Mrs Mentis brings 37 years of financial services experience to the TAL Board, including as Managing Director and CEO of Bank of New Zealand (BNZ), Group Executive Business Banking and Chief Digital, Data and Analytics Officer at National Australia Bank (NAB), and senior roles at Westpac, BT Financial Group and Citibank.

Mr Kai brings to the TAL Board extensive experience in corporate strategy and business development across Japanese and global financial institutions. He currently serves as a Director of Daiichi Life Group, Inc (Daiichi Life Group), where he has been responsible for corporate planning, organisational restructuring, and the development and execution of growth strategies in Japan and overseas.

TAL Chair David Cohen said, “We are delighted to welcome both Angela and Akifumi to the TAL Board. Angela brings deep expertise across digital strategy and customer transformation, and a proven track record of leading large, complex organisations with purpose and performance. Akifumi brings valuable perspective from Daiichi Life Group, along with a strong background in corporate strategy and international business development. Together, their complementary experience will be a tremendous asset to TAL as we continue to grow and evolve the way we serve Australians, their families and communities.”

“At the same time, I want to extend our thanks to Christine Bartlett for her outstanding contribution to the TAL Board. Christine has brought dedication, insight and wisdom during her tenure. Christine’s counsel has been a valuable part of shaping TAL’s strategic direction. We wish her all the very best.”

TAL Group CEO and Managing Director Fiona Macgregor said, “We welcome Angela’s and Akifumi’s appointments to the TAL Board. Angela’s expertise in customer experience, organisational culture, and business performance, combined with her strong background in digital and data strategy, aligns exceptionally well with our priorities.”

“Akifumi’s deep knowledge of Daiichi Life’s strategy and his international financial services experience will further strengthen the connection between TAL and Daiichi Life. We very much look forward to the perspective and counsel both Angela and Akifumi will bring.”

Mrs Mentis said, “I am honoured to join the TAL Board at such an exciting time for the business and for the life insurance industry more broadly. TAL’s commitment to protecting Australians and supporting them and their families when it matters most deeply resonates with me. I have spent my career focused on customers and communities, and I look forward to contributing to TAL’s next chapter.”

Mr Kai said, “I am pleased to join the TAL Board and look forward to contributing to TAL’s continued growth and success. TAL plays a vital role in protecting Australians and their families, and I look forward to supporting the business as it continues to evolve.”

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Australian life insurer TAL has announced the appointment of experienced financial services executives and directors David Cohen and Annette King to the company’s Board.

Mr Cohen will join the Board on 1 April 2025, assuming the role of Chair from 8 May, replacing Mark Joiner, who stood down from the position in late 2024. Ms King joined the Board as Independent Non-Executive Director in December 2024.

Mr Cohen spent 16 years at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, latterly as Deputy Chief Executive Officer. Prior to CBA, he was General Counsel at AMP and a partner at a national law firm.

“I’m delighted to be joining the TAL Board and working with CEO Fiona Macgregor and the executive team. TAL is a great Australian business and I look forward to helping guide its future, for the benefit of all stakeholders,” said Mr Cohen.

Ms King is a former life insurance CEO and past President of the Actuaries Institute in Australia, with extensive experience as a Non-Executive Director.

“Life insurance plays a crucial role in protecting the financial security of Australians. I look forward to contributing to this next phase of TAL’s journey and its focus on customer leadership,” said Ms King.

Interim Board Chair Christine Bartlett welcomed the appointments, saying, “David and Annette both bring significant contemporary experience in transformation and growth to the TAL Board.

“As our new Chair, we welcome David’s strong emphasis on customer, culture and risk.

“On behalf of the TAL Board and executive team, I thank Mark Joiner for his leadership of the Board since June 2022 through a period of significant growth and change.”

About David Cohen

David has over 21 years’ experience in financial services and was Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) from November 2018 to December 2023. As Deputy CEO, David oversaw business divestments, supervised mergers and acquisitions, and progressed customer complaint resolution and remediation.

Prior to this role, David was Group General Counsel, Group Executive Human Resources, Group Executive Corporate Affairs and Chief Risk Officer at CBA. David’s roles prior to joining CBA include General Counsel at AMP and a Partner at Allens Arthur Robinson.

David was recently appointed as an independent Non-Executive Director of Westpac and is a Panel Member at independent corporate advisory firm Adara Partners.

David holds a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Arts from the University of Sydney.

About Annette King

Annette is an actuary with over 30 years’ experience as a company director, CEO, CFO and CMO of significant financial institutions in Australia and Asia-Pacific, including Swiss Re, AXA, Manulife and Mercer.

