Legislative delays slow independent super directors



Delays to the legislation surrounding the appointment of independent superannuation fund directors has seen Equip Super extend the term of a employer director by 12 months.
Equip announced it had extended its board employer director by 12 months thanks to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority's (APRA's) approval delay.
The fund's original plan for 2016 was to reduce the number of elected board members to allow for the appointment of two independent directors by the newly elected board.
However, the delay to legislation enabling the appointment of independents required that Equip apply to APRA for a variation of its licence in order to make the appointments.
The fund said as APRA has not approved this yet, the board has extended Andrew Pickering's tenure as an employer director by a year and has appointed Sandra Jericevic as a new member director to achieve equal representation over that period.
Jericevic is an independent consultant in the areas of treasury, governance and risk, and received the next-highest number of votes in the member director election in February.
During the same member and employer director election, Michael Clinch and Jan Dekker were also elected.
Clinch is AGL Energy's manager for group employee relations and has previous experience as a trustee director in the profit-for-member superannuation sector.
Dekker is currently Cleantech Ventures' managing director and chief executive and has 16 years of board level experience in the funds management and commercial sectors.
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