ASX board changes, exits amid ASIC inquiry

A fortnight after the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) launched its inquiry into the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) the ASX has announced a substantial reshaping of its board.

ASX Limited chair, David Clarke announced the appointment of former PWC partner and current Platinum Asset Management director, Anne Loveridge as a non-executive director at the same time as announcing as creating separate Board risk and audit committees.

As well, Clarke announced that long-serving director Melinda Conrad would be retiring in August along with another director, Peter Nash.

Nash had chaired the ASX Audit and Risk Committee since 2021 and will remain to oversee the completion of the ASX’s FY25 financial reporting process in August before retiring at the conclusion of the September board meeting.

The announcement said that the ASX was continuing its transformation strategy and that the board had been “assessing how to further strengthen its oversight while managing for growing complexity”.

“ASX must hold itself to the highest standards, and we’ve been discussing as a Board how to best support the work under the risk transformation plan, Clarke said. “To this end we see benefit in separating the board Audit and Risk Committee into two distinct board committees.”

“This should provide more dedicated focus by each committee.”

The announcement said the responsibilities of the Risk Committee would include overseeing the risk transformation led by the new Chief Risk Officer and the business resilience work being led by the Chief Operating Office.

It said that the first Risk Committee meeting had been held on 18 June and was chaired by former Australian Prudential Regulation Authority chair, Wayne Byers.

ASIC earlier this month announced an inquiry into the ASX group “focusing on governance, capability and risk management frameworks and practices across the group”.

ASIC chair, Joe Longo said the decision to initiate the inquiry had followed “repeated and serious failures at ASX”.