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HESTA appoints a new chief investment officer

Sonya Sawtell-Rickson is HESTA's new CIO.

Sonya Sawtell-Rickson is HESTA's new CIO. Photo: provided

Industry superannuation fund HESTA has appointed Sonya Sawtell-Rickson as chief investment officer from 24 July 2017. She will lead the fund’s internal investment team and oversee its $37 billion global investment portfolio.

HESTA CEO Debby Blakey said Ms Sawtell-Rickson has extensive experience leading teams across a diverse range of asset classes and has held senior roles in both investment management and the superannuation industry.

“We’re delighted that Sonya will lead HESTA’s investment team in the exciting next chapter of its development that will involve building on our past investment success, and implementing a new five-year investment strategy,” Ms Blakey said.

“Sonya brings outstanding investment experience and leadership across all aspects of portfolio management and her insights will help drive innovation and continuing excellence across the spectrum of our investment activities.”

As CIO, Ms Sawtell-Rickson will have oversight over HESTA’s total portfolio of investments. She will be a key contributor to developing HESTA’s view of investment opportunities and will lead the internal team in asset and risk allocation as well as manager selection.

“HESTA members spend their careers caring for others and it’s a privilege to be able to make a contribution to improving their retirement outcomes by delivering strong, sustainable, long-term investment performance,” Ms Sawtell-Rickson said.

“HESTA has an impressive history of strong investment performance and innovation and I look forward to working with the HESTA team to continue to achieve the Fund’s ambitious investment objectives,” she said.

Ms Sawtell-Rickson has more than 16 years’ investment experience and was previously an Investment Director at Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC).

There she played a leading role in the Global Multi-Asset team, where she advised clients on investment strategy, and oversaw portfolio management processes and activities across a broad range of traditional and alternative asset classes for portfolios in excess of $40 billion.

Prior to this, Ms Sawtell-Rickson was managed investment services at QSuper.

HESTA is an industry super fund with origins in the health sector.

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