Managing Director, Value Creation - Private Markets
Department: Investments
Type: Full-Time - Permanent
Location: Toronto (Hybrid)
Posting Date: September 9, 2026
At OPTrust, paying pensions today, preserving pensions for tomorrow is our mission and business.
When you choose OPTrust, you join a team of smart, talented people who fuel our success and have a passion for pensions. Everyone at OPTrust – in Toronto, London and Sydney – makes a meaningful impact. Our culture is driven by team members with different backgrounds and perspectives creating an inclusive and fulfilling place to work for everyone. We work in a fast-paced environment, but we find time to have fun and give back to the community.
What OPTrust offers you
- Unique culture rooted in our core values – collaboration and teamwork, integrity, respect, flexibility, excellence, and continuous improvement.
- A purpose-driven environment where we all work towards the common goal of paying pensions today and preserving pensions for tomorrow.
- Comprehensive benefits focused on your health and wellness, including dental, vision and extended health benefits, as well as membership in our world-class defined benefit pension plan.
- A flexible, hybrid work model.
- A dedicated inclusion, diversity, and equity strategy with meaningful opportunities to participate, including our employee-led resource groups.
- Extensive professional development opportunities and learning initiatives including access to LinkedIn Learning, guest speakers, tuition reimbursement, professional association memberships, leadership development programs, a mentorship program, monthly professional development time and more.
- A competitive vacation package with additional work-life balance days.
About OPTrust
With net assets of over $27 billion, OPTrust invests and manages one of Canada’s largest pension funds and administers the OPSEU Pension Plan (including OPTrust Select), a defined benefit plan with over 118,000 members.
OPTrust’s Private Markets team is a dedicated business unit within the Investment Division of OPTrust that invests and manages private markets investments, primarily focused on infrastructure, private equity, and real estate, on behalf of the Fund. We execute our member-driven investment strategy with our unique application of a total portfolio approach and a “One Team, One Fund” mindset and culture. From our offices in Toronto, London, and Sydney, the team manages a diversified $13.5 billion global portfolio of private market investments across asset classes, sectors, strategies and geographies. We invest through a combination of fund commitments, co-investments, and direct investments.
About the role
OPTrust is seeking a Managing Director, Value Creation to join the Private Markets team in the Toronto office at an exciting stage of formalizing our internal strategic value creation capabilities, helping to drive growth and operational excellence across our global portfolio. Reporting to the Senior Executive Managing Director and Global Head of Private Markets (“SEMD Private Markets”), the Managing Director, Value Creation will lead the build out of our newly established value creation function within the Private Markets team.
The Managing Director, Value Creation will lead a team that will partner with deal teams, portfolio company leadership teams, boards, partners, and functional experts and advisors to establish and deliver strategic and operational value creation initiatives across our global portfolio, delivering quantifiable results that enhance OPTrust’s long-term investment performance.
The Managing Director, Value Creation and the Value Creation team will partner with deal teams through the investment lifecycle, from the due diligence, underwriting and investment decision-making stage through onboarding, asset management and exit, to identify, prioritize and execute opportunities that will deliver positive change and measurable value in our direct investments where we take an active ownership position, while providing influence in co-investment situations where we have a strong governance role.
Additionally, this role will oversee the creation and implementation of playbooks that serve as strategic frameworks to optimize financial performance, operational efficiency, governance excellence, and overall value creation at the portfolio company-level. The Managing Director, Value Creation will also oversee the design and implementation of internal operating infrastructure and best practices through standardized value creation processes, workflows, policies, and procedures across Private Markets.
What you will do
- Lead the value creation agenda across our global Private Markets portfolio which includes building a value creation framework, identifying, prioritizing, and delivering value creation capabilities across the investment lifecycle of our direct investment portfolio, influencing the development of investment theses and investment decisions, and acting as a key partner to investment teams, boards and management teams.
- Build and lead the newly formed value creation team, including dedicated data/artificial intelligence and responsible investing focused resources, establishing the operating model, the execution strategy, and developing and tracking success metrics.
- Oversee the development and deployment of value creation playbooks that provide a systematic approach to identifying, prioritizing, and delivering repeatable business improvements and governance best practices, both at the portfolio company level and internally within our Private Markets business practices.
- Partner with investment teams during underwriting due diligence to identify, analyze, and quantify actionable growth and operational improvement opportunities, which strengthen and support the investment thesis, help support and inform investment decision making with credible action plans at the Investment Committee level, provide investment support, and establish and action post-acquisition priorities.
- Develop and lead onboarding and ownership plans for new OPTrust Private Markets direct investments, including establishing robust governance structures, completing post-closing items, developing 100-day plans, and longer-term value creation plans aligned with the investment thesis, leveraging financial analysis and benchmarking, advanced analytics, and AI-enabled tools and processes where relevant.
