A Senior Fellow who was awarded an Order of Australia Medal in the Australia Day Honours list is the latest member to talk to the FINSIA Podcast.
Giles Gunesekera has added the OAM to a long list of remarkable achievements which includes his long-standing membership of Amnesty International where he has served on the board in Australia.
His association with FINSIA, where he has served on the Funds and Asset Management Industry Council and New South Wales Regional Council, is almost as long.
While you need to listen to the podcast to hear how Giles’ career almost took off in another direction, he did share some of thoughts on his involvement with the SIA and FINSIA in this InFinance.
“I was looking at postgraduate qualifications and looked at and got accepted into a couple of masters' programs at very reputable universities and looked at the CFA program,” said Giles, who bought his first shares at 16.
“But what brought me to FINSIA was that when I looked through the roster of lecturers, they were actually people that were doing it.
“As much as I love professors and academics, there’s nothing better than being taught portfolio construction by the chief investment officer at Australian Super, or portfolio theory by someone who was actually doing it in a private bank.
“That really attracted me. When I went through that roster of lecturers, they were all practitioners. And so that got me to FINSIA, and I've been at FINSIA ever since.
“I've been a student and did my Grad Dip and Masters with FINSIA. I then went on to teach in the Masters program when FINSIA had a JV in Malaysia.”
Download the FINSIA Podcast to hear more from the founder and CEO of Global Impact Investing who also shares his views of the current state of ESG investing, his experience dealing with racism and how his attitude to community services was formed at an early age helping his mum delivering meals on wheels aged just seven.
Download the FINSIA Podcast here Senior Fellow on his Order of Australia Medal and FINSIA membership
