Nima Sanajian

Managing Director of Investments at Wealthsimple

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

About

• More than ten years of quantitative finance and investment research experience • Hands-on systematic portfolio management experience • Strong quantitative knowledge and understanding of modern portfolio theory

Experience

  • Wealthsimple (7 yrs 11 mos)
    • Managing Director, Investments
      Oct 2022 - Present · 3 yrs 9 mos

    • Director, Investments
      Aug 2018 - Oct 2022 · 4 yrs 3 mos

  • CPP Investments (Greater Toronto Area, Canada)
    • Senior Associate, Quantitative Research
      Dec 2016 - Aug 2018 · 1 yr 9 mos

      Researching and building multi asset class systematic factor-based framework for CPPIB’s asset allocation, risk modeling and total fund rebalancing and managing exposures

    • Senior Associate, Global Tactical Asset Allocation
      May 2014 - Dec 2016 · 2 yrs 8 mos

      Researched and built systematic macro strategies (for CPPIB’s GTAA portfolio with a $500M risk budget) for various asset classes: currency forwards, commodities, equities, bond and VIX futures. Assisted senior portfolio manager in managing systematic absolute return G10 and Emerging Market currency portfolio with a $200M risk budget (part of CPPIB’s GTAA portfolio). Responsible for portfolio construction research such as enhancement of risk budgeting and portfolio optimization processes. The Global Tactical Asset Allocation (“GTAA”) group within Public Market Investments is responsible for generating excess returns by taking macroeconomic risk. It takes top-down, active positions in and between global asset classes such as equity, bonds, currencies and commodities. GTAA uses both fundamental and quantitative approaches to establish its views.

  • Senior Associate & Asscociate, Portfolio Management, Total Portfolio Management at CPP Investment Board
    2012 - 2014 · 2 yrs

    Assisted senior portfolio manager in managing and optimizing the short portfolio/hedging basket ($50B notional) for the fund’s private investments. Responsible for backtesting, analyzing, and evaluating quantitatively and qualitatively the optimization framework for constructing optimal hedging basket.

  • Senior Quantitative Analyst at RBC Capital Markets
    2010 - 2012 · 2 yrs

    Main responsibilities included supporting the Global Arbitrage and Trading (RBC's prop trading group) and Global Equity Linked Products’ traders

  • Teaching Assistant at Rotman School of Management
    Sep 2008 - May 2010 · 1 yr 9 mos

    Prof. John Hull (Options & Futures Markets, Derivatives, Financial Risk Management), Prof. Alan White (Advanced Derivatives): Conducting supplementary teaching sessions and marking assignments Prof. Frank Hayes (Corporate Financing): Evaluating the financial analysis of students’ corporate finance projects including forecasting financial statements, DCF models, Comparable company analysis and their financial strategy