Investment Process Committee

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.

Professor Bruce Grundy has extensive experience across all aspects of financial management and planning, and has worked within both academic and consulting environments. Bruce has taught corporate governance, real options, and futures and options subjects in Australia and internationally, at institutions including The Wharton School, Stanford University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Melbourne (where he is currently Dean of Finance). His research interests are varied, and include derivative securities pricing; executive compensation; the structure of the mutual fund industry; momentum trading strategies; valuation of mining companies; corporate governance and the cost of capital in global capital markets with classical and imputation tax regimes. Bruce is an associate editor of several leading financial journals, and has been widely published within his field. Bruce undertakes consulting assignments for numerous government and corporate sector clients, and has worked on behalf of Arthur Anderson, National Economic Research Associates (New York and Sydney), AAPT, Alcoa and the Victorian Department of Treasury and Finance.

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.

Prof. Warwick McKibbin joined the Investment Process Committee in 2011 focusing on the macroeconomic part of our investment process.  Warwick is the Director of the Research School of Economics in the ANU College of Business and Economics.  He was foundation Director of the ANU Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, and is still a Professor with the Centre. Warwick is also an Adjunct Professor in the Australian Centre for Economic Research in Health at the Australian National University. He is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C.; a Professorial Fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy; and president of McKibbin Software Group.  Warwick has recently completed a decade as a member of the Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia.  He has worked at the Reserve Bank of Australia, Japanese Ministry of Finance, US Congressional Budget Office and World Bank and consulted for many international agencies and a range of governments on issues of macroeconomic policy, international trade, climate change, global demographic change and the economic cost of pandemics.