OTPP Appoints Jenny Hammarlund as Executive Managing Director, Real Estate
Toronto, Canada -- Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board (Ontario Teachers') today announces the appointment of Jenny Hammarlund to the position of Executive Managing Director, Real Estate, effective January 5, 2026.
In this role, Ms. Hammarlund will be responsible for guiding the real estate team’s strategy, portfolio, and asset management activities globally. Ms. Hammarlund will be based in London and become a member of the Investments Senior Leadership Team, reporting to Gillian Brown, Chief Investment Officer, Public & Private Investments.
Ms. Hammarlund has over 20 years of experience in private equity, primarily focused on real estate acquisitions. Prior to this appointment, Ms. Hammarlund led the real estate investment group in the UK and Europe. She joined Cadillac Fairview (CF) in 2021 and moved to Ontario Teachers’ in 2024 when the international real estate team at CF was absorbed by Ontario Teachers’. She previously held senior real estate-focused roles at H.I.G. Capital, KKR, Värde Partners, and Lehman Brothers.
“I am pleased to see Jenny step into this leadership role at a critical time for our plan. Real estate is an important asset class for Ontario Teachers’ as it helps provide stable and predictable income to match our long-term liabilities, and its returns are typically uncorrelated to those of equities or bonds. Her leadership skills and experience investing globally make her the ideal person to drive our performance-focused diversification strategy in real estate over the coming years,” said Ms. Brown.
Ms. Hammarlund holds a BA from the University of Sussex and an MBA from Columbia Business School.
About Ontario Teachers’
Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board (Ontario Teachers') is a global investor with net assets of $269.6 billion as at June 30, 2025. Ontario Teachers’ is a fully funded defined benefit pension plan, and it invests in a broad array of asset classes to deliver retirement security for 343,000 working members and pensioners. For more information, visit otpp.com and follow us on LinkedIn.
Alright, huge announcement three days before Christmas which is odd timing but nothing surprises any longer covering the Maple 8 funds since 2008.
Let me begin by congratulating Jenny Hammarlund for this important appointment overseeing a critically important asset class at Teachers' which remains in a state of transition.
Ms. Hammarlund replaces Pierre Cherki who was appointed Executive Managing Director, Real Estate at OTPP exactly two years ago.
So what happened? Why is Pierre Cherki leaving the organization so quickly and being replaced by Jenny Hammarlund now?
The two of them discussed OTPP's real estate reset with IPE Real Assets two months ago so it does seem a little strange.
Well, I'm not one to speculate but here is what I think and none of this was vetted as most people are away for the holidays so don't hold it against me (Dan Madge can contact me to correct me if necessary).
From my reading of his appointment, Pierre Cherki was hired by CEO Jo Taylor, not Gillian Brown, CIO of Public and Private Investments who is responsible for that asset class.
It wasn't at all clear to me if Pierre Cherki reported to Jo or Gillian but reading the appointment above, it's clear to me Gillian named Jenny as Head of Real Estate and will be her boss.
This is critically important, keep this in mind when reading these appointments, who reports to whom?
Clear lines of responsibility and reporting are important because in private and public markets at OTPP, the buck stops with CIO Gillian Brown.
Also, I'm going to be honest with my readers, I was shocked that Jenny Hammarlund wasn't appointed Executive Managing Director, Real Estate two years ago.
Why? Because I was covering OTPP's major international real estate deals and her name was all over them, she was delivering, forging great alliances and doing what needed to be done to diversify that portfolio by sector and geography.
I can't think of any one person at OTPP who deserved/ deserves this nomination more than her and let me remind you, there's a lot of work being done in that portfolio to diversify it.
In fact, I went over my coverage of OTPP's 2020 results where I noted this:
I must say, Cadillac Fairview really needs to scale and diversify its global real estate portfolio. When I saw this, I was dumbfounded:
Importantly, 55% in Canadian Retail and 30% in Canadian Office and 7% Emerging Markets? Where is the geographic and sector diversification? What about US, European, Asian and Australian exposure and what about logistics and multi-family and other sectors?
I'm missing something here and there aren't enough details in the Annual Report or on the Cadillac Fairview website.
How can it be that in 2021, OTPP's real estate portfolio is still so concentrated in Canada (they need to follow BCI's QuadReal and diversify it a lot more).
I understand, liabilities are in Canadian dollars but if it's one thing that Canada's large pensions are good at it's geographic and sector diversification,
Now, to be fair, the pandemic hit Retail real estate assets especially hard and they will bounce back eventually but there's still a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done at Cadillac Fairview to divest from Retail and diversify the portfolio geographically and in terms of sectors.
Again, I might be missing something here but I was shocked reading only 2% of Real Estate assets are in the US and only 1% in the UK, and most are Canadian malls and offices.
Fast forward to 2025 and OTPP's real estate portfolio is a lot more diversified (from the 2024 Annual Report):
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Importantly, you can't diversify a massive real estate portfolio on a dime, it takes time, and OTPP is doing what it needs to do since the pandemic exposed lack of proper diversification there.
And a lot of the work there is directly attributable to Jenny Hammarlund -- she absolutely deserves the credit there (as does her team, no one person does it all).
There is still a lot of work to be done to diversify that real estate portfolio.
I recently noted that OTPP disbanded its Asia real estate team and it remains to be seen whether this strategy stays in place now that Ms. Hammarlund takes over (I'm pretty sure it does stay in place).
Lastly, I note Jo Taylor was appointed CEO of OTPP exactly five years ago so his contract is up for renewal and that means he and the Board have big decisions to make.
I wish Jo, Gillian, Jenny and everyone at OTPP a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a Happy and Healthy New Year.
Jenny Hammarlund now joins Rana Ghorayeb (La Caisse) and Sophie van Oosterman (CPP Investments) as the female head of Real Estate at a Maple 8 Fund.
Three powerful women with important jobs there.
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