The new chairman of the Irish Association of Investment Managers (IAIM), Mr Kevin Murphy seems to adapt well to change whether it's fluctuations in the stock market or company mergers. Perhaps this explains his definite but measured approach to the latest scandals rocking consumer confidence in the financial services industry.

"The reality is it will take us a reasonable amount of time to refresh our reputations," says Mr Murphy, who is also Irish Life's chief executive for investments, and a board member of Irish Life & Permanent. Nothing happens overnight but the industry should invest in the whole apparatus to ensure that such things will never happen again, he says. The Government also has a role to play by installing checks and balances to restore investor confidence. "We need to ensure that everyone is 100 per cent compliant," says Mr Murphy.

A methodical man, Mr Murphy trained as an actuary following his 1972 graduation from UCC with a BSc degree in mathematics and statistics. The Corkonian began his actuarial career with Irish Life but after a few years switched to marketing-related activities within the company. Five years ago he moved to the investment side of the business.

Mr Murphy believes his background in mathematics has ultimately helped him think through things in a systematic and rigorous way. The skill allows him to simplify an abstract idea and extract the two or three simple ideas that will ultimately allow a business to be successful.

In his IAIM role he hopes to utilise this way of thinking to transform the way investment managers do business. "Investment has been a narrow, somewhat inwardly-focused world so hopefully what I will bring is a more externally focused view to help people see what's happening out there."

The world beyond the corporate windows is fundamentally changing the nature of investment management from an institutional to a retail mindset. In the past, pension funds were the managers' main clients but today they're seeing massive growth in the number of deposits from individual investors.

"Ireland moved from a country with relatively few people with significant savings to a country with more money. There's going to be very rapid growth in the retail side of our business especially with joining the euro and the low rates on deposit," says Mr Murphy.

The retailisation of the business has enormous implications for fund managers who are used to dealing with sophisticated institutional investors. Pension-fund managers will have to go down to the shop-floor to explain the funds to employees. In the retail business overall: "You're talking to clients who know less, have large heterogeneous demands and badly need advice," says Mr Murphy.

Unlike institutional concerns, the retail business involves a huge number of outlets and products. As such, one of the significant issues facing the industry is the education of the public and intermediaries in the changes taking place. "If you move away from traditional investments you increase the risks and return is unpredictable," he said. It's important that companies educate people about the numerous options available. "The critical issue in this is that people know what they're buying," he said.

The creation of a retail mindset is just one of the items on Mr Murphy's agenda for his tenure as chairman of IAIM. Concerns about competition and technology must also be addressed in a constructive way.

Institutional fund managers are positioned strongly should international managers make an entry to the market. "Because of the small size of the Irish retail market we're the most global of all the managers," he said. Fund managers are also well placed to assist the Government in investing its new "super pension fund" which will total £5 billion and be the largest pension fund in Ireland.

On the retail side there's a more complex agenda and the decline in consumer confidence may make investment managers more susceptible to competition. Although the industry is keeping one eye on foreign competitors the other eye is sharply focused on big domestic players. "Those not in the industry with a good reputation would be more of a threat but barriers to entry are quite high," he said.

Changes in pension fund structures have also created a chance to increase the penetration rate among the private sector which is now 50 per cent.

"The idea behind PRSAs is to devise a very simple, basic pension contract that will be more easily understood by people, more easily purchased by people and ultimately will be flexible enough to cope with the particular characteristics of those who have not yet bought pensions," he said.

The Internet poses both a threat and an opportunity to managers as it allows the public to trade directly. "Clearly one of the great phenomenon is that it's wiping out the intermediaries so we're only going to survive if we add value," he said. The Internet makes investment a global business so managers cannot afford to be complacent.

Mr Murphy would like to see every company in the IAIM invest significantly in Internet resources as the public is increasingly interested in the financial markets particularly if they have money to invest. "I suspect companies are going to be far more innovative in how they use the Internet to communicate with their end customers and obviously with their intermediaries who are trying to accumulate information to give the best advice to their customers," he said.

Most days, Mr Murphy works from 8 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. but no doubt will spend many nights out at business functions in his new IAIM position. He commutes from south Dublin where he lives with his wife June and their two daughters. Even in his spare time, Mr Murphy enjoys problem solving and games of chance as reflected in his interests in detective novels and poker games of five-card stud. It's no surprise that like many people from Cork he's a keen sports fan with a particular fondness for hurling. He plays golf but says he's not very good at it.

Mr Murphy's says his driving force is a need to make sense of things. "I spend a lot of time trying to understand what's happening and try to see the patterns of what's likely to happen next. I try to devise a simple model to explain the complexities of the world we live in," he said.