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.

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.

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.

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”.

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.

Andrew has over 26 years financial markets experience specialising in quantitative portfolio management and execution, risk management, system development, product and solution development and portfolio operations.

Prior to joining Plato and co-founding Omega, Andrew built and managed the growth of global and domestic equity investment capabilities at Vanguard Investments to over $7 billion. Andrew has also held portfolio management and quantitative analysis positions with Alpha Investment Management and Commonwealth Funds Management.

Mathew has over 28 years financial markets experience specialising in quantitative portfolio management and execution, risk management, system development, product and solution development and portfolio operations.

Prior to joining Plato and co-founding Omega, Mathew was Head of Fixed Interest at Vanguard Investments for over 10 years, where he built and managed the growth of global and domestic fixed interest capabilities to over $18 billion. Mathew also worked at Treasury Corporation of Victoria for 7 years and was responsible for managing $30 billion against a liability benchmark. Mathew is also on the Board of Rare Cancers Australia a NFP advocacy, research and patient assistance organisation.

Prior to working at Plato, Simon was Head of Portfolio Management at Omega which included oversight of portfolio management activities at Omega. He had hands on involvement in portfolio construction and management, system and risk model design and development, attribution analysis, and strategy research. Prior to this, Simon was a Senior Portfolio Manager at IFM Investors in the Debt Investments Team and previously Head of the front office quantitative services at Treasury Corporation of Victoria and before that held roles in International Equities/Asset Allocation at AXA Investment Management and in Fixed Income Sales at Westpac Institutional Bank.

He has a combined Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Engineering, with an Honours in Economics. He holds a Masters in Financial Management from the University of Melbourne, is a CFA charter holder and on the advisory board for Bloomberg AusBond Index Advisory Council.

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.