Associate – Portfolio Construction recruitment

The CPP Investment Board is a professional investment management organization that invests the funds not needed by the Canada Pension Plan to pay current benefits on behalf of 17 million Canadian contributors and beneficiaries. In order to build a diversified portfolio of CPP assets, the CPP Investment Board invests in public equities, private equities, real estate, inflation-linked bonds, infrastructure and fixed income instruments. Headquartered in Toronto, with offices in London and Hong Kong, the CPP Investment Board is governed and managed independently of the Canada Pension Plan and at arm's length from governments. For more information about the CPP Investment Board, please visit www.cppib.ca. 

Role Summary

With assets under management projected to more than double to $250 billion by 2016, the CPP Investment Board invests one of the largest and fastest-growing single purpose pools of capital in the world. Based in Toronto — North America’s second largest financial center — the CPP Investment Board is managed independently of the Canada Pension Plan by highly skilled and experienced investment professionals from leading global organizations. 

The Global Tactical Asset Allocation (“GTAA”) group within Public Market Investments is responsible for generating excess returns by taking macroeconomic risk. It takes top-down, active positions in and between global asset classes such as equity, bonds, currencies and commodities. GTAA uses both fundamental and quantitative approaches to establish its views. It is one of the largest and fastest growing GTAA groups globally, and has recruited international talent from world class macro funds. As part of a young organization with a strong governance structure and a relatively unconstrained investment mandate, the GTAA group is able to benefit from some inherent, structural advantages. In particular we are able to take relatively long-horizon investment views and foster unique external partnerships with other world class asset managers. 

We are presently recruiting for an Associate to support the research, design and implementation of world-class active investment strategies in our rapidly expanding GTAA group. The role is focused on researching and analyzing the total portfolio and providing actionable and timely recommendations. Ideal candidates are deeply passionate about financial markets, embrace both quantitative and fundamental approaches to active management, are intellectually curious and creative, flourish in a non-hierarchical culture and conduct themselves with the highest standards of integrity. Above all, they derive the highest satisfaction from achieving excellence, continuously expanding their knowledge and skills, and by being part of a team that strives to be the best in its field.

Role-Specific Accountabilities

The candidate would be responsible to help us understand, predict and quantify asset risk and co-movements across countries, asset classes and regimes, where we view risk as far more than a covariance matrix or an empirical estimate, and should be comfortable viewing risk through either a qualitative or quantitative lens. The successful candidate will work collaboratively with a team of portfolio managers, optimization specialists and researchers in building and enhancing active investment programs covering multiple asset classes. Specific accountabilities include:

• Conduct creative and cutting-edge research on risk forecasting and risk allocation across active strategies

• Evaluate potential scenarios with the goal of increasing overall portfolio’s robustness in different regimes

• Monitor GTAA’s portfolio risk along several dimensions

• Improve GTAA’s risk-adjusted returns by recommending measures to increase portfolio diversification

• Stay abreast of relevant academic and applied research as well as general macroeconomic and market conditions.

If you possess the following, we’d like to hear from you:

• Masters or PhD degree in fields related to Finance, Economics, Operation Research, Statistics, Computer Science

• 2-7 years of relevant experience (e.g. related functions at an investment manager or at a dealer on an exotic trading desk)

• Strong working knowledge of optimization

• Demonstrated interest in financial markets; ability to interpret economic news and market conditions

• Solid knowledge of information technologies and programming languages

• Detail-oriented with ability to produce creative and realistic ideas

• Ability to work in a culture of high performance, under pressure to perform with time-sensitive deadlines

• Strong background in options pricing and stochastic calculus is considered an asset.

If you are looking for an exciting opportunity and to build a career in an innovative and dynamic investment organization, please submit your resume online at:

http://cppib.talcura.com/candidates/SearchJobResults01.aspx?en=1JobCode=Q212-613U