Dr Don Russell,
Chair and Independent Director,
AustralianSuper
Dr Don Russell was elected as Chair of AustralianSuper, the nation’s biggest superannuation fund, in September 2019.
He was appointed as an Independent director to AustralianSuper in May 2019. This was a joint appointment by the fund’s two sponsoring organisation’s ACTU Super Shareholding Pty Ltd and the Ai Group.
Since June 2020, Don has been the Independent Chair of the Expert Assessment Panel which Considers applications from universities under the Australian Universities Job Protection Framework and from June 2018 Dr Russell has been a director of the Centre for Policy Development.
Previous directorships include with CSIRO and Chair of State Super.
Between 1993 and 1995 Don served as Australia's Ambassador to the USA in Washington and between 1985 and 1993, and again in 1996, he was Principal Adviser to the Hon Paul Keating both during his time as Treasurer and Prime Minister.
Until 2018 Dr Russell was the Chief Executive of the South Australian Department of the Premier and Cabinet. Prior to that he was the Chief Executive of the Department of State Development, a role he commenced in 2014.
Previous roles include Secretary of the Federal Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education; senior roles at BNY Mellon Asset Management Australia and Sanford C Bernstein, as well as a consultant to the World Bank, Bankers Trust, Westpac and as a Counsellor in the Australian delegation to the OECD in Paris.
Don has a PhD from the London School of Economics, a MEc from ANU and a BEc (Hons) (First) from Flinders University as well as the Charted Financial Analyst designation.