Paul Costello, founding boss of NZ Super Fund, dies after long illness

Costello has been highly praised on both sides of the Tasman.

The founding chief executive of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund died in Australia this week.

Paul Costello, who was also the founding boss of Australia's giant Future Fund, passed away after a long illness.

Costello, in his early 60s, was picked in 2003 to be the inaugural chief of the Super Fund, after a worldwide search.

When he left three years later, then-chairman David May said Costello had made "a tremendous contribution", leading the fund through its critical establishment phase.

When he returned from Australia to start at that Auckland-based job aged 46, the fund stood at $4 billion. Today it is worth around $40b.

Costello left Auckland and the Super Fund in 2006, appointed to head Australia's Future Fund, returning to Melbourne where he and his family had lived previously. The Future Fund he once ran now stood at A$148.8b at the end of September this year.

The New Zealander had been Superannuation Trust of Australia chief executive before the 2003 Auckland appointment.

Costello was in 2011 appointed Blackstone Group's non-executive chairman for Australia and New Zealand.

He was a graduate of Canterbury and Massey universities and a director on a number of boards.

The Super Fund's general manager of finance and risk, Stewart Brooks, worked closely with Paul Costello in setting up the Crown-backed pension fund.

"Paul was an excellent chief executive who established the foundations of our organisation," Brooks said.

"He was an early visionary in responsible investment and his focus on this, and on quality and integrity, has endured at the Guardians.

"Paul was blessed with a strong intellect, and was considered and professional in everything he did – a true gentleman. In the early days the organisation was a very small shop and Paul had to oversee many things, while we built the team. The Guardians would not be the organisation it is today without Paul's many and varied contributions to it, and it was a privilege to work with him."

Brian Gaynor, on the guardians when Costello was appointed said: "Paul was top class, extraordinarily good. I can't say how professional he was because we were just starting. It's often very difficult when you start up an organisation to run it but he was so good."

Costello is survived by his wife, Denise, and their children Caitlin and Harry.