Canadian institutional investors ask fundamentally different questions today than they did five years ago. As pension plans mature and portfolios expand beyond traditional public markets, conversations have shifted from manager selection to solving complex long-term challenges spanning retirement outcomes, glide path design, governance, and private markets. Deliberate investment in specialist expertise across those areas is how Fidelity Canada Institutional positions itself to meet that demand.
Tracey Wong, vice president of institutional sales and service at Fidelity Investments Canada ULC, has shaped the firm's institutional strategy over nearly three decades. She has built a team with complementary expertise spanning retirement solutions and private markets. "Building a strong institutional business is about having the right expertise in the right places, but also making sure everyone is working toward the same objective: understanding our clients and helping them navigate an increasingly complex market," Wong says. The scope of that complexity is visible in portfolio construction. Across some Canadian plans, alternative allocations have grown from around three percent to as high as 45 percent. That shift demands specialists who can speak to both the liability side and the asset side of the equation.
Wong's message on target date strategies is direct. "There are many grey areas," she says. "We're solving for the same problem, but we're getting to it very differently." The industry often treats target date funds as comparable when the design decisions underneath them differ materially. Fund structures, glide path assumptions, and equity allocations at the retirement date all vary. Wong frames the fiduciary question precisely: "Do you want your employees to not outlive their savings? Work the math backwards. Then ask how the shape of your glide path needs to look to achieve that." For plan sponsors, selecting a fund on fees or past returns alone misses the structural differences that determine member outcomes over decades.
Stéphanie Mariamo, vice president of institutional business development at Fidelity Investments Canada ULC, came from an actuarial background in defined benefit work before moving to DC and Capital Accumulation Plans. She argues the industry's dominant risk framework is too narrow. "Is the real risk a market downturn at the moment an employee retires? Or is it the far greater risk of outliving their savings altogether?" she asks.
Mariamo argues that effective glide path design is not about de-risking early. Managing risk with intention is the goal. The distinction between "to" and "through" glide paths is critical: a well-designed "through" glide path sustains growth potential and helps members stay invested through periods of market stress. Canadians face longer horizons and more flexible retirement paths, and an age-appropriate approach can materially improve retirement income outcomes. "If the goal is to help employees avoid outliving their retirement savings and better achieve retirement outcomes, that's where the conversation should start," Mariamo says. "Begin with the outcome you're trying to solve for and work backwards from there." Glide path design, on that view, is a statement of what a plan sponsor believes about member longevity.
Charissa Lai, director of institutional private markets at Fidelity Investments Canada ULC, began her career in investment banking at Morgan Stanley in South Africa and the UK, then invested across private markets at CPP Investments. Her view on the public-versus-private debate is unambiguous. "We're seeing a critical shift in how institutions evaluate their private asset programs," Lai says. "The market is asking whether private markets still offer value when public indices have outperformed. The more important question is how private markets contribute to the overall portfolio and whether investors can maintain conviction when sentiment turns against the asset class." In her experience, investors often become most cautious precisely when maintaining exposure matters most to long-term portfolio outcomes.
Lai has observed that sentiment and investment opportunity do not move together. History bears this out. In the years before the Global Financial Crisis, capital was abundant and deal competition was intense. After the crisis, many investors hesitated to commit capital. Yet, according to Preqin's July 2025 report on vintage diversification, many vintages raised between 2009 and 2011 proved to be among the strongest performers in private equity. "Most investors understand the concept of vintage diversification," Lai says. "The challenge is maintaining that discipline when conditions become uncomfortable." Pacing programs and governance structures, she argues, keep investors committed to long-term plans through periods of uncertainty. The lesson from post-crisis vintages is that the most attractive entry points rarely feel comfortable at the time.
Lai sees the continued stratification of private markets as one of the defining challenges facing institutional investors today. Specialisation is accelerating. "In the past, institutions focused primarily on broad asset-class strategies," she says. "Today, the opportunity set is far more specialized." Within private markets, investors now evaluate primary funds, co-investments, secondaries, and a range of private credit strategies. The secondaries market alone spans private equity, venture capital, and private credit, including both LP-led and GP-led transactions, each with distinct portfolio construction characteristics. "The future belongs to institutions that understand where within an increasingly stratified opportunity set they want to take risk, and have the governance and discipline to deploy capital consistently across market cycles," Lai says. Further analysis on these themes is available through premium institutional reports.