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BMO Executive Lesley Marks Leaving to Be Co-CIO at Mackenzie

BMO Executive Lesley Marks Leaving to Be Co-CIO at Mackenzie

Canadian asset manager Mackenzie Investments snagged Lesley Marks to help run its equities business, bringing new leadership into a company that is absorbing a number of recent acquisitions.

Marks will join the firm after more than two decades at Bank of Montreal, where she’s been chief investment officer and head of investment management for the bank’s wealth business in Canada.

BMO Executive Lesley Marks Leaving to Be Co-CIO at Mackenzie

As co-CIO at Mackenzie, Marks will head the firm’s equities boutiques, working alongside Steve Locke, who will lead the fixed-income and multi-asset strategies, Mackenzie said in a statement Tuesday. Marks is scheduled to take the new position on Jan. 25.

The appointment is part of Mackenzie’s succession plan for CIO Tony Elavia, who retired at the end of last year, and reflects the firm’s growing size and evolving structure as a manager of investment boutiques.

Mackenzie last year snapped up sustainable-investment firm Greenchip Financial Corp., multistrategy manager GLC Asset Management Group Ltd. and a non-controlling stake in private equity firm Northleaf Capital Partners Ltd.

Mackenzie, which is ultimately controlled by the Desmarais family’s Power Corp. of Canada financial conglomerate, has more than doubled its assets under management since Chief Executive Officer Barry McInerney took the helm in May 2016. The firm had C$153.3 billion ($120.2 billion) in assets under management as of Nov. 30.

“When you look at the growing size of Mackenzie and its increased complexity, I felt it was best for us to move toward a co-CIO model,” McInerney said in an interview.

In her most recent role at BMO, Marks managed more than 80 investment professionals and had overall responsibility for the bank’s private wealth investment management platforms, and led research, product, trading and investment strategy.

At Mackenzie, she’ll manage 11 of its 16 boutiques and oversee about half of its assets under management, McInerney said. Marks brings not only deep experience in running asset-management teams, but also is a well-known leader in the industry who can raise Mackenzie’s profile and help serve as its public face, alongside Locke, he said.

“She has years of leadership experience and a really strong leadership style and approach,” McInerney said. “It’s a very modern style for leading investment teams.”

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