Plato’s team consists of highly experienced investment professionals, portfolio managers, and quantitative analysts all working together to deliver attractive investment outcomes for their clients.
Our Team
Our Team
Plato’s team consists of highly experienced investment professionals, portfolio managers, and quantitative analysts all working together to deliver attractive investment outcomes for their clients.
Don has over 25 years investment management experience and founded Plato Investment Management Limited in 2006. Don has written a number of white papers on after tax investing and has spoken at many conferences and seminars on this subject.
Prior to Plato Don was Head of Active Equities, Asia Pacific and a member of the global Senior Management Group at State Street Global Advisors, responsible for over $10B in active and enhanced equity investments.
Don previously held various positions at Westpac Investment Management, including Chief Investment Officer, Head of Equities where he managed the $1B Tax Effective Share Fund, a Westpac appointed director on the board of Hastings Funds Management and was instrumentally involved in the mergers of BT and Rothschild. Prior to Westpac Don was a senior analyst at Queensland Investment Corporation.
Don has a strong interest in responsible investment and governance. Don is the deputy chair of ESG RA and has served on the ASX Corporate Governance Council.
Don was a Lecturer in Finance at the University of Queensland (UQ) for 6 years, and was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan Business School. Don has a PhD in Finance and a Bachelor of Commerce with First Class Honours from UQ, and a University Medal.
Manoj joined Plato in April 2007. Manoj was formerly Director, Quantitative Portfolio Manager at Hachibushu Capital in Japan where he was responsible for designing, developing and managing a quantitative long short Asia Pacific (including Australia) strategy within a multiple strategy hedge fund.
Manoj previously worked as a Quantitative Analyst at Nikko Citigroup, Tokyo where he was responsible for researching and developing trade ideas using quantitative models.
Manoj has a Bachelor of Engineering (Computer Science) First Class with Distinction from the University of Poona, India, and an MBA from McGill University, Canada. His master’s thesis was titled “Sector Rotation Model for the Japanese Market.
David joined Plato in January, 2018. Prior to joining Plato, David worked for JP Morgan Asset Management in London for 15 years. He ran the JP Morgan Europe Strategic Dividend Fund from 2006-2010. In 2007, David designed and launched the JP Morgan Europe Equity Plus active-extension fund which grew to €6 bn. In 2009, he became a Managing Director and the Head of Research.
In 2011, David embarked upon a PhD in Quantitative Finance at Cambridge University focussing on portfolio construction. On his return to JP Morgan in a full-time capacity in 2013, David launched the JP Morgan Europe Equity Absolute Alpha Market Neutral fund. In its first twelve months of operation, the fund returned 22.5%, and grew assets to €1 bn. winning the Eurohedge UCITS best fund award.
David has a Bachelor of Business with First Class Honours from University of Technology, Sydney, and a PhD from Cambridge in Quantitative Finance.
Daniel joined Plato in November 2015. Prior to Plato, Daniel was a Portfolio Manager at Realindex Investments, a subsidiary of Colonial First State group, focused on Smart Beta solutions for clients. As the lead manager, he was responsible for all Developed and Emerging Market equity products.
Daniel has also held positions at State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) in Sydney and London. In Sydney, Daniel worked in the Global Structured Products Group as a Senior Investment Manager. He was responsible for managing a broad range of strategies including ETFs, After Tax mandates, Smart Beta and optimised portfolios.
In London, Daniel managed active strategies to a model portfolio and a range of global indexed products. Daniel began his career at Schroders.
Daniel has a Bachelor of Science with Honours from the University of Birmingham and holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation. Daniel is a member of both the Chartered Financial Analyst Institute and the CFA Society of Sydney.
Todd joined Plato in the first quarter of 2011. At Plato he has developed domestic investment strategies utilising minimum variance techniques, as well as researching and developing techniques for successfully integrating ESG and CO2 objectives into investment processes.
Todd was previously Head of Asia Pacific ex Japan Active Equities at State Street Global Advisors where he was responsible for portfolio management and overseeing research into quantitative stock selection models, alpha generation, portfolio construction and ESG development.
