Sri Lankan becomes first female CEO of Australia’s biggest investman bank
SYDNEY – Australia’s biggest investment bank Macquarie Group has its first female CEO.
Shemara Wikramanayake will replace Nicholas Moore, who will end a 10-year tenure as managing director and chief executive when he steps down in November.
Shemara, who is currently group head of Macquarie Asset Management, has also been appointed to the board of Macquarie Bank Ltd.
Moore said he had worked with Shemara for more than 30 years and was confident he was leaving the company “in a strong position and in safe hands”.
Shemara joined Macquarie in 1987 and has worked for the group in six countries and across several business lines. In a statement, Shemara said she was honoured to take on the role. “I look forward to working with the Board, management and our entire Macquarie team to build on Nicholas’ remarkable legacy for the benefit of all our stakeholders,” she said. The announcement was made prior to Macquarie’s annual general meeting on Thursday (26).
Macquarie has maintained its outlook for 2019 fiscal year earnings to be in line with the previous year. Shemara was born in England in 1961 and educated in Britain and Sri Lanka before attending Sydney’s Ascham School for girls. She earned a commerce and law degree from the University of NSW before completing an advanced management program at Harvard University. She spend time as a corporate lawyer at Blake Dawson Waldron in 1986 before joining Macquarie in 1987.
Working across corporate services before helping to establish Macquarie Capital, Shemara worked her way up to head prudential function for Macquarie investment bank from 2001-04. She headed Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets in New York from 2004-08 where she established infrastructure funds in the US and Canada, and established and led the Macquarie’s corporate advisory offices in New Zealand, Hong Kong and Malaysia. Appointed Head of Macquarie Asset Management in 2008, she became chair of the Macquarie Group Foundation from 2013. Shemara told the Financial Times that she had never sold a Macquarie share in 30 years. She has two children.-AAP