Ben Samild
The Architect
Structured and legacy-driven; builds the systems and institutions that last.
Ben Samild exemplifies The Architect through his sustained, systems-level thinking about how a sovereign wealth fund is constructed, maintained, and evolved. Throughout this interview, Samild repeatedly returns to the structural logic underpinning the Future Fund's total portfolio approach, explaining how capital competition, integrated risk budgets, and deliberate collaboration replace siloed asset class management.
“I mean, I think that the world has gone from mutually assured destruction to we'll wrap ourselves in diamond encrusted golden handcuffs and so we'll never be able to punch each other in the face and now to something else and we don't exactly know what that something else is and at times i'm sure it will look fine and at times it will look…”
“People in the world, we have all the access, and we try to do our best to put all that information to do a little bit better for everyone of our neighbors. That is actually really powerful and really cool. And if you can't get up in the morning for that, then don't work out. The last investment question comes back to ESG.”
“We have managed to display really efficient and effective and professional decision-making and governance really since inception. It really started with we got a large check in 2007 and we started investing and we had a consultant and that consultant was telling us to get invested and start putting it in passive equities or whatever.”
“And when investment performance is not your friend, tell me a little bit about how you deal with it emotionally and how as a team you respond to it, particularly when you might have parts of the team that are feeling slightly more pleased with themselves. I mean, there's sort of two ways.”
Money Maze Podcast: “Australia's Sovereign Wealth Fund - With Ben Samild, Deputy CIO of Future Fund”
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