Mark Wiseman

Wiseman is the Co-Founder and former Chairman of FCLTGlobal (formerly Focusing Capital on the Long Term), an organization that encourages longer-term approaches in business and investing, which was set up by BlackRock, CPPIB, Dow, McKinsey & Company and Tata in 2016. Wiseman was also a member of the Advisory Council on Economic Growth, which advised the Canadian Finance Minister on economic policies to achieve long-term, sustainable growth. Wiseman serves on the boards of several non-profit organizations, including Sinai Health Services in Toronto, the Capital Markets Institute and the Dean's Advisory Board at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. He is also on the Board of the United Way of Greater Toronto and of Alpine Canada. Wiseman is a certified member of the Canadian Institute of Corporate Directors. Wiseman is a regular lecturer at the Harvard Business School and an adjunct professor at Beijing's Tsinghua University.

Born in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Wiseman earned a bachelor's degree from Queen's University as well as a law degree and an MBA from the University of Toronto. He also was a Fulbright Scholar at Yale University, where he obtained a Master of Laws degree.

Wiseman with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Wiseman serves as an advisor to various organizations, most recently joining Hillhouse Capital as a part-time Senior Advisor.[2]

From 2016 to 2019, Wiseman was a Senior Managing Director at BlackRock, Global Head of Active Equities, Chairman of its alternatives business, and Chairman of BlackRock’s Global Investment Committee. He also served on BlackRock’s Global Executive Committee. On December 5, 2019, Wiseman left his position at BlackRock following a failure to report a consensual relationship with a subordinate[3] employee under his reporting line.[4] in violation of the company’s relationship at work policy.

Larry Fink, BlackRock’s founder, chairman and chief executive, issued his own memo to all employees, in which he expressed disappointment in the lapse in the upper echelons of his firm where Wiseman was a senior managing director. “This is not who BlackRock is…. We expect every employee to uphold the highest standards of behaviour,” Fink wrote in the memo, which was also signed by BlackRock president Rob Kapito.[4]

Mark Wiseman in a statement said “I am leaving BlackRock because in recent months I engaged in a consensual relationship with one of our colleagues without reporting it as required by BlackRock’s Relationships at Work Policy.”[5]

Prior to joining BlackRock in 2016, Wiseman was President & CEO of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB). Wiseman joined CPPIB in June 2005 as the organization’s Senior Vice-President, Private Investments. He was later named Executive Vice-President, Investments, responsible for managing all of the investment activities of CPPIB. He was named President & Chief Executive Officer in 2012.

Prior to joining the CPPIB, Wiseman was responsible for the private equity fund and co-investment program at the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. Previously, Wiseman was an officer with Harrowston Inc., a publicly traded Canadian merchant bank and a lawyer with Sullivan & Cromwell, practicing in New York and Paris. He also served as a law clerk to Madam Justice Beverley McLachlin at the Supreme Court of Canada.

Wiseman was a member of ACEG (the Advisory Council on Economic Growth) which advised the Canadian Finance Minister on economic policies to achieve long-term sustainable growth. ACEG called for a gradual increase in permanent immigration to Canada to 450,000 people a year.

He is co-founder and former Chair of the Focusing Capital on the Long Term initiative.

He is also a co-founder and Chair of the Century Initiative, an organization dedicated to growing Canada's population to 100 million by 2100.[6][7]

In June 2020, Wiseman was named the new chair of the Alberta Investment Management Corporation.[1]

Wiseman serves on the board of several non-profit organizations, including Alpine Canada, the United Way of Greater Toronto, Sinai Health Services, the Capital Markets Institute and the Dean’s Advisory Board at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. Wiseman is a certified member of the Canadian Institute of Corporate Directors. Previously, he chaired the United Way of Toronto’s 2015 Campaign and Youth Without Shelter and is a past Board Member of Right to Play International.

Wiseman is a frequent business media contributor, often appearing on BNN discussing markets and investing. On March 16, 2020, Wiseman published an article in the Wall Street Journal outlining why markets will eventually recover from COVID-19. [8] On April 10, 2020, Wiseman published an article in Pensions & Investments titled "Integrating ESG into investment portfolios improves performance". [9]

Mark Wiseman was ranked #2 on the Public Investor 100 of the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute in 2013.[10]

Wiseman has an interfaith relationship with a woman he met prior to 1993 on his first day at University of Toronto.[11] They eventually married[12] in 1996,[13] blending celebration of his Jewish and her Christian holidays in the raising of two sons together.[11]