• Changing retiree profiles
• A holistic view of retirees
• How funds can respond

STEPHEN HUPPERT
Independent Consultant & Advisor

• Australia's retirement system is entering its most consequential decade: $4.3 trillion in superannuation assets, 2.5 million
Australians transitioning to retirement over the next ten years, and a regulatory environment that has moved from
encouragement to accountability — yet the gap between what funds promise and what members experience remains wide.
• The Mercer Shaping Super report provides the most comprehensive independent analysis of how Australia's superannuation system is performing across the retirement phase — covering product availability, member engagement, cohort outcomes and trustee capability gaps.
• Three years after the Retirement Income Covenant took effect, the data reveals a system making incremental progress where
structural change is needed: too many funds still treating retirement as an extension of accumulation rather than a
fundamentally different challenge.

This keynote sets the evidence base for the two days ahead — not a regulatory checklist, but a frank assessment of where the
industry stands, where the pressure points are, and what the next wave of reform will demand of every fund in this room.

RICHARD DUNN
Head of Product and Strategy, Consulting at Mercer

• Three years in, the Covenant has produced strategy documents from every trustee — but ASIC and APRA reviews continue to
find limited evidence that strategies have changed actual member outcomes.
• Where funds can point to measurable progress — take-up of retirement products, use of guidance tools, member confidence — and where the data still doesn't exist to answer the question.
• The gap between what trustees report internally and what members experience: is compliance activity being mistaken for
genuine strategy?
• What "good" now looks like heading into the Retirement Reporting Framework, and which funds are already ahead of where
2027 will require them to be

MODERATOR:

ESTELLE LIU
AMP

PANELLISTS: TBC

10:20 — MORNING COFFEE

• Retirement doesn't unfold as a single, predictable drawdown path. Spending, confidence and needs shift with life
circumstances, health, purpose and relationships, not just account balance.
• Members aren't looking for a product, or even a plan, they're looking for an ongoing partner they can trust to help them
navigate whatever comes next.
• Too many funds still treat retirement strategy as "set and forget"; what would it take to build guidance that actually adapts with the member over time?

MODERATOR:

MARK SPRING
Head of Product - Strategy and Managed Funds, Evidentia Group

PANEL MEMBERS TBA

• What APRA's Retirement Reporting Framework will require from funds, and by when
• Data and capability gaps funds need to close before 2027
• How reporting requirements are likely to shape product and service design
• Practical steps trustees should be taking now

ANTHONY SALIBA
Independent Retirement Income Consultant, AJS

Deloitte, TBC

• The take-up problem: 30% take-up at HESTA, 45% system-wide despite mandatory super since 1992
• The cost of inertia: 1.8 million eligible Australians remained in accumulation as at June 2025, foregoing $2.5 billion in tax-free returns in FY2025
• The equity dimension: women and lower-balance members show materially lower take-up
• Policy options: default/opt-out mechanisms, targeted prompts, and where DBFO currently sits

STEPHEN HUPPERT
Independent Consultant & Advisor

12:40 LUNCH AND NETWORKING

• Where the choice-architecture debate has moved since the Covenant's early years — from whether soft defaults are
legitimate to how they should actually be built.
• What a genuine default pathway requires: sequencing, member communication, and the legal boundary between guidance
and advice.
• Why most funds have avoided committing to a real default, and what's actually stopping them — legal risk appetite, board
caution, or genuine design difficulty.
• What the next 12 months of policy and trustee practice are likely to look like on this question

DAVID BELL
Conexus Institute

• Why generic, whole-of-membership retirement strategies no longer meet Best Practice Principles expectations — and what
genuine cohorting requires.
• Data and governance barriers to segmentation: what funds actually know about their members approaching retirement,
and what they don't.
• Account-based pension design as a cohorting output — tailoring drawdown and investment settings to member circumstances rather than treating ABPs as a single, undifferentiated product.
• What the leading funds are doing differently, and what a credible cohorting strategy looks like within 12–18 months

MODERATOR:

Cindy Vuong
AVP, Individual Retirement Income, Savings & Retirement, Pacific Life Re

PANEL MEMBERS:

JOHN LIVANAS
CEO, State Supe

DAVID MILLAR
Partner-Financial Services Consulting, Ernst & Young

PAUL COSTI
Analyst, Retirement Proposition, AustralianSuper

14:50 — AFTERNOON TEA AND NETWORKING

• On 1st March 2021 ART (then QSuper) launched the Lifetime Pension.
• It was the first innovative retirement income stream in Australia, and remains the only such product offered and managed
internally by a superannuation fund.
• Since inception more than 1500 pension policies have been purchased with approximately $400m in aggregate added to
the product.
• In this interactive session ART will share observations from the first five and a half years and some interesting insights into member behaviours.

BRNIC VAN WYK
Principal Retirement Solutions, Australian Retirement Trust

• The benefits of greater portability for retirees and super fund members.
• Regulatory and operational barriers to portable lifetime income products.
• Product innovation to balance flexibility, security, and longevity risk.
• The role of advisers and super funds in supporting better retirement outcomes.
• Future opportunities for a more flexible retirement income system.

BEN HILLIER
Director Retirement at AMP

• What's actually launching in the retirement income product market right now, beyond the headline announcements.
• How funds are evaluating lifetime income and longevity solutions for their own members — build, partner or buy.
• Where innovation is genuinely improving member outcomes, and where it's adding complexity without a clear benefit.
• What the next wave of product innovation is likely to look like, and what funds still on the sidelines are waiting for.

MODERATOR:

ANGELA HARTL
Principal Retirement Income Consulting Leader, Mercer

PANEL MEMBERS:

MARISSA POWE
Executive Director Retirement & Growth, Colonial First State

ESTELLE LIU
Head of Retirement Solutions, AMP

JAYSON DOMINELLI
Senior Manager, Retirement Product, Aware Super

Close Day 1