Board of Directors

Professor Robert Officer is one of Australia's most respected and experienced finance academics. He has held a number of finance professorships at Australian and overseas universities and consulted to a large number of public, private and government organisations in valuation and investment appraisal, international finance, capital markets and takeovers. Professor Officer was Chairman of Victorian Funds Management Corporation from 2002 to 2006. He was Chairman of JF Capital Partners and Acorn Capital, Deputy Chairman of Tactical Global Management Limited and Chair of Pentacle Property Funds Management Limited. He is a Director of Babcock and Brown Direct Investment Fund Limited, Victorian WorkCover Authority, The Colonial Foundation Ltd, the OFM Investment Group Limited, and Trustee of the William Buckland Foundation. He is Professor Emeritus of the University of Melbourne, and was previously Deputy Director of the Melbourne Business School.

Paul Laband is a retired executive with extensive funds management experience, comprising hands-on global portfolio management, leadership of investment management companies, and leadership of asset consulting businesses. Career appointments include Head of Strategic Tilting and Head of Public Markets with UniSuper; Joint Head of Asset Consulting (Australia) with Russell Investment Group; Director, Asset Consulting (Asia Pacific) with Towers Perrin and Managing Director of National Asset Management. Mr Laband currently has three investment committee appointments with the Salvation Army, Telstra Super and the Uniting Church Beneficiary Fund.

Christopher Condon joined Tower Perrin in 1984 and was a founding member of that firm's asset consulting business. In 1990 he moved to Frank Russell Company as its Director of Consulting in Australia. The last couple of years at Russell were spent in London. In 1997 Mr Condon returned to Australia to join the MLC Investment Management team and was its Chief Investment Officer from 1998 until 2010. In this capacity he led a substantial investment team charged with managing the $60 billion in MLC's manager of managers products. In March 2010, Mr Condon established Chris Condon Financial Services Pty Ltd to assist institutional investors in the development, implementation and management of their investment programs. Mr Condon is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia and holds a First Class Honours degree in Finance from the University of NSW.

Michael Fitzsimmons is the Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer of JCP Investment Partners [JCP].  Michael's current responsibilities include: (1) client portfolio management; (2) managing the investment team; (3) investment process development; and (4) business development and client service.  Michael has worked in institutional funds management for over 20 years, starting in 1987 with National Mutual's Investment Division.  In 1989, he moved to ANZ Funds Trustees, initially as an Equity Analyst, and later as their Equity Portfolio Manager.  In 1992, ANZ Trustees merged with ANZ Funds Management and Michael took on the role of Quantitative Manager - Australian Equities.  In 1995, he progressed to Research Manager, then to Research/Portfolio Manager in early 1997, and then to Head of Australian Equities at the end of 1997 until leaving in December 1998 to set up JCP Investment Partners.  Michael has a Bachelor of Business with majors in Accounting and Economics and is a Fellow of the Securities Institute of Australia.

 

Pierre Prentice is an Executive Director and one of the original founders of the business in 1999. Pierre retired as JCP's Head of Research in December 2010. As Head of Research, Pierre was responsible for identifying new stock investment opportunities and critically reviewing the research process and key assumptions underlying research analysts' valuations for stocks that currently, or potentially, materially contribute to the risk of client portfolios. Prior to joining JCP, Pierre worked in institutional broker research for 12 years. He joined BT Securities (later BT Alex.Brown) in 1987, assuming the role of manager of BT Securities Melbourne office, a member of BT Alex.Brown's Management Committee and Head of Industrial Research, eventually becoming an Executive Vice President of BT Australia.  Prior to that, for approximately 10 years, Pierre worked in chartered accounting. He became a manager of Arthur Andersen and partner of KPMG Peat Marwick. During his accounting career, he specialised in audit, and small business consulting.

 

Steven Semczyszyn joined JCP as a Research Analyst in September 1999. Currently working as a Senior Portfolio Manager as part of the portfolio construction team, he is responsible for the management of client portfolios. Steven's main objective is to deliver positive excess returns for client portfolios by setting portfolio weights using risk and return inputs from the research teams and JCP's portfolio optimiser, and also critically reviewing the inputs from the research team for top 20 to 30 portfolio risk positions. Prior to joining JCP, Steven worked as a Financial Analyst - Asset Consulting for Towers Perrin, where he provided strategic and technical advice to trustees and organisations to enhance the investment decision making process. Steven was also a member of the Australian shares research team. Steven has completed a Bachelor of Commerce and Science, majoring in Finance/Statistics at the University of Melbourne and a Master of Applied Finance at Macquarie University.

 

Wesley Campbell joined JCP in August 2001 as a Dealer and was promoted to Senior Dealer/Portfolio Manager in 2008. In 2010 Wes transitioned to the Head of Institutional Business role. While Wes is responsible for leading JCP's business development team, he retains his position within the Portfolio Construction Team. As part of our Portfolio Construction Team, he is responsible for market input into portfolio construction. Prior to joining JCP, Wes was at Macquarie Bank where he joined as a graduate and worked for three years, primarily in the Equities Lending Division. Wes has completed a Bachelor of Business Degree, majoring in Banking and Finance at  Monash University and a Master of Applied Finance at the Securities Institute of Australia.

 

Peter joined JCP in October 2005 as a Senior Research Analyst working in Team D with responsibility for research output on a number of resources stocks including energy and basic materials.

Prior to joining JCP, Peter gained considerable industry experience as a Chief Economist with Shell (Australia), a Senior Economist with the Victorian Department of Infrastructure, and an Economist with the Productivity Commission. This experience was applied to equity markets in 2003 when Peter took a role as Senior Analyst (Materials) with Commonwealth Securities.

Peter has completed a Bachelor of Economics (Economic History and Political Science) with the Australian National University.