2026 Canadian Institutional Investor Forum

Jane Buchan

SBAI Chair; CEO, Martlet Asset Management

Jane is Chief Executive Officer of Martlet Asset Management responsible for firm strategy, organization and performance. Martlet is based in Newport Beach, CA and was founded in July 2018. The firm’s strategies include alternative risk premia and developing liquid strategies with a focus on fixed income.

Prior to this, Ms. Buchan co-founded and led Pacific Alternative Asset Management Company (PAAMCO), a Fund of Hedge Funds focused on institutional investors for 18 years. Under her leadership first as CEO of PAAMCO and then co-CEO of PAAMCO Prisma, the firm grew to $32 billion AUM placing it third globally in the league tables by the time of her retirement in July 2018 (HFM InvestHedge Billion Dollar Club).

Jane began her career at J.P. Morgan Investment Management in the Capital Markets Group where she was trained in quantitative fixed income portfolio management. She has been an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. She recently served as chairwoman of the board for the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst Association (CAIA) and is a member of the Advisory Board for the Master of Financial Engineering Program at UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Jane holds both a PhD and an MA in Business Economics (Finance) from Harvard University. She earned a BA in Economics from Yale University. Jane has thirty-three years of experience in investment management and portfolio construction with institutional investors.

Mario Therrien

SBAI Trustee; Head of Investment Funds and External Management, La Caisse

Mario Therrien leads CDPQ’s investment funds activities. The teams he oversees invest in private investment funds and credit in private markets, as well as in venture capital in Québec and internationally. They are also responsible for external management in equity markets, as well as developing and managing strategic and institutional relationships. His mandate consists of adding value by building portfolios with the best external managers, while improving in-house management through the sharing of knowledge and expertise. He sits on the Investment-Risk Committee.

Prior to this role, Mr. Therrien was Senior Vice-President and Head of Strategic Partnerships, Developed Markets. He joined CDPQ in 1993 as an Analyst before taking on the role of Portfolio Manager in the group responsible for absolute return activities. Subsequently, he was mandated to develop external management activities in liquid-asset classes.

He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and a Master’s degree in Finance from Université de Sherbrooke. He has also completed the Canadian Securities Course given by the Canadian Securities Institute, and is a CFA charter holder.

Brian Digney

Research and Content Director, SBAI

Brian Digney joined the SBAI in March 2023 in the role of Research and Content Director. He is responsible for content development and co-ordination of the ongoing and future working groups on a wide variety of topics, including valuation of private assets, ESG & carbon footprinting, governance, insurance linked strategies, digital assets, asset management regulation and compliance as well as new topics to be determined in the future.

Prior to joining the SBAI, Brian was the Head of Due Diligence & Governance Oversight at Innocap Global Investment Management (Ireland) Ltd (2018-2023) in Dublin, a subsidiary of Innocap Investment Management Inc., a US$50bn hedge fund platform. He acted as Designated Person for Operational Risk Management, a regulated role by the Central Bank of Ireland. He also sat on Innocap’s Irish Risk Oversight and Valuation Committees. In 2017, Brian joined Albourne Partners in London as a Senior Operational Due Diligence Analyst. From 2015 to 2017 he was employed as an Operational Due Diligence Analyst at Mercer Sentinel in London. From 2010 to 2015 he held various Associate level roles at Decura LLP, Morgan Stanley and Citi.

Brian holds an LLB Hons in Law with Criminology and an M.Sc. in Management and Corporate Governance from University of Ulster. Brian is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst.

Randy Cohen

Professor of Economics, Harvard Business School

Randolph B. (Randy) Cohen is the MBA Class of 1975 Senior Lecturer of Entrepreneurial Management at Harvard Business School where he teaches finance and entrepreneurship. In addition, he created the Alternative Investments course for Harvard Business School Online. Cohen’s main research interests are the identification and selection of money managers who are most likely to outperform, as well as asset allocation, risk management, and anything else related to building great investment portfolios.

In addition to his academic work, Cohen has helped to start and grow a number of businesses, mostly but not exclusively in the area of investment management and has served as a consultant to many other companies. He is co-founder of PEO Partners, an asset-management firm which specializes in liquid private equity, a research interest of his for over 20 years. Cohen serves on the Board of the Massachusetts Association for the Blind and helped launch ExSight Ventures, a small VC specializing in therapies for vision loss. His podcast, Dangerous Vision, in which he interviews fascinating people who have some connection to blindness, is available on iTunes and all other major platforms.

Cohen holds an AB in mathematics from Harvard College and a PhD in finance and Economics from the University of Chicago.

Daniel Garant

Executive Vice President & Global Head, Capital Markets & Credit Investments , British Columbia Investments (BCI)

Daniel Garant joined BCI in September 2017. He is responsible for managing a diverse, global portfolio of investments, which combines index and active management strategies in equities, fixed income, derivatives, currencies, credit, and absolute return strategies that integrates environmental, social, and governance factors into investment analysis and decision-making. With $313.7 billion of managed assets as of March 31, 2026, BCI is one of Canada’s largest institutional investors within the global capital markets.

Daniel has over 30 years of experience in the investment management industry. Before joining BCI, he was the Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer at the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSPIB) for two years. Prior to that, he served as their Senior Vice President, Public Markets Investments from 2008–2015. In previous years, Daniel held several business development and portfolio management positions, each with increasing responsibility, at Hydro-Québec. He was their Executive Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer, as well as the Chief Executive Officer of Hydro-Québec International.

Daniel holds a Bachelor of Arts in finance from Université Laval, Quebec and is a CFA® charterholder. He has served as a Director on the boards of both public and private companies.