Fiera Capital names new head of Canada as CEO succession race heats up

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The race to replace Jean-Guy Desjardins at Fiera Capital Corp. FSZ-T resumed Monday with the hiring of veteran money manager Maxime Ménard as chief executive officer of Fiera Canada.

Mr. Ménard’s appointment, which is effective immediately, comes almost exactly one year after Mr. Desjardins made a surprise return to the CEO role of the company he founded in 2003. Mr. Desjardins first relinquished the position in early 2022 to Jean-Philippe Lemay – his hand-picked successor who had spent a decade being groomed for the role – only to retake the job in January, 2023, after Mr. Lemay left Feira under circumstances that remain unclear.

While Mr. Desjardins, 79, will remain global CEO and chair of the Montreal-based company’s board of directors, he said in an interview that Mr. Ménard “will obviously be one of my potential successors.” The Canadian division Mr. Ménard has been tapped to lead represents roughly 65 per cent of Fiera’s business.

“The board has been asking me over the last year for a succession plan and it is very clear that Maxime is a serious, high-profile candidate as one of the potential candidates within the organization to eventually take over the global CEO position,” Mr. Desjardins said.

“Obviously there is a timeline, and it is not 10 years and it is not five years and I’ll leave it at that. But I can tell you that I have a number of anxious and ambitious professionals on my leadership team, who are all very respectful and polite, but I am intelligent enough to know better.”

Mr. Ménard has spent the past 20 years of his career at investment manager Jarislowsky Fraser, eventually becoming chief executive in September, 2018. Bank of Nova Scotia acquired the firm earlier that year in a $950-million stock-based deal.

“I have learned to appreciate working with founders over the years, having worked with Stephen Jarislowsky for over 20 years,” Mr. Ménard said in an interview.

After Jarislowsky Fraser was sold to Scotiabank, “I had, to use the expression, a ‘mission accomplished’” feeling, he said. “I was starting to look for different sets of opportunities during the summer where I could possibly go back to something more entrepreneurial with a founder-led organization. Then Jean-Guy and I started to talk and I made the decision.”

Despite holding the most senior executive position at Fiera under Mr. Desjardins, Mr. Ménard is not the heir-apparent. Mr. Desjardins made a point of naming several other internal candidates that he considers possibilities for his eventual replacement.

Potential successors he singled out by name in the interview included Klaus Schuster, who was hired in May, 2023, as CEO of Fiera’s Europe, Middle East and Africa division; Eric Roberts, who has only been with Fiera for six weeks as CEO of its United States business; John Valentini, CEO of Fiera Private Markets; Jean Michel, president and chief investment officer of Fiera Public Markets; and Lucas Pontillo, the company’s global chief financial officer.

Asked whether he saw the Canadian CEO position as a stepping stone to the top job, Mr. Ménard said he does not want to presume that “is the only reason” for joining Fiera. The Canadian CEO role “will come with a number of opportunities and challenges that I am super happy and excited to contribute towards.”

Mr. Desjardins, however, made it clear what is expected of Mr. Ménard if he is to be considered first in the line of succession.

“We are not getting the market share that we should be getting in the Canadian marketplace,” Mr. Desjardins said, and increasing that market share will be “one of Maxime’s primary challenges.”

“We should have a much stronger presence and a bigger market share, especially in the private market side of the business, than we have right now,” he said.

Fund outflows have beset Fiera over the past two years, with the amount of money withdrawn by investors having regularly exceeded any new investments its funds have been able to attract. As of Sept. 30, 2022, Fiera had $158.3-billion in assets under management. One year later, owing to a combination of market volatility and net redemptions, that figure sat $3-billion lower, at $155.3-billion.

Fiera’s TSX-listed stock has fallen nearly 30 per cent over the past 12 months, from $8.87 per share on Jan 9, 2023 to $6.28 per share as of Friday’s close. Many of the company’s challenges can be traced to August, 2021, when top portfolio manager Nadim Rizk left to start StonePine Asset Management Inc., although Mr. Desjardins is confident Mr. Ménard is capable of turning things around.

“Now we have a highly capable, proven and experienced leader who will be focusing on making sure that our position in the Canadian market is where it should be,” he said.