What Are You Missing?
Independent Advisory
The essence of discovery is to see what others have seen but to think what no one has thought. At SSC we believe that there is no monopoly on creativity and originality. We bring this belief to assist you in answering the universal question: what am I missing?
Whether you are a foundation, an insurance company, or a pension plan meeting your liabilities in a challenging investment environment at the right level of risk requires original and creative thinking. Equally important are the structures put in place to evaluate the ideas and strategies your investment agents follow.
At the heart of all sustainable and well performing investment enterprises is good governance and oversight over your investment plan.
Here at Spence Strategic Consulting we aim to assist you in exploring that critical question: what am I missing?
There may be cases where together we need to work more on the question to find potential answers. When we survey the terrain together, we can distinguish what we see relative to others that produces value and assurance for your stakeholders.
CEO
Andrew Spence
CEO of Spence Strategic Consulting Group.
Building on a successful career as an investor, risk manager and economist, Andrew provides independent advisory services for investment strategy, investment planning and governance design.
Andrew is currently the Executive-in-Residence at the International Centre for Pension Management.
Andrew is Chair of the Toronto Foundation Investment Committee where he is responsible for the oversight of $700MM dedicated to city building and impact.
Andrew teaches a graduate course on Global Capital Markets at the University of Toronto in the Munk School of Global Affairs.
Previous career experience includes a secondment to the Bank of Canada as Special Adviser to the Governor, the first Special Adviser to come from the private sector to the central bank. Andrew held a strategic role at the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, and managed a number of tactical investment programs at OMERS Capital Markets. Andrew directed strategic asset allocation, investment planning, and top-of-house risk management. Andrew was also the Global Head of Rates and FX Research at TD Securities.
Our Services
Strategic Asset Allocation
Asset allocation is central to your investment strategy. Capital market assumptions are central to that process but often get the least attention. SSC believes that those assumptions should be theoretically and empirically consistent. We generate different economic scenarios that show what the outcomes of your asset allocation could be.
Investment Policy
Making the good governance leap means you have a professional investment manager. Your investment policy statement is the driver's manual for your manager, defining the rules of the road: what they can and can’t do and how much risk they can take. We can help you draft, renew, and review your IPS to make sure your load stays on the road.
Investment Challenges and Decisions
Meeting tomorrow’s liabilities with today’s expected returs demands creative investment strategies. But what amounts to creative today? How are you balancing leverage and liquidity, risk and return? Does your investment plan articulate those choices clearly? Together we can work thorugh the challenges of achieving the right balance.
Enviromental Assessment Economics and Investments
All good investors are good forecasters. All asset prices trace their roots to the economy. We bring thirty-plus years of economics experience to test investment return assumptions and forecasts. We can help you apply that experience to your articulation of economics and markets.
Investment Governance
Is your investment committee managing the investments or managing the manager? Good governance delivers good decisions, but what is good governance and how do we know we have it? Having the right people with the right skills and experience is a start. Attention to these questions may help overcome manager change inertia.
Bespoke Advisory Services
We are asked to do specialized consulting and advisory assignments where we size-up the challenge, define a review, and work towards a plan of action. You may have already defined a plan of action, and seek little more than a detached and independent review. We enjoy that role and love to get our teeth into answerng the question: what are we missing?
JOIN OUR NEWSLETTER
Signup & Subscribe
Our website gives you a flavour of what we do and how we might help. We follow a collaborative approach, and if you would like to have a short discussion with us you will find we prize both brevity and clarity. Most advisors talk to bestow the gift of wisdom: we listen because the greatest value lies in understanding your unique circumstances and your perspective. We work with you to develop an approach that works for you, not us.
Give us a call. We might be the one thing that's missing.
STRATEGIC
Presentations
Strategy is what you do, rather than how you do it. Our strategy presentations focus on information inputs that facilitate strategy review, and confront your strategy with a changing world. When you say what you do, and then do what you say, your strategy should be fit for purpose!
Download our Post-Pandemic Outlook & Investment Strategy Presentation.