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A JOURNEY TOWARD MEANING In many ways, the career of Sun Life’s Oricia Smith has mirrored the trajectory of Canada’s investment industry WITH NEARLY three decades of experience behind her, Oricia Smith has a good view of the overall arc of the Canadian investment business. And from where she sits, the wave of purpose engulfing the space today is like a macrocosm of her own professional path. “We’re seeing the industry move from money to meaning,” Smith says. “I think it parallels my career. We started out focused on the money side, focused on trading and capital markets, and started shifting more toward meaning and the human side.” As a university student in the early ’90s, Smith wasn’t necessarily contemplating a career in financial services. But after seeing her brother go through the Canadian Securities Course, she decided to do it as well. Her completion of that course, along with her understanding of computers, landed her a summer job at the Calgary Stock Exchange. While the exchange was transitioning to become more electronic, it still had a frenzied feel that might have been stressful and overwhelming to many – but not Smith. “There was an energy there,” she says. “The people I met had this drive and strong work ethic, and I loved to be surrounded by that. They were very supportive, too. I
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was one of the only females on the trading floor, if not the only one, but I always felt part of the bigger social environment that was there.” Over the next few years, Smith took on various roles in capital markets and investment banking. She relished the challenges she confronted during that time, as they honed both her technical knowledge and her capacity for creative problem-solving.
in Canada,” Smith says. “That was really exciting to get involved in. We also launched a global direct real estate fund for institutional clients in Canada, which was also the first product of its kind.”
A seat at the table As she moved up in her career, Smith started getting involved in women’s leadership groups and mentoring women within the organiza-
“We’re seeing the industry move from money to meaning. We started out focused on the money side, focused on trading and capital markets, and started shifting more toward meaning and the human side” Eventually, Smith joined Invesco Canada, where she played a key strategic role in developing the North American institutional business. She also spent a lot of time in product development, creating funds geared toward both retail and institutional clients. “I was part of the team that led the launch of the PowerShares ETF business
tion. She became part of the Invesco Women’s Network (IWN), a global community of women at Invesco who come together once a year to form professional connections. In addition to leading the Toronto chapter of the IWN Management Committee, Smith became an active leader and member of various organizations focused on helping
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