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 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.

Upon returning to his hometown of Sydney in 2018, David joined Plato Investment Management. He is the firm’s Co-Head of Research, Head of Long/Short Strategies and Portfolio Manager of the Plato Global Alpha Fund. The fund has generated 8.5% p.a. over the MSCI World since launch.

Before commencing his investment management career, David was a professional rugby union player. He is currently the President of Eastern Suburbs Rugby Club. He holds a Bachelor of Business with First Class Honours from University of Technology, Sydney, and a PhD from Cambridge in Quantitative Finance.

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.

Daniel is the chair of the Plato ESG Committee.

Before joining Plato, George worked at Manning Asset Management and Macquarie Group for over 24 years. George started his career in the Research and Development arm of the Macquarie Funds Group, before moving to the Macquarie Securities Group as a quantitative analyst. In this role, George built and managed a highly rated Global Quantitative Equity Research group. George then moved back into the Funds Group, as Head of Research for Quant Hedge Funds, where he was responsible for maintaining and innovating the systematic inputs into the Asian, European and Americas Market Neutral Equity Hedge Funds.

George has a Bachelor of Science Degree with Honours from the University of Western Australia.

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 has a BSc. (Computing Science) from UTS, and a Graduate Diploma of Applied Finance from FINSIA.

John brings to Plato 35 years’ of financial markets experience having been involved in managing teams for over 25 years with four major Investment banks. His global experience in senior roles includes stints in London and Hong Kong.

John has specialised in structuring and managing strong performing investment funds that target after tax returns designed for specific outcomes, including low volatility, low drawdown and consistent income to investors. John’s most recent role was with Northward Capital where he was Executive Director/Portfolio Manager for the Northward Equity Income Fund and Ethical Equity Income Fund.

John has an extensive derivative background enabling him to originate and structure new products and ideas to meet individual client needs that are implemented in a robust risk management framework. He has worked across multi asset classes which gives him the capability to offer the right products and solutions to both retail and institutional investors.