Mary Delahunty says she’s always had an annoying little itch to make the world different and better for others.
The CEO of the Association of Superannuation Funds Australia (ASFA) also founded Seven Advisory, an organisation that helps businesses achieve purpose-driven impact.
“I think it comes from wanting to make change,” she says.
“I’ve fallen in and out of areas of work but the purpose has always been fairly common across them.”
Prior to joining ASFA, Mary led responsible investment, government relations and corporate social responsibility programs at the multibillion-dollar superannuation fund Hesta.
She also served as the mayor of Glen Eira among many other senior roles.
“It’s an interesting life lesson when you realise you can have that impact in different areas of career choices, in different sectors and things but that there’s a common element to it all the time and that is your personal purpose,” she says.
Funnily enough, Mary uncovered a sweet spot in superannuation which she admits is not the most appealing topic of conversation at social gatherings.
But what peaks Mary’s interest is its power to transform life outcomes for women, as she explains in the latest episode of our podcast series, Spotlight on Women, thanks to our partnership with Grant Thornton Australia.
“It’s a social movement, it’s like Medicare, because it was born from an idea that dignity in retirement is for everyone and not just for the lucky people,” she says.
“But the way in which it has been organised, it has been designed, mimics a man’s working life so that promise is unfinished. It’s unmet for more than half the population.”
It’s this reason that has Mary dedicating so much of her energy into the superannuation industry and she wants others to join her.
“No one’s really going to run up to you and go ‘how exciting you work in super!’,” she says.
“But Australians increasingly need to love it like we do Medicare, as a great social movement. And those of us who understand the complexities of it need to be able to work on the system, in the system, at the system to change it for everyone.”
Why super is actually exciting
Mary says too many people avoid super like it’s not even their money.
“We kept letter after letter, and in those days it was paper letters, coming from super funds simply telling you that they’ve got your money and how many of those go unopened? Whereas if a bank had your money, you’d be like ‘what are you doing with my money and why haven’t I closed that account?’,” she says.
“It’s just one of those things that we’re all a bit blind to and I was no different.
“When I first started working in super, [I] had to embarrassingly gather my six superannuation funds and put them together into one.”
Additionally, she says people don’t realise how invaluable insurance offered through superannuation for things like life cover and income protection can be.
“Get on top of what it is doing for you,” she says.
“Insurance inside super is one of the greatest assets that many of us will have and can often be worth more to a woman who’s been in and out of the workforce than the super balance itself.”
Getting to know your super and where it’s going is exciting not only because there is joy in seeing the balance grow and change overtime but she says there’s an immense amount of impact being made with how the money is invested.
Australia has more than $3.5 trillion in superannuation assets.
“The pools of capital that we have managed to set aside for people’s retirement in Australia is really unlike anything anywhere else in the world,” she says.
“Because it has an element of preservation to it as in there’s a social contract between everyone in Australia and those of us who are working and that contract is if you set some of your wages aside, then everyone else will forgo tax spending that they would have gotten on public services so that you can provide for your retirement.
“So what that does is give you this long-term view. And when you’re thinking on thirty, forty, fifty year horizons, what is that pool of capital going to drive towards? Well it has to be a world that you can actually retire into: that world should be safe, it should be healthy and it should be prosperous.”
Mary believes if more people, especially younger generations, spent a little more attention to this, it would make a massive impact through informed and intentional decisions around where super is being allocated.
“You do get to make choices about it,” she says.
Having more people informed about superannuation could also strengthen accountability in the industry and prevent it being used as a political football.
“If everyone in Australia develops a level of knowledge about superannuation that they maybe don’t currently have, that level of knowledge will help to safeguard political conversations that may otherwise be unhelpful,” she says.
“[Superannuation] does need some improvements for equity but mostly it needs everyone’s involvement and a feeling that it is all of us. It’s material to the wealth of the nation.”
Hear more from Mary Delahunty on episode four of the Spotlight on Women series, where Women’s Agenda examines key industry areas to profile women building game-changing and influential careers with purpose, thanks to our partnership with Grant Thornton Australia.