Con Michalakis

Con Michalakis is Chief Investment Officer of Funds SA, the South Australian Government-owned investment corporation that manages portfolios for South Australian public sector superannuation funds and approved public authorities. Funds SA announced his appointment on 6 December 2024, and he commenced in February 2025. In the role, he leads the investment team and is responsible for investment strategy and management of Funds SA’s investment options.

Before Funds SA, Michalakis was Deputy Chief Investment Officer - Portfolio Construction at Hostplus, a role he assumed in March 2022 after Hostplus merged with Statewide Super. At Statewide Super, he served as Chief Investment Officer for fourteen years and became known in the Australian superannuation industry for concentrated, contrarian positions and strong long-term fund performance.

Earlier in his career, Michalakis worked in Australia and overseas, including roles at Pzena Investment Management in New York, Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, Alliance Capital and Watson Wyatt. Funds SA lists his education as a Bachelor of Mathematical Sciences from the University of Adelaide, a Masters in Financial Management from the University of London, and an Executive Diploma in Financial Strategy from Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.

His investing style is shaped by quantitative training, value investing, and crisis experience. He joined Statewide in September 2008, immediately before Lehman Brothers collapsed, and has repeatedly cited that period as formative in his focus on diversification, liquidity, governance, and risk management.

• Michalakis describes himself as a value-oriented contrarian: “I’m still a value person and a contrarian,” investing at the margin in areas that are unloved or where capital is scarce.
• At Funds SA, the approach is institutional and portfolio-led: Funds SA says it uses a “managers of managers” model, engaging professional investment managers for each asset class and building tailored strategies for clients.
• He favors whole-of-portfolio thinking, governance discipline, liquidity ratios, stress testing, and avoiding asset-class silos. In 2026, he described implementing a “TPA lite” framework rather than pure dynamic asset allocation.
• He is not a benchmark-hugger when conviction is high. In a 2026 Investment Magazine interview, he said: “Underwrite well, generate a return, and then worry about where you want to stick it.”
• He prefers meaningful allocations over long tails of small positions. At Statewide, he said that if allocating to absolute return, venture capital, or infrastructure, the team would rather make “good-sized” allocations to its best ideas.
• In VC, Funds SA is building exposure deliberately across managers and strategies. On the Eastend Ventures commitment, Michalakis said the program was “less about any one investment and more about how the program comes together as a whole.”
• He is skeptical of speculative crypto exposure and pure macro/dynamic tilting. In 2026, he said Funds SA had zero Australian private credit and only modest global private-credit exposure, while also allocating to selected special-situations and global private-credit opportunities.