OMERS Selects Infrastructure Veteran as New Chief Pension Officer

Annesley Wallace

The Ontario Municipal Employees’ Retirement System (OMERS) has selected Annesley Wallace to serve as the fund’s new chief pension officer, replacing Blake Hutcheson, who recently left the position to become CEO.

The system named Wallace to the position on Tuesday, the Globe and Mail reported, after she served as senior vice president of pension services and communications for nearly two years.

OMERS announced Hutcheson’s appointment last month. He succeeds Michael Latimer, who had a two-decade run at the organization, serving six of them as CEO. He will formally step down from his position and retire on May 31.

Wallace previously served as managing director of infrastructure at OMERS between 2016 – 2018, and served as vice president of OMERS Infrastructure (called Borealis Infrastructure at the time) for nearly four years before that. She currently sits on the board of directors at Infrastructure Ontario, Alectra, and Bruce Power.

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As senior vice president, Wallace oversaw a transformational modernization of the pension’s IT services, intended to improve the administration of the pension plan. She also led a team that provides services to OMERS’ 500,000 pension plan members and 1,000 employers across Ontario to increase member and employer engagement and satisfaction.

Latimer, whose departure brought about the flurry of promotions within the firm, said in a statement, “As the outgoing CEO, I would like to thank each and every employee of OMERS, past and present, for their contributions to our significant growth over these years. I would also like to thank our Board of Directors for their support. Without both, achieving our goals would not have been possible.”

Under Latimer’s leadership, OMERS’s assets have grown from $65 billion to over $100 billion, with a consistent generation of 8% in annual net returns, improving the plan’s position to near full funding.