Industry moves: Alts firm Accelerate appoints Kevin Gopaul as special advisor

Former BMO ETFs president Kevin Gopaul is working with Calgary-based alternative investment manager Accelerate Financial Technologies Inc. as a special advisor.

Gopaul, who was president and chief commercial officer of BMO ETFs and BMO Global Asset Management, left the bank in August, with Sara Petrcich named head of the ETF and structured solutions team.

Gopaul joined BMO in April 2009 to help launch its ETF business, and steered it through a period of explosive growth. At the end of 2023 the firm had more than $97 billion in assets under administration, according to National Bank Financial, or 23% market share.

As part of the leadership change, BMO combined its ETF business with its synthetic asset management business, which Petrcich had been leading for a year.

Accelerate said Friday that it was partnering with Gopaul and his new company ETF Solutions Inc. In a release, Accelerate CEO and chief investment officer Julian Klymochko called Gopaul’s expertise an “invaluable asset” as the firm looks to build on its reputation as a provider of alternative ETFs.

Accelerate manages four ETFs — including an arbitrage fund, a long-short hedge fund and a multi-strategy alternative fund — which had about $63 million in assets under management as of Jan. 31, 2023, according to regulatory filings. It also manages a limited partnership fund that invests in non-fungible tokens.

In the release, Gopaul cited the growing number of investors looking for alternative investments.

“Accelerate has developed a robust and innovative platform which can deliver alternative investment solutions in the form of ETFs, while also supporting traditional investment solutions, white-labelling opportunities, and other growth opportunities,” he said in the statement.

Prior to joining BMO, Gopaul was a portfolio manager with Barclays Global Investors

Ontario Teachers’ makes executive appointments

The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board appointed three members of its investment team to new executive roles.

Stephen McLennan and Gillian Brown were both named chief investment officers, with McLennan focused on asset allocation and Brown on public and private investments. The appointments come following the departure of chief investment officer Ziad Hindo.

McLennan, who’s been acting head of investments since Hindo announced in September that he was leaving, will oversee the pension plan’s asset mix. He’s been with Ontario Teachers’ since 2003 and serves on the board of Cadillac Fairview, a wholly owned subsidiary that’s now part of the pension plan’s real estate portfolio.

Brown, who joined the pension plan in 1995, will manage investments across public and private markets through the pension plan’s equities, infrastructure and natural resources, venture growth, capital markets, and real estate departments. She had been Ontario Teachers’ head of capital markets since 2018.

The pension plan also named Jonathan Hausman chief strategy officer, leading “a cross-organizational approach to advancing the strategic objectives of the plan,” according to a release. That includes overseeing sustainable investing activities and continuing to lead the global investment strategy (GIS) department. Hausman joined Ontario Teachers’ in 2004 and led alternative investments and global tactical asset allocation before taking over the GIS department in 2017.

If you know of other people moves in the financial industry and/or would like us to consider your announcement, email Katie Keir at katie@newcom.ca.