Duncan Burns has been appointed to succeed Daniel Reyes as the new Head of Investments, Asia Pacific, and a member of the Australian executive team, with a transition of roles expected to be complete by mid-December.

Mr. Reyes, who has served as Head of Investments and Head of Investment Strategy Group for Asia Pacific since 2017, will be relocating back to Vanguard’s headquarters in Malvern, Pennsylvania, to take up the role of Global Head of Investment Product.

Mr. Burns is currently the Head of Vanguard’s Equity Index Group for Asia-Pacific, based in Melbourne. In this role, he oversees the management of Vanguard’s Australian and global equity index portfolios and the firm’s trading operation in the Asia-Pacific region. Mr. Burns will retain oversight of the Equity Index Group in addition to assuming the Head of Investments role.

Duncan brings to the role more than 20 years of equity trading and investment management expertise, focusing on quant active investing, electronic trading, algorithmic strategies, market microstructure and transaction cost analysis.

Prior to joining Vanguard in 2013, Mr. Burns worked for seven years at Jacobs Levy Equity Management, a US provider of quantitative equity strategies for institutional clients. He started his career on Wall Street in 1996, working at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ) where he spent several years managing the agency trading desk of DLJ’s retail brokerage arm.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Lafayette College and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. He is a CFA Charterholder and is a member of the New York Society of Securities Analysts.

Alexis Gray has been appointed as Head of the Investment Strategy Group (ISG) Asia Pacific. Alexis is currently a senior economist within ISG, Vanguard’s global research team that serves clients through developing and delivering research that serves as the basis for Vanguard’s investment principles and methodology, guides Vanguard’s global leadership and influences decisions about its investment offerings and portfolio construction.

Prior to her current role, Alexis served as a senior economist for Europe at Vanguard in London. She earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and finance with first class honours from the University of Melbourne, and a Master of Statistics from the London School of Economics.

Ms. Gray regularly serves as an ambassador for Vanguard, speaking at client events and industry conferences on a range of topics, and has authored numerous research papers on macroeconomics and investment issues.

In other changes, Head of Fixed Income for Asia Pacific, Geoff Parrish, will return to the Vanguard Group in the US to take up a new role as Global Head of Bond Indexing in October 2021.

Mr. Parrish will be replaced by Jean Bauler, CFA who joined Vanguard recently following 11 years with HSBC, most recently as Director, Markets Treasury in HSBC Australia. Mr. Bauler brings significant fixed income experience to Vanguard’s existing Asia-Pacific fixed income index group, who manage Vanguard’s portfolio of fixed income index funds and ETFs in the Asia-Pacific region.

Aidan Geysen, Senior Investment Strategist in ISG, will move into a new role as Investment Governance Senior Specialist in the Office of the Superannuation Trustee for Vanguard Super.

Mr. Geysen has played a leading role since 2016 within the ISG team in developing and delivering research insights into portfolio construction, exchange traded funds, and investment markets, and has served as an ambassador and media commentator for Vanguard. Recruitment is underway to replace this role with the group.

These changes form part of Vanguard’s long standing and successful program of rotating senior leadership roles across markets and portfolios, and growing the depth and breadth of experience and expertise within Vanguard’s senior leadership teams.

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Following the successful launch of value and minimum volatility factor ETFs this time last year, Vanguard is introducing a core equity solution which offers a diversified portfolio of global shares, aiming to outperform the benchmark by optimally combining three factors – value, momentum and quality.

Vanguard describes factors as the underlying attributes that influence how an investment behaves. By targeting these attributes, factor-based investments attempt to deliver an investment premium. A multi-factor strategy may suit investors and advisers who want to incorporate factor strategies into portfolios but prefer not to have to select or rebalance between single factors.

The Vanguard Global Multi-factor Fund for wholesale investors and the Vanguard Global Multi-factor Active ETF (Managed Fund) (ASX: VGMF) are open for investment from today, competitively priced at 0.35% p.a. and 0.33% p.a. respectively.

