Every board's investment governance looks different. The portfolio is different, the governance capacity is different, the mission is different, and the advisory history is different.
White Paper
The Spectrum of Support
Explore how OCIO support works across consulting, partial delegation, and full delegation.
It Starts with Your Situation, Not Our Services
Any conversation about how we might help needs to start there.
We don't begin with a service proposal. We begin by understanding where your board sits today: how your current advisory arrangement is working, where your governance model is strong, and where the gaps are starting to show. Sometimes that conversation confirms that your existing arrangements are fit for purpose. Sometimes it surfaces questions worth exploring further.
The entry point varies. Some boards come to us because they've outgrown their current adviser. Some come because a governance review has identified gaps they want to address. Some are simply exploring whether there's a better way to structure the support around their portfolio. We meet each of those starting points differently, because the right approach depends on context, not on a standard onboarding process.
Working Together to Find the Right Model
How much a board delegates to Shaw OCIO is a governance decision, not a product choice. We work through that decision collaboratively, because the board knows its own governance capacity, its appetite for operational involvement, and the way its committee functions better than anyone.
In practice, this means exploring three questions together. First, which parts of the investment process does your board want to retain direct control over, and which parts would benefit from specialist support? Second, does the current level of support match the complexity of what the board is overseeing? And third, how do you want the relationship to work day to day: the reporting cadence, the communication style, the way recommendations are brought to the board for consideration?
Many of the boards we work with don't arrive at a fixed tier. They start with one level of support and adjust as circumstances change. A board might begin with consulting and move toward partial delegation as the portfolio grows more complex. That flexibility is built into how we work, not bolted on as an afterthought.
What You Can Expect
Reporting and governance clarity
We have set out to build institutional reporting that stands alongside the best available globally. Our reporting framework is benchmarked against the twelve largest global OCIO providers, with the aim of delivering boards the clarity they need to govern with confidence. This means reporting that tells you whether your investments are on track to meet your mission objectives, presents risk in language the committee can act on, and gives you a clear picture of fees, performance, and forward-looking considerations, all in a format designed to serve your governance role rather than demonstrate technical sophistication.
Investment process
Our Investment Committee brings together eight professionals with investment experience ranging from eighteen to forty-five years. The decisions that affect your portfolio are made here in New Zealand, informed by global research but shaped by people who understand the NZ institutional landscape, your regulatory environment, and the practical realities of managing portfolios at NZ scale.
This matters because the alternatives in the New Zealand market tend to sit at one of two extremes. Some providers operate with small teams and limited access to global research. Others are large global organisations where the real investment decisions are made offshore and adapted for local clients. We sit in between: a team making decisions locally, with access to global research and infrastructure.
Access to the full investment universe
We are genuinely open-architecture. Through the Clarity Funds Management platform, we can host funds from any manager globally via sub-advisory arrangements. We can also facilitate direct investment into any manager, including private markets. This means the investment solution is built entirely around what's right for your portfolio, without the constraints that come from a limited manager panel or proprietary product requirements.
Implementation by the people who make the decisions
The same senior investment professionals who sit on the Investment Committee and make the strategic decisions are also hands-on in implementation. Manager transitions, strategic asset allocation changes, and portfolio restructures are overseen by people who understand both the market context and your organisation's specific situation. We don't hand these off to a separate operations team that lacks that context. The result is implementation that is efficient, considered, and aligned with the intent behind the decision.
Client service built on a culture of clarity
We take the quality of our client relationships seriously. Our approach to client service has its foundation in the high standards of personal wealth management, where the expectation is that your adviser knows your situation deeply and communicates with precision. In the institutional context, this translates to a commitment to ensuring that every trustee around the table has the information they need to navigate important decisions with confidence, regardless of their investment background. Complex discussions deserve contextual clarity, and we work to provide it.
A Practical Note on How We Communicate
The way we communicate reflects how committee time actually works.
Our reporting is designed to be read before the meeting, not decoded during it. Recommendations come with clear rationale, practical options, and an honest assessment of trade-offs. When we present to the board, we aim for every member to leave the room able to explain what was discussed and why it matters, in plain language.
We believe that if a trustee can't explain a recommendation to someone outside the room, the recommendation hasn't been communicated well enough. That's on us, not on the trustee.