- Guide and oversee transformation projects that deliver quantifiable portfolio company impact where we are in a direct and control position, enhancing exit readiness and supporting value realization in line with the investment thesis.
- Develop and maintain a value creation dashboard that tracks, measures, and reports quantifiable portfolio company performance outcomes delivered against the investment thesis and value creation goals.
- Partner with investment teams and portfolio company leadership to strengthen management and organizational capabilities that will enable the implementation of our value creation plans, including assessing executive talent, supporting CEO succession and recruiting leadership talent as appropriate.
- Scope and oversee project work led by third-party advisors in support of portfolio company operations and value creation plans, including identification of potential advisory partners or C-level executives for commercial and operational diligence and/or operating expertise, as well as non-executive Director roles within our portfolio.
- Serve as a trusted senior advisor to our portfolio company CEOs and boards where we are in control positions and have an active ownership role, guiding them through complex change initiatives; assume Board of Director positions from time to time, as relevant.
- Develop processes and frameworks to support value-add monitoring of the Private Markets portfolio, including tracking and reporting on value creation progress and achievement metrics, ensuring transparency and accountability for results.
- Act as a key contributor and investment decision-making member of the Private Markets Investment Committee and other senior level Investment Division committees.
- Build a high-performing team through coaching, mentoring, training, and professional development.
- Collaborate with senior leaders across Private Markets, the Investment Division and broader OPTrust organization in support of our “One Team, One Fund” culture to meet our strategic objectives.
What we offer
- A collaborative, mission-driven culture that values integrity, innovation, entrepreneurial-spirit, and impact.
- Competitive compensation package, including performance-based incentives.
- Comprehensive health, wellness, and retirement benefits.
- Annual professional development allowance and access to global thought leadership forums.
- The chance to work with world-class investment and operational talent in a high-trust, high-impact environment.
What you bring
- 15+ years’ experience in private markets value creation, management consulting and/or senior operational leadership within relevant organizations, with experience working with, or alongside, private markets investment teams.
- Graduate degree, or equivalent experience, in economics, finance, or a related field preferred
- Ability to work across three distinct asset classes (private equity, infrastructure, and real estate), spanning a variety of industries and investment structures, each with different characteristics and value drivers, to drive change.
- Proven track record of delivering transformational results from complex strategic and/or operational value creation initiatives in portfolio companies or corporate environments, through the development and implementation of value creation plans across the investment lifecycle, with a demonstrated track record of identifying and achieving measurable financial and operational impact.
- Value creation leadership experience across multiple domains, with deep expertise in at least one, and optimally more than one, operational domain—such as digital transformation, commercial growth, operational efficiency, or organizational design.
- Significant experience in deal and investment environments, including mergers and acquisitions, commercial and operational due diligence, investment decision-making, onboarding and through-lifecycle hands-on investment support.
- Exceptional stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence and effect positive change across board, C-suite, and senior management levels; experience driving key priorities by building trusted stakeholder relationships.
- Effective communication skills.
- A global portfolio value creation mindset and the ability to navigate diverse industries, geographies, cultures, and market conditions, with the ability to adapt value creation approaches across asset classes.
- Strong commercial and financial acumen, with the ability to translate data into actionable strategies, serving as a bridge between board / shareholder initiatives and portfolio company execution.
- Critical thinking and strategic problem-solving skills with a practical bias to drive impact, including the ability to identify and prioritize high impact, high-priority initiatives and allocate resources accordingly.
- Experience and judgement making sound investment decisions, supported by data-driven analysis.
- Experience building and leading high-performing teams and/or establishing new capabilities, with the ability to develop operating models, methodologies, tools, and scalable best practices.
- A collaborative approach to effectively work alongside deal teams, investment partners, management teams, and internal functional business partners.
- Ability and willingness to travel as required.
- Exemplify OPTrust values: collaboration and teamwork, integrity, respect, flexibility, excellence, and continuous improvement.
This posting is for an existing vacancy.
Please submit your application via Workday by October 14, 2026.
Serving a membership as diverse as ours and investing in a global market means cultivating an environment that embraces inclusion, diversity, and equity in everything we do. OPTrust is an organization engaged in building on our unique and diverse strengths. We know a diversity of backgrounds, cultures, gender identities and perspectives are critical to achieving our shared goals.
If you require accommodation at any time during the recruitment process, please send a message to careers@optrust.com, or discuss your needs with the Talent Acquisition Consultant during the telephone screening. We will do our best to work with you and provide appropriate accommodation.
As an organization we’re seeking ways to respond to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Call to Action 92. We are working with the Canadian Council for Indigenous Business to build bridges with Indigenous communities and partners, and we have created an employee-led Reconciliation Working Group that will work with Indigenous experts to identify a path to reconciliation for our organization.
We thank all interested applicants, however only those under consideration will be contacted.