Todd previously worked at Barra specialising in portfolio construction, risk analysis and performance attribution. Previous to Barra Todd has worked as Head of Equity Derivative Research Asia Pacific ex Japan at Merrill Lynch, producing quantitative research and strategies as part of his 21 year plus financial career.
Todd has a Bachelor of Science (Griffith University), Graduate Diploma of Applied Finance (SIA) and a Master of Applied Finance (Macquarie) where he presented his thesis for prediction of futures markets movements with an artificial intelligence expert system.
Peter is a founder of Plato and has fifteen years investment experience. Peter is a Senior Portfolio Manager at Plato and manages the Plato Australian Shares Income Fund.
Peter received 1st Class Honours and a PhD from The University of New South Wales where his thesis topic was behaviour of Australian active investment managers. He has previous worked at Macquarie Bank, Mercer and ING.
Mark’s career started in June 2001 as a Quantitative Research Analyst in QIC’s Australian Equities Division. Since then he has held senior research and portfolio manager roles at State Street Global Advisors, GMO, and Plato; all in teams managing active equity strategies.
At State Street Global Advisors Mark was initially responsible for the core long-only strategy and allied client mandates and in 2006 was given additional responsibility for the short enabled strategies. Similarly at GMO Mark had responsibility for the long-short strategies and in 2009 he led a major project to review and improve the long-short portfolio optimisation process.
Mark joined Plato January 2011 and has been primarily focussed on research and quantitative development. He is the primary developer of the team’s proprietary factor research, event study, and simulation software. Also he is responsible for coordinating the firm’s proxy voting and company engagement.
Mark holds a BSc (Honours 1st Class) in Mathematics and a PhD in Mathematics both from the University of Queensland. Mark is a CFA charterholder.
Jonathan Whiteoak joined Plato at the beginning of 2015 with over 15 years of investment experience researching Australian, Asian and global equities, most recently as Head of the Advanced Research Center in Sydney within State Street Global Advisors.
At State Street, Jonathan undertook research into quantitative stock selection, the development of alpha forecasting models, and portfolio construction techniques covering long-only, long-short, and 130/30 style strategies. He also led a number of global taskforces involved with the development of global datasets of proprietary factors, and research into factor selection and dynamic active equity models. He has conducted research into alternative beta strategies, and Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) issues, including the development of methods to directly incorporate ESG signals into the portfolio construction process.
Jonathan has a Bachelor of Science degree with First Class Honours, majoring in physics, from The University of Sydney. He went on to obtain a PhD in the field of Astrophysics, with his dissertation involving a survey of the southern plane of our galaxy at radio frequencies, which resulted in the discovery of new celestial objects that led to publications in such scientific journals as “Nature”.
Wilson Thong has 14 years investment experience. He joins Plato from State Street Global Markets where he held the position of FX Consultant, responsible for the integration of the FX Connect trading platform within Australia. Prior to this, Wilson held various roles within State Street Global Advisors, most notably as a
Senior Quantitative Analyst within the Advanced Research Center. During his career at SSgA he participated in the development of proprietary factor libraries with global coverage, formed part of a global taskforce responsible for improving the suite of global active equity models, worked on dynamic equity models for the Australian market, as well as more broadly within the Asia Pacific developed and emerging markets, including the development and application of new methods designed to incorporate ESG signals into investment portfolios in a rigorous quantitative fashion. Wilson also brings with him considerable experience in the automation of production processes and in the application of advanced quantitative techniques.
Wilson has a BSc. (Computing Science) from UTS, and a Graduate Diploma of Applied Finance from FINSIA.
Charles joined Plato in late 2019 as a senior quantitative analyst, focusing on the global market neutral strategy. He was previously at Macquarie for 12 years, most recently a Division Director in their Quant Hedge Funds team which he joined in 2012. Prior to QHF, Charles was a member of Macquarie Securities' quantitative research team in Sydney. He moved to New York in 2010 as a quant analyst focusing on North American equities. Prior to joining Macquarie, Charles worked as an analyst at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, and subsequently Freehills. Charles holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of New South Wales, with an Actuarial Studies major.
