The Board delegates the day-to-day management of Teachers' to our highly skilled executive team.
Jim Leech
- President & CEO
As head of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, Jim Leech oversees the management of the pension fund and the administration of pensions for 303,000 plan members.
Mr. Leech joined Teachers' in 2001 to lead Teachers' Private Capital and was appointed President & CEO in 2007. Under his leadership, the organization became one of the world's leading private equity investors.
Mr. Leech has gained recognition for his expertise and leadership in the private equity industry and as CEO of several public companies. He has a solid reputation for building businesses and strong management teams and has led large public companies operating and investing in the financial services, real estate and energy industries, as well as start-up technology businesses.
Before joining Teachers', Mr. Leech was president and CEO of Unicorp Canada Corporation, one of Canada's first public merchant banks, and Union Energy Inc., then one of North America's largest integrated energy and pipeline companies. During the 1990s, he guided two start-up technology companies - DisysCorporation and Kasten Chase Applied Research - to the revenue generation stage.
Mr. Leech holds a B.Sc. (Hons Math and Physics) from the Royal Military College of Canada and an MBA from Queen's University. He is also a graduate of the Institute of Corporate Directors.
Mr. Leech serves on the boards of Toronto General and Western Hospital Foundation, the MasterCard Foundation and was a founding director of Right To Play International. He also chairs the advisory board of the Queen's School of Business and is on the advisory board for The Learning Partnership, the advisory council for the Toronto Region Board of Trade and the Toronto Financial Services Leadership Council.
In 2012, Mr. Leech was awarded the Queen's Diamond Jubilee medal in recognition of his work with the True Patriot Love Foundation.
Neil Petroff
- Executive Vice-President and Chief Investment Officer
Neil Petroff oversees the pension plan's investment program. He is responsible for all aspects of Teachers' investment activities, as well as the pension fund's asset-mix and risk allocations, and its real estate portfolio managed by Teachers' subsidiary, Cadillac Fairview.
Mr. Petroff has more than 25 years' experience in the financial industry. He began his career in investing at Bank of Nova Scotia and continued at Guaranty Trust and Royal Trustco.
He joined Teachers' in 1993 and has been responsible for a number of portfolios, including international equity indexes, fixed income, foreign exchange, commodities, tactical asset allocation and alternative investments. With his broad capital markets knowledge and asset and risk management expertise, he became Senior Vice-President in 2008, and assumed his current role at the beginning of 2009.
Mr. Petroff was recognized for his important role in innovative hedge fund portfolio management when Teachers' was named in 2007 Public Pension Fund Investor of the Year by Alternative Investment News.
Mr. Petroff holds a BBA and an MBA from York University and serves on 55 corporate boards, including The Cadillac Fairview Corporation Ltd., Samsung Investment Trust Management Co. Ltd. and Ontrea Inc.
Rosemarie McClean
- Senior Vice-President, Member Services
Rosemarie McClean is responsible for providing client services to 303,000 active and retired teachers. She also oversees actuarial and accounts receivable activity, employer services and tax compliance.
Ms. McClean joined Teachers' in 1986, rising through the ranks to the position of Senior Vice-President, Member Services, and a member of the executive team. Under her leadership, the client services group was organized into self-directed work teams that dramatically improved the speed, range and quality of client services. She introduced award-winning services, including web-based retirement planning tools that provide members with immediate access to personal pension information.
Ms. McClean serves on the boards of the Canadian Merit Scholarship Foundation and the Alberta Pensions Services Corporation. In 2008, she was recognized by Women's Executive Network as one of Canada's 100 Most Powerful Women.
Ms. McClean holds a BA in Economics from the University of Waterloo and an MBA from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. She holds the CMA designation and is a graduate of the Institute of Corporate Directors.
Jacqueline Beaurivage
- Vice-President, Enterprise Project Management Office
Jacqueline Beaurivage oversees the enterprise-wide Project Management Office, which standardizes project planning, monitoring, implementation and governance at Teachers'.
