Georgina Dudley
Investment leaders from across Australia and New Zealand’s institutional and wealth landscape will gather at the JANA Annual Conference 2026, to explore a defining challenge for institutional investors: how to construct resilient portfolios as artificial intelligence, geopolitics, demographic change and the energy transition converge.
Hosted by JANA Investment Advisers, the conference will bring together global and local investment perspectives from BlackRock, Wellington Management, Blackstone, Baillie Gifford, Robeco, Hamilton Lane, J.P. Morgan Asset Management and Vinva.
Discussions will explore how structural forces are becoming more interconnected and what that means for portfolio construction, governance and long-term investment outcomes.
For JANA, the increasing complexity of investment markets reinforces a philosophy that has underpinned its advice for almost four decades.
Working across superannuation, wealth, not-for-profit, insurance and other institutional investor segments gives JANA a broad perspective on how these challenges are playing out across different portfolios, governance models and investment perspectives.
Chief Executive Officer Georgina Dudley said the questions facing long-term investors were continuing to evolve.
“Institutional investors don’t make decisions in quarterly cycles – they make decisions that shape outcomes for decades. That changes the nature of the questions they need to ask and the conversations they need to have. It’s no longer simply which opportunities to pursue, but how a portfolio is constructed to deliver the outcomes investors are seeking.”
“The best long-term decisions are rarely made in isolation. Bringing together global and local investment perspectives gives investors an opportunity to challenge assumptions, test ideas and consider different views. In today’s environment, intelligent investing isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about asking better questions to make more informed long-term decisions.”
JANA Chief Investment Officer Matt Wacher said traditional assumptions about diversification were being challenged as structural forces increasingly cut across sectors, asset classes and geographies.
“Artificial intelligence provides a useful example. It is no longer simply a technology story. It is influencing power infrastructure, data centres, semiconductors, private markets, commodities, supply chains and capital investment. Investors may believe they are diversified across multiple asset classes, but many are ultimately exposed to the same underlying structural drivers.”
Mr Wacher said the same was increasingly true across other long-term themes.
“Geopolitical fragmentation is reshaping supply chains and capital flows. Demographic change is influencing labour markets and productivity. The energy transition continues to redefine infrastructure investment and capital requirements. Each creates opportunities in its own right, but together they create a far more complex investment environment.”
“The challenge isn’t simply identifying attractive investment opportunities,” Mr Wacher said. “It’s understanding how structural forces increasingly influence the way entire portfolios behave. Investment success has never depended solely on finding good opportunities, it has depended on how those opportunities work together within a portfolio. As market forces become more interconnected, portfolio construction becomes an even more important driver of long-term investment outcomes.”
The conference has been designed to examine the major forces reshaping investment markets, moving from AI adoption and productivity through to infrastructure, energy systems, geopolitics, commodities, private markets and ultimately how investors should value these structural shifts.
Among the perspectives to be explored throughout the day are:
- Artificial intelligence is a marathon, not a sprint. While adoption has accelerated rapidly, many organisations remain in the early stages of implementation, with legacy systems, data quality, skills and governance likely to determine who ultimately captures productivity gains.
- AI may prove to be this generation’s equivalent of the “China Shock”. Rather than being simply a technology story, AI has the potential to reshape labour markets, infrastructure investment, energy systems, productivity and capital flows across the global economy.
- Infrastructure may prove to be one of AI’s biggest investment stories. As demand for computing power grows, investment implications increasingly extend beyond software into electricity generation, transmission networks, semiconductors, fibre, cooling systems, water infrastructure and critical minerals.
- The most significant opportunities may lie beyond the obvious winners. Investors are increasingly examining second-order beneficiaries and the bottlenecks supporting AI adoption, recognising that every major structural investment theme creates both opportunities and excesses over time.
Mr Wacher said these discussions ultimately point back to the same conclusion. “Long-term investing has always been about balancing opportunity with resilience. As markets become more interconnected, that balance will increasingly depend on portfolio construction rather than prediction.”
JANA’s 2026 Annual Conference, Prosperity with Purpose: Intelligent Investing in a Changing World, will bring together investment leaders from across superannuation, wealth, not-for-profit, insurance and institutional investment, facilitated by JANA investment professionals and select global investment managers to examine the structural forces expected to shape investment markets over the coming decade.