The International Centre for Pension Management is celebrating 20 years of promoting strong pension governance practices by regularly engaging plan sponsor members, says Sebastien Betermier, the organization’s executive director.
“It’s a milestone and it speaks to the value of having candid and quality exchanges among the pension funds . . . it’s a safe space for them to exchange on difficult issues ranging from climate transition to the [artificial intelligence] revolution, to setting up the right organizational structures, managing liability, risk, longevity and biodiversity.”
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The organization counts more than 50 members from around the world, including plan sponsors based in Australia, Canada, Chile, Denmark, New Zealand, Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, the U.K. and the U.S. Betermier says the ICPM is focusing on increasing the number of events held per year to encourage more in-depth conversations among existing members.
“It’s really meant to be a network for the organizations that are having a lot of in-house expertise to share . . . and that’s because there’s a lot of give and take. You’re not just hearing from others, you’re sharing too.”
Through these conversations, new ideas can enter different jurisdictions as pension leaders seek the perspective of their peers. “What is stunning is how much the different funds face very similar issues across the world, yet because of the different jurisdictions, different constraints, pressures and organizational structures, they often adopt very different approaches on how to solve them.”
Keith Ambachtsheer, executive-in-residence at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and the founding director of the ICPM, says the organization’s first discussion forum took place decades after the idea first originated.
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“I had conversations with the Australians, with the Dutch, the Brits, the U.S. and what became clear with the passage of time is that none of these people were talking to each other and that we could move the yardsticks towards doing better if they actually had a forum where they could get together on a regular basis.”
Leading up to the launch of the ICPM in 2004, the organizers had to convince faculty because they weren’t on board with an endeavour that wasn’t purely academic. After a few exchanges, the first ever meeting took place between 15 to 20 members. In 2015, the ICPM become a separate not-for-profit association.
Ambachtsheer says he’s glad to see the forum serve as a platform for pension researchers to present new ideas that can make a difference to plan sponsors. “It’s not some third party offering this to the pension fund community, it’s their own thing . . . they own it and I think that’s been a key part of the success.”