Speaking about the launch, Vanguard’s investment product strategy manager, Rachel White, commented, “We are delivering on our commitment to offer investors more low-cost active fund options with the addition of this multi-factor strategy, which has been sought after by advisers following the introduction of our value and minimum volatility factor offerings.

“Globally we’ve seen good adoption of this multi-factor strategy with the blending of factors helping to smooth returns, reduce downside risk and provide diversification benefits.

“Investors can use the Fund or ETF as a core global equity holding which can act as a lower cost substitute to a high cost active equity strategy. The strategy could also complement an index portfolio for investors seeking to add outperformance potential while maintaining low costs.

“While some factor offerings in the market track a static benchmark, we believe through actively managing our factor portfolios we can provide investors with a more consistent factor exposure, weighting shares according to their exposure to each factor rather than by their market capitalisation. Active implementation helps to keep costs to a minimum by carefully evaluating the trade-off between rebalancing needs and trading costs. ”

New head of Vanguard’s Australian Quantitative Equity Group

Vanguard’s new multi-factor strategy will be managed by Vanguard’s Quantitative Equity Group (QEG) who employ rules-based active management to provide targeted and consistent exposure to factors in this strategy in a highly diversified, low cost and transparent way.

Joining Vanguard’s global QEG leadership team, long-standing senior investment executive, Alla Kolganova, has been appointed to lead the Australian QEG team as current head, Mike Roach, transitions into a new role as Head of US Equity Operational Risk at Vanguard’s US headquarters in Malvern, PA.

Alla joined Vanguard in February 2000, and has since held a range of senior roles within Vanguard’s Investment Management Group, notably as Head of Australian Equities and Property Securities, and Head of Equities, Asia Pacific.  In 2015 she moved to Vanguard’s UK team to lead the equity index portfolio management and trading team in Europe. Alla returned to Australia in 2018 to join the Vanguard’s Investment Strategy Group as a Principal and Senior Investment Strategist.

Head of Investment Management Group, Asia Pacific, Daniel Reyes, welcomed Alla and thanked Mike for his prominent role in bringing active management to Vanguard’s Australian investors. He commented also on Vanguard’s QEG function, “Vanguard’s Quantitative Equity Group is efficiently staffed with a deep bench of credentialed professionals who are supported by the larger Vanguard organisation to leverage the best practices, low-cost execution and expertise of traders in multiple markets around the globe.

“QEG’s collaborative approach over the past 30 years sets them apart from many competitors. They seek to add value through low costs, diversification and predictability relative to an index, as opposed to relying on star managers or key individuals.”

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Rodney Comegys, Head of Investments for the Asia-Pacific region, will be relocating back to Vanguard’s US headquarters in Malvern, Pennsylvania. His role will be filled by Daniel Reyes with the transition to be completed by September/October.

Mr Reyes is currently the head of Advised Portfolio Solutions within Vanguard’s Investment Strategy Group in the US. He joined Vanguard in 2004 and has held several roles spanning Vanguard Institutional Advisory Services, the Fixed Income Portfolio Management Group, Human Resources, and the Retail division. Prior to his current role, he led Vanguard’s Education Savings business.

Mr Reyes earned a B.S. in Economics with concentrations in Finance and Management from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He earned an M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He is a CFA charterholder.

In addition to taking on the role as Head of Investments for the Asia-Pacific region Mr Reyes will also lead the Investment Strategy Group (ISG) for the region.

Jeffrey Johnson who currently leads the regional ISG team has been appointed Head of Fixed Income. In this role he will continue to be based in Vanguard’s Melbourne office and lead the team of 13 portfolio management professionals that oversee over $28 billion in bond and cash portfolios.

Stephen Howard, the current Head of Fixed Income has decided to leave Vanguard to pursue other opportunities.

Mr Comegys will be returning to a senior role with Vanguard’s Investment Management Group the details of which will be announced closer to his return to the US.

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