PSP Investments CIO van Gelderen Set to Depart

Eduard van Gelderen

Eduard van Gelderen, senior vice president and CIO of the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, will depart the fund after six years, the Canadian pension fund announced Wednesday.

van Gelderen’s official departure from PSP Investments will come on October 1, although he will step aside immediately from his day-to-day duties.

In the interim, Alexandre Roy, the senior managing director of PSP’s total fund management team, will take over van Gelderen’s responsibilities at the C$264.9 billion ($194.78 billion) pension fund.

In a letter to colleagues seen by CIO, van Gelderen told PSP staff that over the next few weeks he would be supporting his wife with a newborn child, as well as finishing his PhD thesis.

Van Gelderen joined PSP Investments in 2018. Previously, he was a senior managing director at the University of California’s investment office between 2017 and 2018. From 2014 to 2017, he was CEO of APG Asset Management, the asset management arm of Dutch pension fund ABP. He was previously CIO of capital markets at APG.

Van Gelderen is also chair of the Alternative Investment Management Association’s Global Investor Board. He was a member of CIO’s Power 100 List in 2016.

For more stories like this, sign up for the CIO Alert newsletter. 

“I want to express my sincere gratitude to Eduard for his significant contributions to PSP over the years,” said Deborah K. Orida, president and CEO of PSP Investments, in a statement. “Eduard’s commitment to building diverse and inclusive teams has made us a stronger organization. His sponsorship and support of PSP’s anti-racism, culture, and religion affinity group will leave a lasting legacy. His contributions have been instrumental in our growth, and we wish him the very best in his future endeavors.”

PSP Investments, one of the largest pension funds in Canada, manages the investments for federal public service employees in Canada, as well as members of the Canadian armed forces, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Reserve Force. The fund has one- and five-year net annualized returns of 7.2% and 7.9%, respectively.

The fund has seen other recent high-profile departures. Earlier this month, Jean-François Bureau, chief financial and risk officer at PSP Investments, announced his retirement from the fund, effective December 31.