SYDNEY: Australia’s biggest investment bank Macquarie Group Ltd announced it would appoint Shemara Wikramanayake as its new chief executive and managing director, making her the group’s first female CEO. She will succeed Nicholas Moore, who has led Macquarie for a decade, and will retire 30 November, the Sydney-based company said in a statement.
The hitherto low-profile Ms. Wikramanayake, who joined Macquarie in 1987 and currently heads its asset management arm, has now risen to stardom in the financial services arena. She becomes the only female CEO among Australia’s 20 biggest companies by market value and just the second woman to run a major Australian financial institution after former Westpac Banking Corp and St George Bank boss Gail Kelly.
The 56-year-old UK-born investment banker, who is of Sri Lankan heritage and emigrated to Australia in the mid-1970s, is a 31-year stalwart of the Macquarie executive team. Wikramanayake’s Sri Lankan father was a specialist doctor who worked in the UK. She began school in London before attending the prestigous Ascham school for girls in the eastern suburbs of Sydney.
Ms. Wikramanayake said she hopes her elevation attracts more women to the notoriously male-dominated industry.
“In the 30 years I’ve been here, it’s always been a meritocracy,” she told reporters. “I’ve not found barriers; I find we try to allow the best people to do the best things and we try to also draw the best out of people. “Having said that, we as an industry are not attracting enough females in terms of allowing them to develop: we need to provide more flexibility.”
Ms Wikramanayake, who has two children, joined Macquarie in 1987 and has worked for the group in six countries and across several business lines. Under her leadership, Macquarie Asset Management has become the company’s fastest-growing and most successful division, employing more than 1,600 staff in 23 countries. It delivered net income of A$1.7 billion in the year ended March 31, accounting for almost two-thirds of group profit. The division manages A$495 billion of assets ranging from toll roads and real estate to stocks, bonds and currencies.
Even before ascending to the top job, Ms Wikramanayake is one of the country’s highest-paid executives, pulling in $16.7 million in the 2018 financial year. She told the Financial Times that she had never sold a Macquarie share in 30 years.
Ms. Wickramanayake earned a commerce and law degree from the University of New South Wales and completed an advanced management program at Harvard University. She spent a year as a corporate lawyer at Blake Dawson Waldron in 1986 before joining Macquarie just over a decade later, working in corporate services before helping to establish Macquarie Capital.
