Cristina is the Chair of the Risk Committee, she joined the Guardians in 2009 following roles in both law firms and as in house counsel in the financial services industry. Prior to going inhouse, Cristina spent several years as a senior legal associate at Herbert Smith Freehills in Australia and worked at law firm Bell Gully. Cristina has substantial experience in financial services with expertise across various facets of law including mergers and acquisitions, corporate and commercial law, health and safety, public law and governance.

Mark joined the Guardians in 2007 as General Manager, Operations. In 2012 he was appointed General Manager, Portfolio Completion and in 2021 he was appointed to the newly created role of General Manager, Risk.

Prior to this, he worked for The Warehouse Group where he held roles as Company Secretary, Treasurer and Chief Risk Manager. Mark also has considerable public sector experience in State Owned Enterprises, working as Treasurer for the Forestry Corporation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and NZ Railways Corporation respectively.

Kathryn joined the Guardians in the newly created role of Head of Data Analytics in March 2022. She is a seasoned data and analytics leader with extensive experience in predictive modelling, operations, and information technology. Kathryn previously held leadership positions within supervisory stress testing at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. She holds a Master of Science in Business Analytics from NYU Stern School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Princeton University where she graduated with honours. 

Michael joined the Fund in 2005 to establish the Fund’s Responsible Investment processes. Since then, he has switched his focus to the Guardians’ risk requirements and has been instrumental in establishing the Risk Record framework, the development of the in-house trading for liquidity and reference portfolio completion. Prior to starting at the Guardians, Michael worked for the Reserve Bank of New Zealand in Wellington before moving on to Morgan Stanley, Westpac Investment Management and ABN Amro.

Prior to joining the Fund in 2011, Garry worked with large financial services organisations in New Zealand, as the Chief Internal Auditor at the ASB Group of Companies. His responsibilities covered risk management and leading the internal audit and credit review functions of the business. At the Fund, Garry heads Internal Audit and is a member of the Risk Committee.

Prior to joining the Fund as Head of Human Resources in 2012, Ms Austin was a Senior Associate with Russell McVeagh, specialising in commercial litigation. She has also worked for the Financial Services Authority in London. Ms Austin has a LLB/BA from the University of Auckland.

David Sara joined the Guardians in 2009. He has substantial experience in financial services, including as Head of Strategy with UK-based Platform Home Loans, Head of Venture Development for Lloyds Banking Group and Manager of Strategic Planning for the National Bank of New Zealand.

Paula joined the Guardians in July 2021, from ASB Bank where she was the Chief Internal Auditor. Paula has 25 years experience in financial services and banking, starting her career as an auditor with professional services firm Deloitte and holding various executive finance and general management roles with AMP, ANZ and ASB. Paula is a Chartered Accountant, and has a BCA majoring in Accounting and Commercial Law from Victoria University.