Senior Departures at HOOPP and CPP Investments

Layan Odeh of Bloomberg reports Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan's PE boss departs:

Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan’s global private equity head Lori Hall-Kimm is leaving to pursue another opportunity.

Mark Cormier and Roman Gula, both managing directors within the private equity group, will succeed Hall-Kimm as acting co- heads on an interim basis and report to Chief Investment Officer Michael Wissell, according to an internal memo seen by Bloomberg.

A representative for HOOPP confirmed the contents of the memo.

Since Hall-Kimm joined HOOPP in 2022, the private equity arm’s net assets climbed to C$24.2 billion ($17.5 billion) from roughly C$20 billion. She previously spent six years at the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, where she held several roles within its private equity unit, according to her LinkedIn profile.

HOOPP, which had C$132 billion of assets at the end of 2025, serves hospital and community-based healthcare workers in Canada’s most populous province, with more than 504,000 active, deferred and retired members.

Layan Odeh and Paula Sambo of Bloomberg also report CPPIB is said to see several departures across senior ranks: 

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has seen several departures from its senior ranks over the past few weeks, according to people familiar with the matter.

The affected asset classes included investment risk, credit, real assets and sustainable energies, according to the people, who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter, as well as Bloomberg News analysis and LinkedIn posts.

The “circumstances are a mix of voluntary and involuntary departures, all in line with business-as-usual retention rates and usual efficiency decisions due to evolving markets and strategies,” Michel Leduc, the pension manager’s head of public affairs, said in a statement.

The Toronto-based firm, which manages C$863.6 billion ($625 billion) in net assets, had 2,084 employees at the end of its last fiscal year, down from 2,125 from a year earlier.

“We continued to focus on operating discipline,” Chief Executive Officer John Graham said in the annual report. He added that the pension plan managed around C$220 billion more in assets with fewer employees than at the of fiscal 2023.

Just another random Wednesday when you learn of senior departures at Canada's large pension funds.

Undoubtedly, the biggest one is Lori Hall Kimm, Head of Global PE at HOOPP: 

Lori joined HOOPP in 2022 as the Head of Global Private Equity. In her role, Lori leads the Private Equity team and is responsible for the strategic, operational and investment activities for private capital. She also oversees its global portfolio, which ranges across a variety of industries and asset classes. In 2025, Lori was named to the Private Equity International Women of Influence in Private Markets list, which recognizes influential women making their mark in the alternative assets industry.

Prior to joining HOOPP, Lori spent six years with CPP Investments, most recently as Managing Director, Direct Private Equity, where she led the team responsible for the Consumer/Retail sector. Previously, she spent nearly 11 years in the Private Capital team at Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, helping establish their London office and leading their European fund and co-investments and also worked in investment banking at Goldman Sachs.

Lori holds a BBA (Honours) from the Schulich School of Business at York University and an MBA from the Columbia Business School. 

I never met or spoke to Lori, don't know her well but she had a stellar reputation and all the right credentials.

So why is she leaving HOOPP? To pursue another opportunity?

Maybe but I'm not going to play coy with you; it's been brutal in private equity over the last few years.

I've seen senior departures in Private Equity at La Caisse, CPP Investments, OTPP, OMERS, BCI and now HOOPP.

Typically, what happens behind the scenes is that differing views on strategy and/ or unsatisfactory returns lead to leaders being replaced with new leaders who are either on board with the new strategy or replaced as well.

But make no mistake, private equity has been brutal both from an absolute return standpoint as well as a relative one as public equities continue to soar into the stratosphere, led by a handful of high-flying tech names. 

Importantly, there is a structural change going on where higher rates, higher input costs, a terrible environment for distributions, are all impacting returns over the last few years.

Private equity used to be a hot asset class, professionals were sought after, nowadays, not so much.

I saw the same thing in real estate after the pandemic. La Caisse fired over half its real estate team as it shifted strategy from being an operator to solely being an investor. A lot of amazing real estate professionals were let go. It was just brutal.

All this to say, restructurings happen often at Canada's large pension funds, it's never fun and a lot of good people are let go.

The way an organization treats you on the way out is even more important than on the way in. Hopefully there are no hard feelings, you leave on good terms. 

That's the way it should be, once you leave an organization, make sure you sign a fair package and say goodbye, adios, till we meet again, if we ever do.

Where it gets tricky is if you're fired without cause, for dubious reasons. Then my advice is to get a great lawyer, and don't stop until you receive more than a fair package because once you're let go from these shops, good luck landing an equally great job (most never do). 

So why is CPP Investments letting go of senior people across divisions?  

Simple: they are in cost-cutting mode because too many critics feel they are way, WAY overbloated as an organization and there's lots of fat to cut.

I personally think the board of directors put pressure on John Graham, and he relayed the message to his senior team.  

Nobody will ever admit this to me publicly or privately but I've seen so many restructurings at these shops, I know exactly how it works behind the scenes.

It's not fun, it's part of the ecosystem of these large organizations, and that's another reason why they pay above average, because this is rarely a job for life and when senior people get let go, it's not easy for them to bounce back and find an equally high-paying job.

Alright, enough on restructurings, brings back bad memories for me.

Below, private equity has long promised investors better returns than public markets, while offering entrepreneurs like Dan Namerow life-changing exits. But the market that made those deals work has changed. Higher interest rates have made debt-financed buyouts harder to justify, while deals struck at peak valuations in 2020 and 2021 have become more difficult to exit. 

University of Chicago Booth professor Steven Kaplan says US buyout funds largely beat public markets for decades, but that pattern has reversed since 2019, while PitchBook reports that the backlog of companies held by private equity firms has risen to more than 33,000. The result is a tougher environment where firms are being judged less on leverage and multiple expansion, and more on whether they can actually improve the businesses they buy.