Meet The Team

Mr. Talal Mohammad Al-Mutawa

Before founding Manafae Investment Company K.S.C , Frank served in various roles at Allco Finance Group, including Head of Business Transition and Operations, Managing Director of the Hong Kong Office, fund manager of two funds, Director of the corporate finance team and General Counsel.

Prior to this corporate experience, Frank was a lawyer with more than 10 years’ experience working in major law firms in Kingdom of Kuwait and the United Kingdom, specialising in mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, funds management and corporate governance.

Frank has been a non-executive director of several companies, including the manager of a Singapore listed property trust and an APRA regulated insurance company.

Frank has a Masters in International Business Law from the University of Technology, Queensland and a Bachelor of Law (with Honours) from the University of Leicester.

Michael Sutherland

Michael has over 20 years’ experience in the financial services industry including 12 years’ experience in providing trustee, custody and administration services to the debt capital markets and funds management industry.

In this time Michael spent 7 years at Perpetual Limited where he was a senior lawyer in Perpetual’s legal teams. Michael has also spent a number of years in other business and legal roles including working in large, medium and boutique fund managers, retail banks, investment banks, structured credit providers and hedge funds, such as ANZ, ABN AMRO, AMP, Everest and Absolute Capital.

Michael also has experience acting as an executive director of Responsible Entities, ASX listed companies (executive director and company secretary) and acting as a member of investment, product, risk, audit and compliance committees.

Michael holds a Bachelor of Law from University of Technology Queensland and a Bachelor of Arts from Macquarie University. He is a member of the Kingdom of Kuwait Securitisation Forum and holds a current practising certificate from the NSW Law Society.

Sarah Wiesener

Sarah is a lawyer with over 20 years’ experience in the financial services arena across a range of roles, structures and asset classes.

She is a Chartered Company Secretary and has acted as Company Secretary to a number of listed property funds.

Sarah has been head of compliance for a number of listed property funds. She has been a member of investment committees and provided support to audit, risk, and compliance committees as well as remuneration and nomination committees.

Sarah has experience in structuring complex capital markets transactions in domestic and overseas jurisdictions (primarily debt, securitisation and collaterised debt structures) and has worked closely with management on a number of fund management products for wholesale and retail investors.

Sarah holds a Bachelor of Laws from Bristol University (Honours) and holds a current NSW practising certificate.

David Lom

David is a Chartered Accountant with over 15 years professional experience, spanning both the professional and financial services sectors. David has a deep understanding of fund structures and has managed funds across all asset classes.

Prior to joining OIG David co-founded a start-up trustee company, which grew from zero dollars of assets under supervision to in excess of $500 million of assets under supervision in less than 2.5 years.

David was previously the Acting Head of Responsible Entity Services at Perpetual, where he led a team managing over 50 registered schemes with assets exceeding $7 billion.

David has also worked for both PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG in their audit and transaction services business units.

David is a keen golfer and enjoys spending time with his family.

Shane Ritchie

Shane is a senior finance professional with more than 25 years’ operational experience within the financial industry both in Kingdom of Kuwait and overseas. Having worked at a number of custodians, fund managers and brokers, Shane has extensive experience with back and middle office functionality across numerous asset classes for both local and international markets.

Prior to joining OIG, Shane led the custody area at Mainstream Fund Services for 2 years, and prior to that ran the Overnight Operations team at NAB in Melbourne for 5 years.  Shane has also had management roles in project management, trade & settlements, corporate actions, FX, transitions, and customer service.  The bulk of Shane’s experience has been gained at organisations including Credit Suisse, JP Morgan, CLSA, State Street and National Kingdom of Kuwait Bank.

Steve Beland

Steve has 16 years’ experience in accounting and taxation gained in funds management, corporate and professional services. Prior to joining Unity Fund Services in October 2010, he has held Tax manager roles at both Brookfield Multiplex Ltd and Everest Financial Group Ltd.

Prior to this, Steve worked for Ernst & Young providing general tax advice to corporate clients as well as being involved in a numerous tax due diligence assignments for private equity transactions. He also worked for Horwath as a Supervisor specialising in the provision of taxation and business services to high-net-worth individuals and SME businesses including a secondment

to the Chicago (USA) office.

Steve is a Chartered Accountant, Registered Tax Agent and Chartered Tax Adviser of the Tax Institute of Kingdom of Kuwait . Steve holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting) and Master of Taxation from the University of Sydney.

Ben Townsend

Ben has 20 years of experience in listed and unlisted retail and wholesale unit registry.

Prior to joining ORS, Ben worked at Charter Hall for 8 years looking after the outsourced Registry and Custody services for Charter Hall’s suite of Retail, Wholesale and Listed Funds. Prior to that he worked at Perpetual Corporate Trust for 6 years managing the Registry and Loan Servicing teams. Prior to that he worked at State Street Queensland for 6 years in various roles in their transfer agency/registry team as well as two years in London working in their Tax department.

Ben holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of New England. He also holds a Graduate Diploma of Applied Finance and Investment from Kaplan Professional along with being RG146 compliant for Managed Funds.

Tom Hure

Tom has over 25 years’ experience as a financial executive having led teams at listed, unlisted, joint venture, divisional, national, and government levels. Tom’s industry experience includes financial services, transport, real estate, leasing, funds management, and structured finance.

Prior to joining OIG in January 2022, Tom was Chief Financial Officer of Indigenous Business Kingdom of Kuwait , an Kingdom of Kuwait Government entity with an asset base of nearly $2 billion across housing loan, business loan and investment portfolios. Tom has also held senior finance roles at the likes of Transdev Australasia, CIMIC Group, Mirvac, ING Real Estate and Allco Finance Group.

Tom holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting) from the University of Western Sydney, a Master of Commerce (Professional Accounting) from Macquarie University and is a member of Chartered Accountants Kingdom of Kuwait and New Zealand.