Principal, Private Markets

Principal, Private Markets (Private Equity & Infrastructure)

Department: Investments

Type: 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.
• Membership in our world-class defined benefit pension plan
• Comprehensive benefits focused on your health and wellness, including dental, vision and extended health benefits, as well as opportunities for parental and adoption leaves.
• Flexible, hybrid work model.
• Competitive vacation package with additional work-life balance days.
• 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.
• Dedicated inclusion, diversity and equity strategy with meaningful opportunities to participate, including our employee-led resource groups.

About OPTrust Private Markets Team

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 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.

Why join the Private Markets Team?

• Differentiated private markets team with a strong investment track record.
• Unique opportunity to invest across the risk-return spectrum and gain experience across a diverse set of transaction types/structures.
• Opportunity to have an immediate impact with runway for professional growth.
• Flexible investment mandate with substantial group autonomy and authority.
• Team-oriented environment with significant tenure across senior ranks.
• Opportunity to collaborate, liaise, and leverage best practices with other private markets investment professionals, including colleagues focused on real estate and sustainability investments.

About the Role

OPTrust is seeking a Principal candidate to be based in the Toronto Office. This Principal will play a key role in the Private Markets Team focused on Private Equity and Infrastructure portfolio investments. Reporting to a Director, the Principal will provide high-quality analysis, reporting, research and investment opinions relating to new investment opportunities and existing portfolio investments managed out of the Toronto office, as well as providing support and collaborating more broadly with the Private Markets Team, including the teams in the London and Sydney offices.

The Principal will participate in all aspects of investment underwriting, conducting detailed due diligence, leading financial analysis, as well as drafting and presenting investment recommendations to the investment committee. The Principal will also actively participate in portfolio and asset management activities, including the preparation of reporting materials.

Investment Selection and Due Diligence:

• Identify investment opportunities, working collaboratively with other investment professionals in the Private Markets Team.
• Perform detailed due diligence in evaluating investment opportunities, including industry assessment, the preparation of detailed financial models and returns analysis and reviewing third party due diligence materials and reports.
• Assist in the evaluation, structuring and negotiation of investment opportunities.
• Prepare investment approval documents and actively participate in the investment decision-making process, including investment committee meetings.
• Liaise with key counterparties including advisers, lenders, and corporate representatives.
• Represent the Private Markets Team in meetings with management teams, investment partners and external advisors.

Portfolio Management:

• Support existing investments, including the on-going management and monitoring of financial and operating performance, assisting with portfolio operating and strategic initiatives as required, preparing various internal and external documentation related to portfolio investments, including valuations, approvals and consents.
• Identify and monitor new trends relevant to the existing Private Markets Team investment portfolio.
• Act as key relationship contact with relevant counterparts at external investment partners and management teams.

What You Bring

• Two to four years of relevant experience, with strong technical grounding with advanced financial modelling skills and ideally, experience of working on private equity or infrastructure transactions
• Successful candidates will likely have an advisory background from a leading investment bank or, principal experience possibly, from a private equity or infrastructure fund or other financial sponsors
• Undergraduate degree required in business, finance, mathematics, economics, or engineering, with additional certifications valued but not required (CFA, CPA, etc.)
• Demonstrated experience of applied investment and valuation analysis
• Self-starter, team-oriented, excellent attention to detail, intellectual curiosity, highly numerate with genuine motivation and drive to learn the business
• Proven ability to multi-task, manage timelines and perform in a high-expectation, unstructured environment
• Effective oral and written communication and presentation skills required
• Ability to build and maintain relationships
• Proficient with Microsoft Office and knowledgeable in systems implementation
• Availability for extensive travel is required
• Exemplify OPTrust’s 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 26, 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.