Stephan Rupert, chief investment officer of the C$15B Canada Growth Fund Investment Management, a subsidiary of the C$299.7B Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments), is stepping down from his role.
PSP Investments has appointed Cristina Lopez to succeed him as CIO, effective Dec. 15.
“It’s with mixed feelings that I’m leaving Canada Growth Fund: pride in what this team has accomplished; sadness to be leaving wonderful colleagues; and excitement for new things to come,” Rupert wrote in a LinkedIn post.
The Canada Growth Fund was created through the Canadian federal budget in 2022, with Rupert joining its founding team as CIO. Since inception, the fund has completed 16 investments totaling C$4.7B in commitments, backing projects across clean technology, industrial transformation, and infrastructure.
Rupert joined PSP Investments more than a decade ago as senior director of infrastructure investments. In 2019, he was promoted to managing director and head of Americas for infrastructure investments, before taking on the CIO role at the newly created Canada Growth Fund four years later.
His career spans the infrastructure and real assets sectors, beginning as an engineer with Hayward Baker in Boston. He later held roles as manager of mergers and acquisitions at CN Rail and vice-president of corporate development at RailAmerica Inc.
Lopez joined the Canada Growth Fund in 2024 to lead its cleantech asset class and expand its presence in Calgary, she wrote in a LinkedIn post. She arrived from the National Bank of Canada, where she had spent nearly a decade as managing director of investment banking. Earlier in her career, she served in senior leadership roles across the institutional sector, including vice-president of corporate development at PrairieSky Royalty Ltd. and managing director of institutional equity research at Tristone Capital, which was later acquired by Macquarie Group.
As CIO, Lopez will oversee the Canada Growth Fund’s investment and risk strategy, portfolio construction, operations, and asset management.
“On a personal note, thank you to Stephan Rupert for his work as inaugural CIO of CGF,” Lopez wrote in a LinkedIn post. “I am extremely grateful to him for his leadership in launching CGF, for attracting me to the platform during one of our early morning runs, and for mentoring me over the last 14 months.”
