Keith Ambachtsheer has been a participant in the pensions and investments industry since 1969. He is recognized as one of the globe’s most original thinkers on pension design, governance, and investing issues. Since its founding in 1985, KPA Advisory Services has become known as a trusted incubator for new thinking in pensions, and for providing strategic advice to a global clientele in person, and through the monthly Ambachtsheer Letter. CEM Benchmarking Inc., co-founded by Keith in 1991, has earned a reputation as the premier benchmarking organization in the global pensions and investments industry.
Keith was named “One of the Most Influential People in Pensions” by Pensions & Investments and has received many honours and awards over the course of his professional career. He is cited regularly in the world’s leading financial publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Financial Times, and The Globe and Mail. His editorials and articles have been published in the Financial Analysts Journal, the Journal of Portfolio Management, the Rotman International Journal of Pension Management, the Journal of Investment Consulting, and other professional journals. On the advisory side, he has played major roles in shaping and reshaping
country retirement income systems [e.g., Australia, Canada, Finland, Ireland, Netherlands] and pension delivery organizations [e.g., ABP (Netherlands) , ATP (Denmark), CPP Investment Board (Canada), Ontario Teachers Pension Plan (Canada), QSuper (Australia), USS (UK), WSIB (USA)].
In addition to being closely connected to the business side of the pension and investments industry, Keith has strong ties to its related fields in academia. aiCIO named Keith one of the globe’s “10 Most Influential Academics in Institutional Investing”, and he has helped guide the discourse in the field through a variety of academic positions, including:
- Executive-in-Residence and Director Emeritus, International Centre for Pension Management (ICPM), Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto
- Founding Editor, Rotman International Journal of Pension Management
- Founding Academic Director, Rotman-ICPM Board Effectiveness Program for Pension and Other LongHorizon Investment Institutions
- Senior Fellow, National institute on Aging, Toronto Metropolitan University
His 4th book, The Future of Pension Management, offers a progress report from the field, referencing case studies from around the world. Using the discipline of integrative thinking, the book shows how today’s pension challenges are best addressed. A Chinese translation was released by China Development Press in October 2017.
He has personal governance experience as a member of a number of corporate and not-for-profit boards, and has served as Board Chair of the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation, and continues as a member of its Emeritus Council. He has been a member of the Mercer CFA Institute Global Pension Index Advisory Council, the Georgetown University Center for Retirement Initiatives Scholars Council, the Network for Sustainable Financial Markets, and the Tobacco Free Portfolios Global Advisory Council.