, to be very careful when borrowing short and lending long at the same time. We discuss the importance of cash flows and ensuring the ability of...
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122: Fidelity's Maroun Younes and James Abela – SMIDs in a World of Large Cap Dominance, Are Things About to Change?
Conversations with Institutional Investors
In Episode 122 of the [i3] Podcast, Conversations with Institutional Investors, we speak with Maroun Younes and James Abela, co-portfolio managers of the Fidelity Global Future Leaders strategy, about the attractiveness of small and mid-cap investments, a $12 trillion market with significant growth potential. They acknowledge the recent underperformance of small caps due to market concentration in large caps, particularly in US tech, but point out that people are starting to wake up to the risks associated with those concentrations. Are we in an AI bubble, driven by these large caps? The...
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121: JANA's Mary Power – Offices Market Woes, Liquidity and Blended Approaches to Property
Conversations with Institutional Investors
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120: Stanford University's Ashby Monk - The Future of the Pension Industry
Conversations with Institutional Investors
In this episode, I speak with Ashby Monk, who is Executive & Research Director at Stanford Long-term Investing, a part of Stanford University in California. Ashby has been advising most of the large superannuation funds in Australia on governance, organisational efficiency and knowledge management. He is a regular visitor to our country, and has been here 55 times. We discuss the future of the superannuation industry and the role of innovation. Unsurprisingly, this means that we spend a fair amount of time talking about artificial intelligence and the changes it might bring to the...
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119: Janus Henderson's Richard Brown – Small Caps in a Concentrated World
Conversations with Institutional Investors
In this episode of the [i3] Podcast, I'm speaking with Richard Brown, who is a Client Portfolio Manager with Janus Henderson Investors. And today we are going to talk about global small caps. We look at whether small caps are affected by the increasing concentration of the equity markets, particularly in the US, where technology stocks have dominated returns in recent years. We talk about catalysts for unlocking the current small cap discount versus large caps, including the rate environment and the current business cycle. And we take a look at a few case studies of where to invest and where...
info_outlineIn episode 106 of the [i3] Institutional Investment Podcast, I speak with Craig Dandurand, Chief Investment Officer of the Tuckwell Family Office. Craig has an impressive career in the investment industry that spans time with US pension fund CalPERS and Australia's the Future Fund. We talked about his background in credit investing, setting up a hedge fund program and the world of private wealth. Enjoy the show!
Overview of Podcast with Craig Dandurand
01:00 You initially worked in the legal profession. How did you get into investing?
02:00 Starting at CalPERS
03:00 The hedge fund team was the least bureaucratic part of a very bureaucratic organisation
06:30 What has changed in hedge funds compared to 20 years ago? They got more boring
10:00 During the GFC, I remember sitting in a coffee house writing something with a headline that said: ‘Capitalist Manifesto’, which is the kind of overblown thing you write in a coffee house. But it resulted in three key aspects we wanted hedge funds to focus on: alignment, control and transparency
15:00 CalPERS was at a scale that led some hedge fund managers not wanting to engage with us
16:00 The optimal size of an asset owner is probably between $5 - 30 bn.
20:00 What was most disorientating coming to Australia was my currency exposure
26:30 Learnings from the COVID-19 crisis
29:30 To do a total portfolio approach well at a large asset owner is an incredible labour intensive exercise
32:00 The Future Fund had a clear investment target, but when you join a family office you need to find out what their needs, values and desires are (pardon the thunder in the background). Before you can invest the money, you need to know why you are doing it
34:00 Graham Tuckwell invented the gold ETF and, therefore, has a good understanding of how markets work
35:30 The concept of ‘ten ETFs and a 9 iron’. Often people confuse complexity for quality
42:00 Catering to different needs and life stages within family offices
48:00 I’m a credit junkie and that probably comes from being a bankruptcy lawyer
49:00 I find the growth of private credit over the last few years fascinating and slightly unnerving
53:00 Best and worst investment: investing in Worldcom bonds
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