Calastone has appointed a new head of Australia and New Zealand as Teresa Walker departs the global funds network.
Walker stepped back from the business at the end of October after eight years with the firm, including two years as managing director and head of Australia and New Zealand.
The firm has now appointed Sydney-based director Marsha Lee to take over the role where she will oversee Calastone’s continued growth across the region.
Lee joined Calastone in 2017 and worked closely with fund managers, platform administrators and unit registries to drive and support new business.
Calastone chief commercial officer Brian Godins said: “Marsha has been instrumental in embedding Calastone as the processing heart of Australasia’s managed funds sector and is very well placed to keep expanding the business into deeper and new segments.
“Industry scale fintech solutions are being increasingly recognised as underpinning commercial sustainability and innovation in a digital economy. We have a strong regional and global team to support this and thank Teresa for her contribution and efforts in growing the business and driving our positive client engagement.”
Lee added: “It has been so rewarding to see the funds sector scale and mature through its adoption of our solutions. As the digitalisation of managed funds gathers pace, we are further innovating and transforming the ways in which the industry connects and delivers value to investors.
“Our team in Australia is very excited to collaborate with both clients in the region and our global team as the business expands to drive the next evolution of products, including cash settlements, ETF servicing, and tokenisation of collective investment vehicles.”
Last month, the firm’s quarterly managed fund flow data found property funds saw record quarterly outflows in the third quarter of 2023 while investors demonstrated a bias to Australian equities.
Real estate managed funds saw outflows of $199 million, the third consecutive quarter to see outflows. Mixed asset funds also saw outflows of $288 million, its fourth consecutive quarter of outflows, which brought total outflows to the last 12 months to $947 million.
Exploring which sectors saw inflows during the three months, fixed income funds saw inflows of $2 billion, infrastructure funds gained $470 million and managed equity funds saw inflows of $705 million.
