About

Michael Vardanega joined Challenger – the largest provider of annuities in the Australian market – as a senior legal counsel in the asset management business in February 2006 after six years at Ashurt in ECM and regulated M&A and a secondment at UBS in Sydney. During his time in this role, Vardanega was seconded into various business roles responsible for the establishment of listed and unlisted funds across various asset classes and certain M&A transactions. He was appointed general counsel and company secretary in February 2011 and his role was expanded to include corporate affairs in March 2015. This included the significant advocacy work that Challenger does in retirement incomes reform, as well as sustainability, media and internal communications. From April 2018, he took responsibility for group strategy while retaining his general counsel responsibilities.

Challenger engages in thought leadership and advocacy to educate retirees and advisers about the risks of retirement, including longevity, inflation and market risks. Challenger has led discussions leading to key retirement income reforms recently announced by the Australian government, including new pension rules which will facilitate the development of new innovative retirement income products and a new retirement income covenant requiring superannuation trustees to develop a retirement strategy for their members. Regarding these business objectives, Vardanega highlights that, ‘it has been rewarding to be a significant contributor to a series of reforms in a complex area of the law aimed at improving the financial security of elderly Australians. This has reinforced for me the concept of shared value where commercial enterprises can align their purpose with doing good for society’.

When Vardanega first became general counsel, the engagement levels of the team were among the lowest in the company, however through a series of structural changes, links to strategy, technological and other efficiency improvements, recognition and reward, work-life balance and wellbeing initiatives and establishing a risk aware culture with tone from the top, the legal team’s sustainable employee engagement increased to 95%. Challenger worked on an Australian first by making annuities available on the digital platforms of key investment hubs, making annuities available to a much broader section of Australian retirees and their financial planners with improved ease of transacting and consolidated reports. The first partnership was done with Colonial First State and Challenger has since announced arrangements with AMP, BT and HUB24. Once these are all completed, Challenger annuities will be made available to two thirds of Australia’s financial advisers. In October 2016, Challenger entered into a reinsurance arrangement with MS Primary, the largest provider of AUD denominated annuities. This has resulted in over US$1bn of Japanese annuities being reinsured by Challenger, and was a ground breaking transaction and the first of its type involving an Australian company, and a leading example of Australian companies exporting financial services.

In August 2017, to further consolidate the strategic relationship, Challenger issued US$500m of equity to MSAD, MS Primary’s parent company, and MSAD now owns circa 10% of Challenger. Vardanega’s legal team has also assisted with the licensing and establishment of a Tokyo office to further build Challenger’s Japanese business.