Oricia is the co-founder of 100 Women Who Care Toronto West, a former Trustee of the Sun Life Benevolent Fund, and a former Executive Sponsor of Sun Life’s InvestHER Women’s Network

In 2022, Oricia was awarded Canada’s Most Powerful Women Award among Executive Leaders by the Women Exchange Network (WXN), recognizing her leadership both within the organization and the community, as well as her dedication to championing equality and breaking down barriers for the next generation of leaders

She is a current board member of the Investment Funds Institute of Canada and former member of their Strategic Research Committee

Accolades

Media

Sun Life Global Investments is founded. Hires MFS Investment Management to sub-advise a number of mandates. The inaugural fund family also includes four Milestone funds, Sun Life’s brand of target-date funds

2010

Providing holistic advisors with unique solutions

The legacy of COVID-19 is still unfurling, but one lesson endures: the size of your account matters less than the health of your loved ones. The successful asset managers of the future are alert to this shift. Clients now want wealth plans to cover all life events – both expected and unexpected. Oricia Smith, president of SLGI Asset Management Inc. and SVP of investment solutions for Sun Life Canada, knows the advisor landscape has changed, with more and more offering holistic products and solutions. In turn, we have had to become more agnostic between securities-regulated and insured wealth products that address capital growth, retirement, liquidity, preservation of capital, and estate transfer to the next generation. This is where she feels Sun Life Global Investments is uniquely positioned. While many advisors trust the 150-years-old Sun Life brand, its $1.3 trillion

asset management business is often overlooked. A part of that is managing fixed income for the insurance general accounts, while it is also one of the largest investment-grade private fixed-income managers in Canada. Its growth was accelerated with the acquisition of MFS Investment Management in the early 1980s and the formation of SLC Management, an institutional fixed-income and alternative asset manager. Sun Life Global Investments was created over a decade ago to meet the growing needs of retail investors and defined-contribution plan sponsors in Canada. Smith says, “We’ve put those two businesses [asset management and insured wealth products] effectively under one roof. Our distribution team represents both product types, so for dually registered advisors we are unique in the way that we cover advisors.”

2017 – with a wealth of experience after 17 years at Invesco, and having started her career at TD Securities. Her leadership style of transparency, authenticity, and trusting employees, she believes, is well suited to today’s post-COVID world. These traits are also reflective of what clients are demanding of their advisors. After the pandemic, people realize they need a living financial plan and are becoming more discerning about whom they entrust their future to. She says, “From my perspective, we’re unique. We bring the best of Sun Life to Canadians – including investments sub-advised by our affiliates MFS Investment Management and SLC Management in both investment fund and insured wealth structures. We're also one of the largest institutional target-date managers in Canada, helping Canadians save for retirement through their defined-contribution plans, available through Sun Life Group Retirement Services Platform. “Over 4,000 companies and 325,000 DC plan members in Canada trust Sun Life Global Investments and access our granted multi-asset target-date solutions to provide a vehicle for employees’ retirement savings. So, we're unique in our ability to not only help advisors build portfolios, but also solve the retirement and intergenerational estate-transfer needs of Canadians. We want advisors to know we have holistic solutions that can help them and their clients.”

Spotlight

This philosophy is reflected in the way Sun Life Global Investments builds products to help advisors and, ultimately, the end client build financial security in a changing world. To that end, the firm is a one-stop shop for multi-asset portfolio solutions, equity and fixed income mutual funds (sub-advised by world-class asset managers), and insured wealth products such as segregated funds, annuities, and trust GICs. With return expectations normalizing, it has experienced heightened demand for solutions like the Sun Life MFS actively managed global and international funds. Sun Life Global Investments offers a broad fixed-income shelf that gives investors access to SLC Management’s public and private credit expertise through its Sun Life Core Advantage Credit Private Pool, while also providing access to high-yield and floating-rate bond expertise from Crescent Capital in its recently launched Sun Life Crescent Specialty Credit Private Pool. With volatility affecting markets, and inflation and central bank interest policy sparking uncertainty, active management has come to the fore. Advisors are seeking ballast in building portfolios by leveraging North American expertise and providing clients with global and international exposure. Sun Life Global Investments also brings its Boston, US-based affiliate MFS Investment Management to retail markets in Canada through its Sun Life MFS family of funds. MFS has nearly 100 years of active management expertise in this space through an investment process that focuses on three core elements: collective expertise, long-term discipline, and active risk management. Like every service Sun Life provides, it’s done with the end client in mind, and it takes its fiduciary duty to their capital extremely seriously. Through working with holistic advisors – who are able to focus on a person’s life goals, not just account returns – Sun Life Global Investments has aligned its long-term business outcomes to match what clients need. “COVID reminded us that what matters to clients is taking care of their families,” Smith says. “Many clients are rethinking their priorities, and advisors are looking at a roadmap of how to get them there. What drives us isn't money, but our values – having a purpose, leaving a legacy, and long-term value. That’s what we're trying to deliver.”

We bring the world to your portfolio. Building wealth today requires you to look beyond Canada’s borders. We are part of the Sun Life group of companies, a global asset manager with offices in nearly 20 countries and over $1 trillion under management. And we’ve built a truly global investment platform by combining the strength of Sun Life with world-class asset managers. Building a secure financial future in a world of permanent uncertainty has never been harder. But our unwavering commitment to helping investors build wealth and manage risk is why Canadians have increasingly embraced our products and services.

Company Profile

$59 billion

AUM for Sun Life Global Investments

$1.25 trillion

global AUM for Sun Life

150+

years of growing and protecting wealth for Canadians

Bio

Spotlight

Milestones

Media

Accolades

Company Profile

Years of Experience

Tenure at current position

2017 - Present

Fast Facts

17 – years at Invesco prior to joining Sun Life

Oricia Smith

President of SLGI Asset Management Inc. and SVP of Investment Solutions for Sun Life Canada

Oricia Smith, president, SLGI Asset Management Inc. & SVP, Investment Solutions for Sun Life Canada, explains how bringing its asset management and insured wealth products under one roof puts it in pole position to meet client needs

Read on

“What drives us isn't money, but our values, having a purpose, leaving a legacy and long-term value – that’s what we're trying to deliver”

Oricia Smith, President of SLGI Asset Management Inc. and SVP of Investment Solutions for Sun Life Canada

“I would argue we’re the asset management company that's most aligned with holistic advisors and our breadth of solutions allows us to put ourselves in the same shoes as those we work with”

Oricia Smith, President of SLGI Asset Management Inc. and SVP of Investment Solutions for Sun Life Canada

Accolades

Media

Milestones

2011

2012

2015

2016

2019

2021