Phoebe joined Plato in 2021 as an Associate Analyst following the completion of a successful internship program in early 2021. Phoebe's primary responsibilities include completing research projects with a focus on ESG issues as well as providing general research and related support functions for the investment team. Phoebe is currently completing a Bachelor of Advanced Finance and Economics from the University of Queensland.
Don has over 25 years investment management experience and founded Plato Investment Management Limited in 2006. Don has written a number of white papers on after tax investing and has spoken at many conferences and seminars on this subject.
Manoj joined Plato in April 2007. Manoj was formerly Director, Quantitative Portfolio Manager at Hachibushu Capital in Japan where he was responsible for designing, developing and managing a quantitative long short Asia Pacific (including Australia) strategy within a multiple strategy hedge fund.
David joined Plato in January, 2018. Prior to joining Plato, David worked for JP Morgan Asset Management in London for 15 years. He ran the JP Morgan Europe Strategic Dividend Fund from 2006-2010. In 2007, David designed and launched the JP Morgan Europe Equity Plus active-extension fund which grew to €6 bn. In 2009, he became a Managing Director and the Head of Research.
Daniel joined Plato in November 2015. Prior to Plato, Daniel was a Portfolio Manager at Realindex Investments, a subsidiary of Colonial First State group, focused on Smart Beta solutions for clients. As the lead manager, he was responsible for all Developed and Emerging Market equity products.
Todd joined Plato in the first quarter of 2011. At Plato he has developed domestic investment strategies utilising minimum variance techniques, as well as researching and developing techniques for successfully integrating ESG and CO2 objectives into investment processes.
Peter is a founder of Plato and has fifteen years investment experience. Peter is a Senior Portfolio Manager at Plato and manages the Plato Australian Shares Income Fund.
Mark’s career started in June 2001 as a Quantitative Research Analyst in QIC’s Australian Equities Division. Since then he has held senior research and portfolio manager roles at State Street Global Advisors, GMO, and Plato; all in teams managing active equity strategies.
Jonathan Whiteoak joined Plato at the beginning of 2015 with over 15 years of investment experience researching Australian, Asian and global equities, most recently as Head of the Advanced Research Center in Sydney within State Street Global Advisors.
Wilson Thong has 14 years investment experience. He joins Plato from State Street Global Markets where he held the position of FX Consultant, responsible for the integration of the FX Connect trading platform within Australia. Prior to this, Wilson held various roles within State Street Global Advisors, most notably as a Senior Quantitative Analyst within the Advanced Research Center. During his career at SSgA he participated in the development of proprietary factor libraries with global coverage, formed part of a global taskforce responsible for improving the suite of global active equity models, worked on dynamic equity models for the Australian market, as well as more broadly within the Asia Pacific developed and emerging markets, including the development and application of new methods designed to incorporate ESG signals into investment portfolios in a rigorous quantitative fashion. Wilson also brings with him considerable experience in the automation of production processes and in the application of advanced quantitative techniques. Wilson has a BSc. (Computing Science) from UTS, and a Graduate Diploma of Applied Finance from FINSIA.
Charles joined Plato in late 2019 as a senior quantitative analyst, focusing on the global market neutral strategy. He was previously at Macquarie for 12 years, most recently a Division Director in their Quant Hedge Funds team which he joined in 2012. Prior to QHF, Charles was a member of Macquarie Securities' quantitative research team in Sydney. He moved to New York in 2010 as a quant analyst focusing on North American equities. Prior to joining Macquarie, Charles worked as an analyst at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, and subsequently Freehills. Charles holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of New South Wales, with an Actuarial Studies major.
Phoebe joined Plato in 2021 as an Associate Analyst following the completion of a successful internship program in early 2021. Phoebe's primary responsibilities include completing research projects with a focus on ESG issues as well as providing general research and related support functions for the investment team. Phoebe is currently completing a Bachelor of Advanced Finance and Economics from the University of Queensland.
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“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.”
Plato (427-347 BC)
“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.”
Plato (427-347 BC)
