Kevin Adolphe

Seasoned CEO with over 35 Years of Global Experience in Real Estate, Asset Management, and Financial Services from Manulife and CIBC

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Kevin Adolphe is an experienced senior executive (CEO, COO, CFO, CAO, CCO) and Board Director with 35 years of global experience in effectively leading change and positively impacting organizational effectiveness in companies, both privately held and publicly traded, across a range of industries, including Banking, Asset Management, Real Estate, Natural Resources, Private Equity, Infrastructure, Airports, and Technology.

Business Highlights: 

  • Manulife Asset Management Private Markets/Manulife Real Estate/Manulife Investments:
    • Held a variety of global roles including CEO, CFO, and COO over a 13-year period.
    • Expanded and commercialized the company’s Private Asset Management capabilities to its clients/third-party investors globally across eight private asset classes, including real estate equity, real estate debt, timber, agriculture, infrastructure equity, private debt, private equity, and oil and gas.
    • Profitably grew the private asset management business to $100B with operations located in Canada, the US, China, Singapore, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.
    • Successfully grew real estate business from $7.5B to $22B. Expanded the business into new markets and launched several new product offerings globally.
    • Managed all finance, securities operations, market risk, and technology functions supporting Manulife’s General Fund ($225B in AUM) globally.
    • Established a global strategic plan and governance framework for Manulife’s strategic objective to reduce operating expenses by over $1B.
    • Successfully restructured all functions to significantly improve the quality of the support to the businesses globally. Improved operational cost efficiency by reducing unit cost base by 25%.
  • CIBC/CIBC World Markets (all wholesale banking business activities of CIBC)
    • Held a variety of global roles including CFO, COO, CAO, and CCO over a 15-year period. Located in each of London, England; Sydney, Australia; Singapore; and Toronto, Canada.
    • Managed all financial, and operational support activities of World Markets businesses globally, including all strategic initiatives.
    • Transferred to London, England, Sydney, Australia, and Singapore to rationalize and migrate the infrastructure activities in Europe and Asia to Canada, generating over $30M of annualized savings to CIBC.
    • Led a comprehensive initiative to assess and enhance the governance and internal control framework across the entire Bank. Completed all nine elements of the overall initiative on time and below budget.
  • Chief Operating Officer of a Private Venture Incubator and Accelerator – Managed all financial and operational support activities of the firm and its active ventures. Partnered with CEO to define and communicate new strategic direction and implement new organizational structure and management team. Responsible for implementing a robust financial and operational platform to support a new strategy to effectively incubate and accelerate Canada’s next generation of entrepreneurs. Financial and strategic advisor to program participants, entrepreneurs, and alumni.
  • Senior Advisor at Deloitte – Provided insight and advice to organizations at various stages of their life cycle. Collaborated to create solutions in mergers and acquisitions, turnarounds, restructurings, and strategic cost management.
  • Senior Advisor of a private real estate company, which co-invested in residential properties by deploying capital alongside prospective homebuyers. Advised on the development of investment products, and capital-raising, and contributed to the development and implementation of corporate strategy and governance.

Kevin has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Toronto. He has extensive international board experience in a variety of industries across public and private companies, government agencies, and REITS. His professional designations include FCPA/FCA from the Chartered Professional Accountants of Ontario and a CA Designation from the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants. He has also completed various professional development courses in the areas of leadership, change management, AI, sustainability, finance, and governance. Kevin received the Women in Capital Markets’ Champion of Change award in 2017.

Kevin has been married to his wife Jill for over 30 years. They have four children and as a family, they enjoy playing golf, tennis, and traveling together.