Annesley Wallace has been named the next CEO of the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan.Supplied
The Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan has named Annesley Wallace as its next chief executive officer, reaching outside the organization to choose a leader with expertise in infrastructure investing and strategy.
Ms. Wallace will join HOOPP on March 1 and work with outgoing CEO Jeff Wendling during a transition period before taking over on April 1, the pension fund announced Monday. Mr. Wendling, 64, said in September that he would retire next year after 26 years at HOOPP, including five as its CEO.
While Mr. Wendling started as a portfolio manager at HOOPP in 1998 and worked his way up, Ms. Wallace is a new face who brings experience both inside and outside of the pension sector to the largest pension plan serving Ontario health care workers. She spent 11 years at the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS), including stints as chief pension officer and then as global head of its $32-billion infrastructure division.
More recently, she spent the past two years as executive vice-president of strategy and corporate development at pipeline company TC Energy, where she is also president of the company’s power generation and natural gas storage businesses. She has been a board member at companies such as Bruce Power and the Toronto Region Board of Trade, as well as carbon capture startup Deep Sky, which was co-founded by entrepreneur Fred Lalonde.
“One of the many reasons I am excited about joining HOOPP is that the organization is uniquely positioned for success,” Ms. Wallace said in a statement. “HOOPP is a top-performing pension plan, operating as part of a defined benefit system that is admired globally.”
HOOPP invests on behalf of more than 460,000 working and retired members at more than 670 employers in Ontario’s health care sector, managing $113-billion for employees such as nurses and medical technicians. The pension fund earned an investment return of 9.38 per cent last year, overcoming a drag from losses on real estate investments, and has gained an average of 8.43 per cent annually over the past 10 years.
While Mr. Wendling steered HOOPP through the COVID-19 pandemic, Ms. Wallace will take over at a time when global pension fund managers face a different array of challenges. Though inflation has eased and interest rates have started to edge downward from peak levels earlier this year, markets have remained volatile and deal making has been sluggish. Now, there is new uncertainty arising from U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s promise to impose tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico and overseas.
As stock markets have surged, driven largely by a small concentration of large technology companies fuelling the rapid race to develop artificial intelligence, pension funds have also seen their more diverse, risk-averse portfolios struggling to keep pace.
Politicians and business leaders have also debated whether Canada’s largest pension funds, which collectively manage more than $2.2-trillion, have enough of their assets in Canada. HOOPP has a peer-leading 55 per cent of its portfolio invested domestically. But Mr. Wendling pushed to give HOOPP more international investing clout, opening its first office outside of Canada, in London, while building up its investment team and giving more prominence to risk management.
When Ms. Wallace led the infrastructure division at OMERS, she helped build out the unit’s operations abroad, including in Australia and Singapore.
Mr. Wendling also kept HOOPP in a funding surplus throughout his time as CEO. As of Dec. 31, 2023, the plan had $1.15 for each dollar of pension benefits it expects to owe to members.
“We are building on an incredibly strong platform, owing to Jeff’s leadership and the strength of the team at HOOPP,” Ms. Wallace said.