Mark Wiseman

Mark Wiseman (born 1970) is a Canadian businessman and financier who has worked with many institutional investors and the Government of Canada. He was formerly the chair of the Alberta Investment Management Corporation; a manager at BlackRock; and prior to 2016, the president and CEO of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB). He is the co-founder of the Century Initiative, which aims to increase Canada's population to 100 million by 2100 solely through immigration.

Early life and education

Wiseman was born in Niagara Falls, Ontario, and raised in Burlington by his mother, a physiotherapist, and his father, a plumber and pipe fitter who headed a division of a construction company. He has one sister, who is a veterinarian. He earned a bachelor's degree from Queen's University as well as a law degree and an MBA from the University of Toronto. He obtained a Master of Laws degree from Yale University, where he was a Fulbright Scholar. He is Jewish.

Career

Early in his career, Wiseman was an officer with Harrowston, a publicly traded Canadian merchant bank and a lawyer with Sullivan & Cromwell, practicing in New York and Paris. He also was a law clerk to Madam Justice Beverley McLachlin at the Supreme Court of Canada. Then, Wiseman was responsible for the private equity fund and co-investment program at the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan. Wiseman then joined the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) as a Senior VP in 2005. Wiseman became the President and CEO of CPPIB in 2012.

In 2014, Wiseman co-founded the Century Initiative with Dominic Barton. It is a lobbying group focused on increasing Canada's population to 100 million by 2100.

In July 2015, while Wiseman was president and CEO, CPPIB announced it was investing in rental housing with Minto Group, citing strong population growth as the reason. CPPIB acquired a 60% ownership interest worth $105 million in Minto High Park Village, a multifamily residential rental property with 750 units in Toronto.

In 2016, as a member of then finance minister Bill Morneau's Advisory Council on Economic Growth, both Wiseman and Dominic Barton advocated for increasing immigration targets to 450,000 a year, with a focus on top business talent and international students, in order to "raise the living standards for all Canadians." Wiseman and the council argued that without significant immigration changes Canada would fall outside the top 45 nations in population by 2100 and would become "increasingly irrelevant over time." In 2016, Canada was ranked 38th by population, lower than countries such as Thailand, Mexico, and Uganda.

From 2016 to 2019, Wiseman was a Senior Managing Director at BlackRock, Global Head of Active Equities, Chairman of its alternatives business, and Chairman of BlackRock's Global Investment Committee. He was also on BlackRock's Global Executive Committee. On December 5, 2019, Wiseman was fired from his position at BlackRock following a failure to report a consensual relationship with a subordinate employee under his reporting line. in violation of the company's relationship at work policy. Wiseman stated in an internal memo "I engaged in a consensual relationship with one of our colleagues without reporting it. I regret my mistake and I accept responsibility for my actions."

Wiseman advised various businesses, most recently joining Lazard as a part-time Senior Advisor. He is also a Senior Advisor to Boston Consulting Group and Hillhouse Capital.

Wiseman is the Co-Founder and former Chairman of FCLTGlobal (formerly Focusing Capital on the Long Term), an organization that encourages longer-term approaches in business and investing, which was set up by BlackRock, CPPIB, Dow, McKinsey & Company and Tata in 2016.

In June 2020, Wiseman was named the new chair of the Alberta Investment Management Corporation. In a BNN Bloomberg interview, Wiseman advocated for immigration levels to be increased to 500,000 in order to rehabilitate Canada after the COVID-19 pandemic. "One of the things we do very well in this country, is bring and integrate new people," he claimed. He stepped down from AIMCo in 2023. During his time there, Wiseman donated his salary to the United Way of Alberta.

In March 2025, Prime Minister Mark Carney added Wiseman to his council of advisors on Canada-U.S. relations, established in January by Justin Trudeau.

Personal life

For more than twenty years, Wiseman was in a common-law relationship with Marcia Moffat, whom he met on his first day at University of Toronto. The country head of Canada for BlackRock, Moffat joined the firm a year before Wiseman. They have two sons.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wiseman, Mark
1970 births
Living people
Canadian financiers
Canadian chief executives
CPP Investment Board people
Jewish Canadian activists
Canadian philanthropists
People from Niagara Falls, Ontario
People from Burlington, Ontario
Queen's University at Kingston alumni
University of Toronto alumni
University of Toronto Faculty of Law alumni
Yale Law School alumni
BlackRock people