Biography:
Russell has recently retired as the President and CEO of the CN Investment Division. The Division manages some $18 billion of assets for the Canadian National Railways Pension Trust Funds, one of the largest corporate pension plans in Canada. The pension fund is primarily internally managed and has significant investment exposure to all of the equity, fixed income, real return, real estate, infrastructure and private equity asset classes. In this role he was fully accountable to the CN Board of Directors for all aspects of the management and investment of the pension fund assets, including the associated risk management, and for providing related policy analysis and advice. Over his more than thirty-year career in institutional investment management, Russell has had many years of direct active equity portfolio management experience, in both the Canadian and International stock markets, as well as considerable private equity investment activity. He has testified on behalf of the pension investment community at both the House of Commons finance committee and the Senate finance committee. Mr. Hiscock is also an experienced operating executive having chaired both the Fund’s real estate and oil and gas companies. As the Division’s CEO, he was responsible for organisational and managerial leadership, strategic planning and human resource management. Russell has held numerous external corporate and not for profit board positions, including serving on several hospital foundation and industry association boards. He holds a Honours Co-Op Bachelor of Mathematics (1975) degree from the University of Waterloo, an MA (economics) from Western University and an MBA (finance) from the Rotman School at the University of Toronto. He has earned the CFA, CPA-CMA and ICD.D designations. Russell lives in Montreal, is married and has two grown sons.