Ms. Beaurivage joined Teachers' in 2010. She has more than 25 years of experience in the financial services sector, including senior positions at CIBC and Royal Bank of Canada. Before Teachers', Ms. Beaurivage was Senior Vice-President, Corporate Development, at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.
Ms. Beaurivage earned a BA from the University of Regina and an MBA from McGill University.
Russ Bruch
- Senior Vice-President, Chief Information Officer
Russ Bruch and his staff are responsible for all aspects of Teachers' IT infrastructure and business application development, support and maintenance. The IT group plays a key role in identifying, prioritizing and managing the implementation of initiatives that align to the organization's strategic objectives.
Mr. Bruch has more than 25 years of experience in the information technology industry. He joined Teachers' in 1991 and has risen through positions of increasing responsibility throughout his career. Mr. Bruch holds both an undergraduate degree and an MBA (with distinction) from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario.
Melissa Kennedy
- General Counsel, Corporate Secretary and Senior Vice-President, Corporate Affairs
Melissa Kennedy leads the General Counsel's office, which includes the Legal, Corporate Communications and Pension Law and Policy departments.
Ms. Kennedy joined Teachers' in 2009 from the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, where she was Vice-President, Associate General Counsel and Head of the Litigation and Employment Law Group. She has practised law for more than 20 years, specializing in securities and commercial litigation. She previously headed the prosecution team at the Ontario Securities Commission.
She holds an LLB from the University of Toronto and a BA from Carleton University. In 2012, Ms. Kennedy received the Canadian General Counsel of the Year award.
David McGraw
- Senior Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer
David McGraw and his team are responsible for corporate and investment finance. This includes compliance, risk analytics, performance measurement, data management, tax, operational due diligence, valuation and reporting and the CEO/CFO internal controls certification program.
Mr. McGraw has more than 20 years of senior management experience in financial management, corporate finance, banking, and mergers and acquisitions.
Before joining Teachers' in 2004, Mr. McGraw was Chief Financial Officer of Bell ExpressVU. Prior to that, he was Vice-President, Mergers & Acquisitions/Corporate Finance, at BCE/Bell Canada and Partner-in-Charge of the Corporate Finance Group of a major international accounting firm.
Mr. McGraw is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario. He earned a Bachelor of Commerce from McGill University and an MBA from the University of Western Ontario. He is also a member of the Institute of Corporate Directors.
Marcia Mendes-d'Abreu
- Senior Vice-President, Human Resources
Marcia Mendes-d'Abreu and her staff are responsible for human resources for Teachers', including recruitment, compensation and benefits, learning and development, labour relations and premises.
Ms. Mendes-d'Abreu has more than 20 years of experience in human resources management and strategy in the retail, apparel, pharmaceutical and high-tech sectors. She joined Teachers' in 2008 from the Canadian Tire Corporation, where she was Vice-President, Human Resources, Corporate and Diversified Businesses.
Ms. Mendes-d'Abreu earned an M.Sc. from Pepperdine University and a BA from McGill University.
Barbara Zvan
- Senior Vice-President, Asset Mix and Risk
- Chief Investment Risk Officer
Barbara Zvan and her team of investment professionals oversee the development of the fund's long-term investment strategy based on economic outlooks, asset and liability matching, and risk analysis.
Ms. Zvan joined Teachers' in 1995 as an assistant portfolio manager and has risen steadily through positions of increasing authority.
Her Asset Mix and Risk team plays a leading role in researching and assessing new products for possible integration into the investment strategy. Ms. Zvan also oversees the development of the annual active management risk budget, economic analysis, benchmarks, investment guidelines and the design of the internal enterprise-wide risk system.
Ms. Zvan is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and the Canadian Institute of Actuaries, and holds an M Math from the University of Waterloo.
In 2009, she was honoured as one of the top 40 people in Canada under age 40 for 2008.