The Superannuation Risk & Governance Conference 2026 brings together trustees, board members, executives,regulators, and risk leaders for two days of deep, practical insight into the most pressing governance and risk challenges facing Australian superannuation funds.
Across a carefully curated program of keynote panels, expert discussions, and interactive roundtables, the conference explores APRA expectations, trustee
accountability, operational resilience, investment and liquidity risk, member outcomes, cyber and financial crime, ESG, culture, and crisis management. With a strong focus on real-world lessons and forward-looking governance, the agenda moves beyond compliance to examine what effective, resilient, and member-focused governance looks like in practice — now and into the next decade.
PANEL SPONSOR 
SUPPORTING SPONSOR8:20 Delegate Registration & Coffee
Opening remarks from the Chair
STEPHEN HUPPERT
Independent Consultant & Advisor
• The persistent blind spots and comfortable assumptions that continue to produce risk failures in superannuation
• Structural patterns that survive regulatory reform cycles — and why they are so difficult to shift
• Where governance culture reinforces the problem rather than solving it
• What genuinely needs to change — and where the sector should start
RUBY YADAV
Director, Independent Executive, openXchange
• APRA's sharpened enforcement posture: from guidance to action, and what trustees need to understand
• Lessons from recent APRA reviews, enforcement actions, and remediation programs
• The governance standards refresh — what the proposed changes to SPS 510, 520, and 521 mean in practice
• Board and executive accountability under the Financial Accountability Regime
MODERATOR:
AMANDA CHISHOLM
Director-Legal, Risk, Compliance and Executive Search, Kaizen Recruitment
PANEL MEMBERS:
JAG NARAYAN
Chief Risk Officer at State Super, SAS Trustee Corporation
LEAH WATT
Deputy Chief Risk Officer, Brighter Super
10:20 Morning Coffee & Networking Break
• What the evidence shows about the gap between board composition on paper and genuine risk governance capability
• Skills, experience, and diversity of thought: what APRA's proposed reforms are really targeting
• Succession planning, tenure, and the capability refresh challenge for funds navigating complex emerging risks
• What trustees and risk executives can do now to close the gap before the new standards are finalised
PRESENTER:
DAVID BELL
Executive Director, The Conexus Institute
• The Standard Risk Measure and its limitations
• What investment risk really means to superannuation fund members
• Why the industry uses market volatility as a measure of risk and why it may mislead members
• Why investing in high growth assets like shares can actually be lower risk
• The inconsistent messages about risk reported by superannuation funds
• Sequencing risk – what it is, when it matters and when it doesn’t
• How market volatility can reduce risk rather than increase risk
KYLE RINGROSE
Principal Consultant Athena IOC
• Incident response frameworks that actually work: escalation pathways, decision-making under pressure, and board visibility
• Breach management in a tightening regulatory environment: meeting APRA and ASIC expectations while maintaining operational continuity
• Crisis communications and stakeholder trust: managing members, media, and regulators when reputational risk escalates
• Post-incident reviews and uplift: turning failures into stronger controls, culture improvements, and long-term resilience
LEAH WATT
Deputy Chief Risk Officer, Brighter Super
12:30 Lunch break & networking
• Likelihood of super funds delivering negative real returns over a decade or so
• Potential drivers of significant market weakness, what might limit the risk
• Implications if a substantial and extended period or poor returns were to occur
• What super funds might do to prepare
GEOFF WARREN
Research Fellow, The Conexus Institute and Honorary Assoc. Prof at ANU
• The gap between compliance reporting that satisfies a framework and reporting that informs genuine board decision-making
• Using data, trends, and leading indicators to move from retrospective attestation to forward-looking risk intelligence
• What good looks like: the design principles behind compliance reporting that boards find genuinely useful
• Avoiding the common failure modes — volume without insight, green dashboards before incidents, and assurance without evidence
MODERATOR:
NICOLE OBORNE
Partner - Superannuation & Asset Management Assurance Leader, PwC Australia
PANELLISTS: TBA
14:40 AFTERNOON TEA & NETWORKING
SPS 530 and CPS 230 together create a clear expectation: investment governance is a risk and compliance discipline, not just an investment one. This means rigorous due diligence and ongoing oversight of external managers and robust service provider governance across the value chain, especially as internalisation accelerates and a mature internal control environment is needed to
considered material risks previously sitting with outsourced managers. This panel cuts to what risk and compliance functions actually need to build, where frameworks are falling short, and what genuine capability looks like in practice.
