Finance specialist departs Qantas Super board

Qantas Super director departed the board at the end of 2019.

Hendrik van Calcar joined the board in mid-2018 after several years as an executive with Qantas, including most recently head of group finance, planning, and analysis. He left the board when he left his position with Qantas.

The work involved in the board was significantly different than what he expected. "In terms of the complexity, however, I probably gave too much credit to my financial experience. I learned quickly that the financial skills that are applied to the super industry sit adjacent to the traditional finance skills, so there was more learning to be done," van Calcar said.

Though his time with the board was short, van Calcar was proud of what he achieved with the board, reinvigorating conversations around ESG factors in Qantas Super investments. "We are now on the frontier of being able to take another step forward on ESG. I feel proud about giving that more energy than it's had in the past," he said.

"On so many fronts Qantas Super has punched above its weight, whether it's in terms of member experience, or whether it's getting the right balance between risk mitigation and protection, or fees and performance, and that story has never really come out as well as it could," he said.

"We have this great organisation that's doing really well across all fronts, and I think there's an opportunity for people to see that more."