Toronto, Ontario, Canada
My professional life is driven by three closely held convictions: 1. Public service is an obligation; 2. Government services, goods, and assets are incredibly important - and these are often best delivered/produced/maintained in partnership with the private sector; 3. There is little that teams of well-intentioned, intellectually rigorous, people cannot achieve. As a consultant, executive, and contributor, I have hunted for opportunities to leave indelible marks upon public projects and services – particularly in Canada. This journey continually calls upon my inventiveness and my resilience. I like to think of myself as a professional decathlete. Ultimately, I have discovered that I am at my best when in roles that afford me the opportunity to do four things: 1. Create strategies that are built upon fact-based insight; 2. Build partnerships between the private and public sector that take clear and specific aim at the creation of value; 3. Persuade disparate stakeholders that ambitious journeys are worth the effort and risk; 4. Drive a remorseless (and blameless) approach to execution. Please do reach out. Topics that are currently on my mind (I try to update this quarterly) include asset recyling, the indebtedness of sub-national governments, and the effective planning of natural spaces within Canada's urban communities.
The Investment Management Corporation of Ontario (IMCO) is an independent investment management firm designed to serve public-sector clients in Ontario. With approximately $60 billion in assets under management, IMCO is one of the largest institutional investment managers in the world.
Leading a global team (with a presence in Toronto, New York, Los Angeles, Oakland, London, and Johannesburg) providing advisory and consulting services for a set of public and private clients pursuing major infrastructure investment programs and projects. The things we do for infrastructure investors and real estate developers: o Analyzing the financial, technical, and risk profile of infrastructure projects to improve decision making and planning; o Enabling land value uplift through effective infrastructure planning; o Designing (and negotiating/implementing) partnerships between financiers, builders, operators and maintainers; o Supporting the engagement of government(s) and other public stakeholders (i.e. transit agencies, procurement agencies, etc.) The things we do for governments and public agencies: o Assessing the optimal infrastructure strategy to achieve government’s financial, social, and environmental outcomes; o Designing (and implementing) innovative approaches to effectively and defensibly procure private partners; o Analyzing which PPP model should be used to deliver an infrastructure project (e.g. design-bid-build, design-build-finance, design-build-finance-operate-maintain, etc.); o Defining the term sheets that establish what various parties will contribute to a public-private partnership, what risks they will take, what incentives they will have, and what penalties they will face; o Consulting on how to optimize ongoing operations, maintenance, and contract management.
Leading a team of ~20 with responsibility for commercial transactions related to the divestiture, financing, and development of Ontario's public assets (i.e. land, buildings, businesses, etc.). Typical transactions/projects would include: o Contracting private sector entities to deliver government services through alternative service delivery (ASD) arrangements. This includes defining the highest potential partnership models through analysis and direct market engagement, designing and executing competitive procurement processes, and ultimately developing/negotiating commercial term sheets. o Divesting government land and buildings. Ensuring the maximum return to government by analyzing the impact of various conditions of sale/development that government would impose, designing the sale process, and negotiating commercial terms and conditions. o Analyzing how public-private partnerships can deliver critical new infrastructure (e.g. energy, transit, social). o Negotiating significant strategic partnerships between the province and private entities. This includes supporting the development of negotiating strategies, offering quantitative and qualitative analysis related to various terms and conditions, and leading/supporting negotiation.