MASTER OF CEREMONIES:

MOE RENAUD, PRINCIPAL
Ottawa Office Leader, Mercer Canada
Moe Renaud is a Principal of Mercer in our Health business, and the leader of our Ottawa office. Until recently, Moe was the Market Sales Leader for our Health business in Canada. He joined Mercer in 2015.

Moe advises a number of major clients at Mercer. He provides advice on the design and strategy relating to their health, dental, life and disability plans.

Prior to joining Mercer, Moe was the Canadian Leader for Special Risk and Executive Benefits and the Ottawa Health & Benefits Office Leader at another Canadian consulting firm. He has more than 20 years of experience in the group insurance industry, and also held leadership positions at Desjardins. He started his group insurance career at Great‑West Life.

Moe is a Certified Employee Benefits Specialist. He earned an Executive MBA from the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa.

SPEAKERS:

SAMANTHA CLEYN, PRINCIPAL
Wealth-Investments Business, Mercer Canada
Samantha Cleyn is a Principal with the Wealth-Investments business in Montreal. Samantha joined Mercer in early 2016 from Pavilion Advisory Group where she held the role of Research Consultant. As such, she led Pavilion’s traditional non-US asset class manager research effort, managed a team of analysts and oversaw coverage of more than 150 strategies and over $20 billion in client assets in addition to sourcing new investment ideas. She also worked closely with many large Canadian plan sponsors on a project-basis to conduct manager searches as well as provide asset class education to investment committees, attend finalist presentations, and advise on manager selection, suitability and structure optimization decisions. In her role at Mercer she continues to work with many larger plans with external manager programs in an advisory capacity or as a manager search specialist resource. In her more than 13 years in the industry, Samantha has conducted over 1,000 investment managers meetings across the globe and conducted close to 100 manager search projects across various equity, fixed income and alternative asset classes.

Samantha currently consults to a number of foundations, corporate and public DB plans and DC plans where she provides general investment consulting services. Clients value her considerable knowledge and perspective on investment managers and their strategies and consider her an expert in the selection and monitoring of investments.

Samantha holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business and is a CFA Charterholder.

GILLES LAVOIE, PRINCIPAL
Wealth, Mercer Canada
Gilles Lavoie is a Wealth Principal focusing on investment matters in our Montreal office. He recently joined Mercer after spending more than 21 years with another global consulting firm. Gilles started his career in NYC, working for foreign operations of large US multinationals before transferring to Montreal to focus on investment consulting.

He acts as lead investment consultant for many Canadian and multinational clients, ranging from a few millions to several billions of assets under advisement. Working jointly with institutional investors he aims to optimize the management of various pools of assets ranging from pension funds (DB and DC), insurance funds, endowments as well as taxable investors.
His expertize covers the full gamut of investment consulting services, including:

• Financial risk management.
• Asset/liability studies.
• Development of investment policies and strategies, including LDI strategies and alternative investments.
• Design and implementation of manager structures and performance monitoring.

Gilles has a B. Sc. Degree in actuarial science for l’Université Laval and he is an associate of the Society of Actuaries (ASA). He is completely bilingual (French and English).

CORY SKINNER, PRINCIPAL
Wealth Business, Mercer Canada
Cory Skinner is a Principal of Mercer and an actuary in the Wealth business in our Ottawa office. Cory joined Mercer in 1998.

Cory has 19 years of experience advising large and small private, public and not-for-profit organizations on the design, funding, de-risking, accounting and administration of registered and supplemental pension plans. He is the lead retirement consultant for one of the largest pension plans in Canada, and has expertise on the design of the Canadian public service pension plan.

Cory advises his clients on both defined benefit and defined contribution plans. He has made many presentations to senior management, pension committees and plan members. He has also been a public speaker at Mercer events.

Cory is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and a Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries. He earned a bachelor of mathematics from the University of Waterloo and a bachelor of education from the University of Western Ontario.