{"id":17259,"date":"2019-10-21T09:22:34","date_gmt":"2019-10-21T13:22:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.benefitscanada.com\/news\/getting-to-know-optrusts-new-president-and-ceo-peter-lindley-137679"},"modified":"2019-10-21T09:22:34","modified_gmt":"2019-10-21T13:22:34","slug":"getting-to-know-optrusts-new-president-and-ceo-peter-lindley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/2019\/10\/21\/getting-to-know-optrusts-new-president-and-ceo-peter-lindley\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting to know OPTrust\u2019s new president and CEO Peter Lindley"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Yaelle Gang, the Canadian Investment Review<\/span> | October 21, 2019 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s been one month since Peter Lindley, the OPSEU Pension Trust\u2019s new president and chief executive officer, started the role.<\/p>\n

With an engineering degree and a more than 30-year career in finance under his belt, Lindley\u2019s most recent role was president and head of investments at State Street Global Advisors. \u201cWhen I went to work at State Street I got to work with investors, mostly pension plans, and providing them with investment advice was something I found a lot of personal satisfaction in,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The work led Lindley to eventually move to the asset-owner side of the industry. \u201cI felt the next step in my career would be to join an asset owner and, as luck would have it, at the right time this opportunity came up and I was just really excited about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read: OPTrust Select welcomes first members<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the reasons he was attracted to the OPTrust was its leadership in the responsible investment space, he says, noting this topic is very dear to his heart. \u201cI\u2019ve seen [it go] from something in the wilderness to being very mainstream today. So I was really pleased to see responsible investing being so important here as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lindley says he was also attracted to the plan because of its size and the fact it serves 95,000 members, yet it\u2019s still small enough to be nimble and has a culture of innovation.<\/p>\n

Speaking of priorities going forward, Lindley wants to maintain the stability and momentum at the OPTrust. \u201cBut there are a lot of challenges out there, whether it\u2019s short-term volatility in the markets or longer-term challenges from the investment point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among these challenges, Lindley cites the lack of clarity around policy, political issues and trade wars. \u201cI think there\u2019s a lot of short-term volatility. But our investment approach really, I think, can manage the short-term volatility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read: OPTrust launches online pension portal for members<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

For a longer-term organization like the OPTrust, the longer-term return expectations and low long-term interest rates are the main challenges, he says, noting this means the present value of liabilities is higher and it\u2019s more difficult to hit return targets. \u201cYou\u2019re very much more reliant on other markets, so it\u2019s important to be well-diversified.\u201d<\/p>\n

That said, the OPTrust is well-funded, he adds. And there can be opportunity in volatility, too.<\/p>\n

As a leader, Lindley describes his values as respect, integrity and teamwork. \u201cI don\u2019t believe in the star system really, I think the team can be better than the sum of the parts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The best piece of advice he\u2019s ever received, he adds, is that companies should be as loyal to their employees as they expect their employees be to them. \u201cWe are in a resource business and our No. 1 resource is our people.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on <\/em>Benefits Canada\u2018s companion site, the <\/em>Canadian Investment Review<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read: OPTrust highlights climate change, gender diversity in report<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Read the full article at BenefitsCanada.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yaelle Gang, the Canadian Investment Review | October 21, 2019 It\u2019s been one month since Peter Lindley, the OPSEU Pension Trust\u2019s new president and chief executive officer, started the role. With an engineering degree and a...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17259"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}