What influenced your decision to take on your current job?
My love of economics and its real-world applications to investing and that my job enabled that to be combined with investment decisions and helping ordinary people make better investment choices.
Who was the person who initially helped you most in your career?
Professor DJ Juttner, my thesis supervisor at university who got me interested in financial economics. Prior to meeting him I doubt I would ever have pursued a career in macro economics in the funds management industry. He got me intrigued in the intersection between economics and what goes in share, bond, currency and property markets and whether its rational or not.
What effect will AI have on careers such as yours?
Lots and not much. On the one hand it will further automate a lot of what we do – just as IT has over the last 40 years – and make some aspects of the role redundant. But on the other it will expand what we can do – just as rapid developments in IT over the last 40 years has. And there will still be a need to make sense of the economic and investment landscape and translate that in ways that helps ordinary investors make better investment decisions.
List the three things you would do if you were the Treasurer of Australia.
Cut Federal Government spending as a share of the economy by 2 percentage points, increase and broaden the GST and use that to fund big income tax cuts and work with the states to cut the amount of time individuals and companies have to spend complying with regulation by 70%. All of these are necessary to expand the productive potential of Australia and get living standards rising again.
What is the most enjoyable part of your job?
The challenge of trying to work out what is going on in the economy and markets and what that might mean going forward. And then translating that in a way that might help ordinary Australian investors. But its a toss up between that and communicating our assessments to end investors and ordinary Australians.