Chris Cuffe on investing, philanthropy and lessons from four decades
Chris Cuffe is one of Australia's pioneering fund managers. Now he uses those skills to help others, blending investment savvy with a philanthropic mission.
Chris Cuffe is a legend of the Australian funds management industry. Alongside star stock picker Greg Perry, he built First State Fund Managers from a three-person startup into Australia’s largest fund manager.
By the time he left in 2003, the company was valued at more than $5 billion, managed close to $70 billion in investment funds for around 500,000 investors, and employed over 1,000 staff.
Cuffe then joined the struggling Challenger Group, first as CEO and later as head of wealth management, in an effort to rebuild the Packer-backed venture — a vastly different environment from First State.
“At First State, I could create the culture from scratch,” he told Capital Brief for our Past Performance series. “But when you are parachuting into a place with hundreds of people already, with its own culture, which I don’t think was very good at all when I went in, it’s a much bigger challenge. I learned a lot doing that.”
