For executive leaders or investment chiefs tempted by a move to Australia, some of the country’s most influential finance roles are up for grabs. The catch: the lifestyle upgrade may come with a slimmer pay packet.

AustralianSuper, the country’s top pension fund, is on the hunt for a chief investment officer in Melbourne to oversee more than A$400 billion ($285 billion) — part of the world’s fastest-growing pool of retirement savings.

Mark Delaney, who’s leaving the role after more than two decades, earned about A$1.6 million last financial year — roughly a third of the compensation of his counterpart at the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, the largest fund in a system widely seen as Australia’s closest peer.

Just up the road, A$101 billion fund HESTA is searching for a new chief executive officer as Debby Blakey prepares to step down in the coming months. Her most recent pay packet was around a quarter of that of the head of Omers, one of Canada’s smaller major pension funds.

“The challenge is that the superannuation sector here does not pay competitively,” said Annalie Davies, a Sydney-based partner at executive recruitment firm Heidrick & Struggles, who’s recruited for some of the country’s largest pension funds.

“Not only is Australia the other side of the world for many talented professionals, but it is also a very different compensation scheme.”

Australia’s A$4.5 trillion pensions industry is largely dominated by not-for-profit funds that exist solely to benefit their members. Many of the top players were founded to serve specific industries and still retain board seats for union and employer representatives, while operating under intense regulatory and public scrutiny.

Against Canadian and endowment benchmarks, “Australian fund executives earn about 40% to 70% less for comparable funds under management responsibility,” Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia CEO Mary Delahunty said in an interview. The lower pay is “often netted off by the lifestyle factors that you can get from living in this country.”

AustralianSuper has appointed executive search firm Spencer Stuart to help find its next CIO, while HESTA said it’s working with Sheldon Harris to find a replacement for Blakey.

For executives light on pensions experience, there’s no shortage of other plum roles. The A$335 billion Future Fund — Australia’s sovereign wealth fund — is also looking for a CIO after Ben Samild left for a role at the Abu Dhabi Investment Council. Meanwhile, publicly listed companies Lendlease Corp., CSL Ltd. and ASX Ltd. are all looking for new CEOs after a string of abrupt exits this month.

Davies said the current economic and political backdrop has shifted the talent map, with her recent executive searches drawing more interest from Europe and the US than in previous years. Those who relocate have typically had prior ties to Australia.

Still, changing dynamics within the retirement system may prompt funds to place a bigger premium on local experience. With almost 3 million Australians expected to retire over the next decade, the industry is moving from one focused on accumulation to one managing large-scale drawdowns.

That means boards may alter the skill sets they prioritize, said Mark Rigotti, CEO of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. “It would be a shift from ‘investment returns are king’ to ‘customer experience is good’,” he said.

The roles also come with some unique demands. Pension chiefs are expected to lobby government and manage a broad range of stakeholders, said Nick Fletcher, co-lead of the APAC board and CEO advisory practice at Russell Reynolds in Melbourne. At the same time, funds face heightened scrutiny of private asset valuations and concerns over outsourced operations after problems with claims handling.

“Their ability to fix that quickly is quite limited so I suspect you’ve got some pretty anxious boards looking pretty hard at some of the key roles across the super industry,” Fletcher said, adding many boards would prefer internal succession as a “lower risk approach.”

Even so, Davies said there remains a “good available pool of talent” motivated by more than the size of pay alone.

As for the money, Delahunty expects it to catch up. Pay rates will grow over time, she said, “not just to attract overseas talent, but because the talent we have grown in Australia will become attractive to overseas markets as well.”