Annette has deep experience in insurance, wealth management, superannuation, investments and broader financial services – particularly growing and transforming businesses through differentiated client/member experience, organisational culture, and innovation via data, digital and technology enablement.

Previously, Annette was a Non-Executive Director of MLC Super, a past President and Chair of the Actuaries Institute in Australia and also served as President and Chair of the Life Insurance Association of Singapore. She is a member of Chief Executive Women.

Annette is currently an independent Non-Executive Director of HCF, Australian Finance Group and U Ethical Investors. 

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David Cohen

Fund manager GSFM has appointed David Cohen to the newly created role of key account manager (QLD), effective 18 November. He will be based in Brisbane and report to national distribution manager, Steven Taylor.

Mr Cohen will work as part of the GSFM retail distribution team and will focus on servicing private wealth advisers and independent financial advisers (IFAs) in Queensland.

Prior to joining GSFM, Mr Cohen spent over six years in financial services distribution, most recently as a business development manager at Praemium. He also worked for four years with Commonwealth Financial Planning, including two as a financial adviser.

GSFM head of retail business, Ben Williams, says this appointment reflects the growing interest in GSFM’s funds and strategies by current and prospective clients.

“As our offering continues to expand and we introduce new funds and strategies to the Australian market, we want to ensure our distribution team continues to deliver the same high level of service.

“In this role David will support our Queensland-based clients and grow the GSFM business in that region.

“David has built a strong network across the Queensland advice market during his more than six years in business development roles as well as his previous experience as a financial planner,” says Mr Williams.

“His strong background in business development, and his financial services background will allow him to seamlessly step into this position.

“His previous work with financial advisers, stockbrokers, private wealth advisers and family offices means he brings a wealth of expertise and knowledge, making him a great addition to our national distribution team.

“We look forward to welcoming and working with David, as we execute our sales strategy nationally and introduce new and existing investment options to our clients,” he says.

Mr Cohen holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Griffith University and is a CFA charterholder.

His appointment follows the recent appointment of Ben Williams to the head of retail distribution last month.

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David Cohen

In a world where a global pandemic can come out of nowhere and send investment markets plunging in synchronised panic, holding an investment portfolio is a stressful experience for not only direct investors but also financial advisers.

While it is human nature to focus on the expected return, the risk being taken to generate that return doesn’t always get the attention it deserves – as March 2020 showed, an investment portfolio’s settings can be “all right until they’re not,” notes Angela Ashton, founder and director at Evergreen Consultants, an independent investment consulting firm

“There is no way to invest without risk, but the best way to guard against risk is constantly to measure it and assess it – and to manage it.”

“One of the most common tools that institutional investment managers use to manage their risk is portfolio “stress-testing,” a tool that helps them to estimate the potential impact on their portfolios of extreme – yet possible – events or movements in the financial markets,” adds Ashton.

Financial advisers find this difficult to do adequately, says David Cohen, senior analyst at Evergreen Consultants. “Adequately assessing the range of risks being run by an investment portfolio and estimating outcomes under a range of different scenarios can be a very complex procedure, but it is something that directly benefits the advice process.

“It is not only an essential part of client reporting, it is a crucial element of managed account compliance,” says Cohen.

Evergreen Consultants has launched a portfolio stress-testing tool within GreenVUE, Evergreen’s proprietary portfolio analytics system. Developed and fine-tuned in-house over recent years, GreenVUE allows an adviser to visualise their investment portfolio’s risk and return characteristics, given multi-factor analysis of Portfolios in a range of events and market influences.

“We think this is a unique tool in the adviser marketplace,” says Cohen. “Most institutional investment managers would have some form of scenario stress-testing, but we think that we are the first retail investment consultancy to develop and make these tests available to financial advisers.”

Examples of the scenarios from recent years that GreenVUE can plug-in to put portfolios through their paces are re-simulations of the global financial crisis (GFC), the Euro debt crisis, the US credit rating downgrade, oil shocks and US recession, rising global interest rates, trade conflict and the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The tool assesses how today’s portfolios would perform if these historical events – and the markets’ reaction to them – were repeated, in terms of the total return, maximum drawdown and volatility that could be expected.”

Cohen says Evergreen’s adviser clients would typically use the information that GreenVUE gives them in their individual investment committee discussions as part of model portfolio reviews.

“It will act as a risk management tool in the first instance, as we can use it to test where we think Portfolio positioning is in terms of our model portfolios, and what market impacts we could expect on the portfolios in stress environments.

“These will also play a role in model compliance reporting to platforms who ask for stress testing in their capacity as responsible entity (RE) of the models,” Cohen adds.

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