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the lunch

Illustration of Mark Wiseman, chief executive officer, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.ANTHONY JENKINS/The Globe and Mail

Mark Wiseman is such a familiar sight to the staff of La Bettola Di Terroni that no one bats an eye as he leads me through a back corridor and a bustling kitchen on the way to our table for two.

So when he wrinkles his nose after I order and advises against the Nizzarda salad I've chosen – a medley of arugula, potatoes, egg, olives, anchovies and tuna – I assume it's because he's drawing on that same familiarity.

But that's not it. "Is it because tuna smells?" I ask. "Yeah," he replies.

When it comes to his restaurants (he comes here several times a week), his order (always the Caprese salad and a San Giorgio pizza) and his shoes (he is on his seventh straight pair of plain black Magnannis), Mr. Wiseman is nothing if not a creature of habit.

If that unwillingness to stray from routine seems boring, consider that it is a trait shared by many top decision makers who feel they simply can't be bothered to sweat the small stuff: U.S. President Barack Obama is said to wear only blue or grey suits to avoid having to waste precious minutes fretting over fashion. And billionaire Warren Buffett didn't become one of the world's most successful investors by taking chances on his menu choices or where to hang his hat at night: The man who once said he could happily eat a ham sandwich 50 days in a row still lives in the same house he moved into in 1958.

For Mr. Wiseman, that sense of routine allows him to focus on a job that needs his undivided attention more than ever. "It's a great job, and you can be a nerd."

His role as caretaker of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board's $170-billion fund might not put him in the same rarified league as Mr. Obama or the Oracle of Omaha. But try telling that to the 18 million people across the country who are trusting him with the investment of their retirement funds.

At 42, Mr. Wiseman is a young leader for a relatively young institution. The CPPIB was created in 1997 by then-finance minister Paul Martin to manage the investments of the Canada Pension Plan, to which almost every working Canadian contributes. And compared with other public pension plans, it is just a baby – by current estimates, it still has nine years before any investment income will be needed to help pay pensions. For now, contributions are enough to cover that.

But that is not to say his challenges are made easier because of it: Mr. Wiseman, who took over the job last July from David Denison, must shape the investment strategy of a rapidly growing organization, while ensuring it earns solid returns without putting the retirement income of millions of Canadians at risk.

Some worry the organization might be growing too fast. As Jim Leech, head of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and a former boss of Mr. Wiseman puts it: "It is growing so quickly that the systems you put in place last year may not be adequate this year."

Mr. Wiseman is aware of those concerns, but his vision of the CPPIB is an unwavering one: He wants the fund to be a global investment organization, not just a Canadian one that invests abroad. "We're still a long way from getting to where we need to be; it will be incremental," he says.

But a big vision requires even closer attention to detail: CPPIB just instituted a new rule that when a deal happens thanks to the people in one of its international offices – London or Hong Kong – the teleconferences the investment committee holds about that deal will be based on that office's time zone. "Instead of making the folks in Hong Kong be at the office until midnight or 2 in the morning, we're running our investment committee meetings at 9 p.m. Toronto time."

Time can be an abstract concept, of course, to someone who spends a lot of his life in the air. Mr. Wiseman, who has a collection of Asian cufflinks, travels to the region frequently and is on very close terms with some of the most powerful investors from China to Singapore.

He finds himself a lot in these emerging markets, which account for only about 8 per cent of the CPPIB's assets at the moment. But he wants to ensure he's investing in the countries whose growth will be the strongest decades from now. Given the global strategy, and the output of the London and Hong Kong offices, the CPPIB is likely to open more global offices before long, at least one of which will undoubtedly be in an emerging market.

"It's fairly clear that the weight of the global economy is shifting and, as an organization, if you think 25, 50, 75 years out, we can start preparing by building our capabilities in those regions," he says.

A December deal to buy a shopping mall in Sweden came just a month after acquiring a portfolio of five development projects in Brazil. And to say the focus of the once-staid fund has grown wider – dare say, more exciting – would be an understatement. A month before the first of those real estate deals, the CPPIB announced it had acquired a major stake in Dorna, a Madrid-based marketer of motorbike racing, and made a loan to Formula One Group, the company behind F1 auto racing.

All that excitement is enough to build a healthy appetite. Mr . Wiseman tucks into his pizza, without leaving a crumb behind – something that surprises me given that he has lost more than 65 pounds recently. His secret? At least 30 minutes on an elliptical machine every day.

Growing up, Mr. Wiseman thought he was going to be a professor or a lawyer. After receiving his masters in law at Yale University, he went to work as a mergers-and-acquisitions lawyer with Sullivan &Cromwell, a high-powered shop catering to blue-chip clients. He worked in New York and Paris before he and his long-time partner Marcia Moffat, who also worked as a lawyer at the time, had a desire to return to Toronto and settle down near their parents. Mr. Wiseman took a job with Harrowston Inc., a merchant bank founded by Brent Belzberg that was bought out by Toronto-Dominion Bank's private equity group in 2001.

With the bank taking over, Mr. Wiseman decided it was a good time to leave the company and look for a new challenge. But for a while, it seemed as if he'd plunged from high-powered New York City player to unemployed lawyer in Toronto. That's because he gave his notice just days before Sept. 11, 2001.

"During my two-week notice period, 9/11 happened and the world turned on its head. Nobody was returning my calls, no one was hiring."

As it happens, that was the same month Jim Leech started as CEO of Teachers, and he was looking to build a private equity group within it. A headhunter suggested Mr. Wiseman and the two men met for breakfast at the National Club in the heart of Toronto's financial district. It took Mr. Wiseman some time to come around to the fact that working for Teachers did not mean working for a government or union.

More than a decade later, the two men talk regularly and go on an annual ski trip with Mr. Belzberg. "I seem to sort of collect ex-bosses," Mr. Wiseman says. "Basically I call them the two old guys, and I have to sit between them in a chair lift and listen to them complain about their aches and pains and tell war stories."

Mr. Leech might be more than 20 years older than Mr. Wiseman, but he insists he was able to pass his younger friend on the slopes until recently. "Then he went and lost all his weight, and now I'm the one who hurts."

BEGINNINGS

Born in Niagara Falls, Ont.; raised in Burlington, Ont.

His father, now retired, was a plumber and pipe fitter who ran a division of a construction company. His mother, also retired, was a physiotherapist. He has one sister, a veterinarian. "We're incredibly different," Mr. Wiseman says. "I think she would be just about as excited about waking up in the morning to read The Wall Street Journal as I would about waking up in the morning and sticking my arm up a cow's butt."

FAMILY

Two sons. "It's like having two wolverines at home."

His partner of more than 20 years is Marcia Moffat, who until recently was vice-president of home equity financing at Royal Bank of Canada. They met on his first day at the University of Toronto. "I am, I think, the world's greatest Jewish Christmas tree cutter," he says. "My kids get all the holidays."

EDUCATION

Bachelor of arts from Queen's University, Kingston, Ont.

Law degree and MBA from University of Toronto.

Fulbright Scholar at Yale University, where he received a masters in law.

Career

Law clerk to Madam Justice Beverley McLachlin at the Supreme Court of Canada

M&A lawyer with Sullivan & Cromwell; practised in New York and Paris.

Worked in Toronto for merchant bank Harrowston Inc.

Ran the private equity fund and co-investment program at Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan.

Joined CPPIB in 2005 as senior vice-president of private investments; became CEO in July, 2012.

OTHER

On the boards of Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, and Right to Play International.

TRAVEL

A seasoned traveller, he has recently been to the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and India for work. He also squeezed in a trip to Rwanda this fall to attend a board meeting of Right to Play.

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