PANEL SPONSOR:
PX PARTNERS
• How AI-assisted decision-making creates new accountability questions for trustees under existing fiduciary obligations
• Regulatory and compliance challenges: navigating APRA and ASIC expectations around AI governance and transparency
• Where AI introduces unintended risk — model error, bias, and the danger of over-reliance on automated outputs
• What a sound AI governance framework looks like for a superannuation trustee: oversight, testing, and escalation
PRESENTER:
PETER EVANS-GREENWOOD
Principal, Evans-Greenwood Associates
• Tenure caps, board performance reviews, independence requirements: what the eight proposals mean operationally
• Industry response and what APRA's revised positions signal about the shape of the final standards
• Practical implications for board composition, succession planning, and director recruitment
• Governance as competitive advantage — how leading funds are getting ahead of the requirements
MODERATOR: TBA
PANELLISTS: TBA
Closing Remarks from the chair
17:00- 18:00 1 Hour Networking Drinks
Opening remarks from the Chair
STEPHEN HUPPERT
Independent Consultant & Advisor
• Payday Super go-live: operational readiness, SuperStream 3.0, and the CPS 230 compliance dimension for funds
• Division 296: trustee obligations, valuation challenges, and the member communication task
• Managing overlapping reform timelines without exhausting risk and compliance teams
• Turning regulatory implementation pressure into lasting governance improvement
MODERATOR: TBA
PANELLISTS: TBA
• Identifying and testing critical operations: where are funds finding the most significant gaps?
• Tolerance thresholds, disruption scenarios, and what genuine assurance looks like
• Third-party and outsourcing risk: what effective oversight of service providers actually requires
• Board accountability for operational resilience — moving from policy approval to genuine understanding
MODERATOR:
MEERA SARDANA
Associate Director, Actuarial Services, Ernst & Young
PANELLISTS: TBA
10:30 MORNING COFFEE & NETWORKING
• Superannuation funds that share intelligence amplify its value across the entire industry. Rethinking information sharing as a
strategic investment rather than an operational vulnerability
• How peer-to-peer intelligence exchange delivers compounding returns, with each participant's contribution strengthening the
collective shield protecting all members
• Where the instinct to protect proprietary information works against collective resilience and why the calculus changes when
the threat is systemic
• What effective industry intelligence-sharing looks like in practice, and the governance and trust frameworks that make it work
MODERATOR:
MICHAEL COLLINS
Consultant, ASFA
PANELLISTS: TBA
• AI adoption across investment decision-making, member services, risk management, and compliance: where funds are and where they are heading
• Governance frameworks for AI: accountability, transparency, explainability, and what board oversight needs to look like
• Regulatory expectations: how APRA and ASIC are approaching AI risk and what funds should be doing now
• From pilots to production: managing the transition from AI experimentation to embedded operational use — and the risks that
come with it
MODERATOR:
CHAD BARENDSE
Data Governance Manager, Netwealth
• How boards set risk appetite — and how often it reflects genuine strategic intent rather than boilerplate
• Translating risk appetite statements into operational limits, tolerances, and management decisions
• When risk appetite is tested: how funds have responded under stress and what governance failures look like
• Using risk appetite as a tool for better board conversations, not just a compliance requirement
MODERATOR:
AMANDA CHISHOLM
Director-Legal, Risk, Compliance and Executive Search, Kaizen Recruitment
PANELLISTS:
NIKKI SCHIMMEL
Chief Risk Officer, Vison Super
MATT WILLIAMSON
General Manager Risk and Compliance (CRO), Prime Super
HAYLEY POPE
General Counsel and Chief Risk Officer, REI Super
12:50 Lunch Break & Networking
• The ASIC February 2026 findings: where super funds are falling significantly short of banking sector anti-scam standards
• Identity fraud, account takeover, and the escalating sophistication of attacks targeting member accounts
• Governance of AML/CTF obligations as financial crime risk and regulatory attention on superannuation intensifies
• Board oversight of financial crime controls: what meaningful governance — not just policy sign-off — looks like
MODERATOR:
JASON SYMONS
Partner | Cyber Risk and Insurance, Mills Oakley
PANELLIST:
JASON THENG
Chief Risk Officer, Team Super
JACK ALLEN
Associate, MinterEllison
• Integrating ESG risk into core risk frameworks: moving beyond disclosure to real accountability and measurable outcomes
• Climate risk, APRA expectations, and scenario analysis: how funds are preparing for regulatory and physical transition risks
• Balancing fiduciary duty with ESG priorities: navigating member expectations, returns, and ethical investing pressures
• Greenwashing, data challenges, and governance: ensuring transparency, credibility, and robust ESG reporting standards
MODERATOR:
KERI PRATT
Chief Investment Strategy Officer, State Super (SAS Trustee Corporation)
Panel Members TBA
• The cultural impediments unique to superannuation funds — and the reasons they are so persistent
• The ownership problem: who is actually responsible for risk culture, and does it matter who owns it?
• Practical methods that move the needle — including those that are most often overlooked
• Getting to a whole-systems approach: the role of advocates, advisers, and everyone in between
FACILITATOR:
ANDREW BROWN
Director and Co-Founder, Adaptive Cultures
• More than 12,200 superannuation complaints to AFCA in 2024–25: what the data reveals about systemic governance failure points
• Death benefits, insurance claims, and the conduct failures behind the sector's most significant recent penalty outcomes
• Complaints as a risk intelligence tool: how boards and risk teams should be using complaint data proactively
• Best Financial Interests Duty in practice: what trustees are required to do and what leading funds actually do
MODERATOR: TBA
PANELLISTS: TBA — AFCA SPEAKER BEING PURSUED
Closing remarks from the Chair
STEPHEN HUPPERT
Independent Consultant & Advisor
AFTERNOON TEA & NETWORKING
