Vanguard Canada is on the hunt for a new country head after Kathleen Bock announced her intention to retire over the next year.
Ms. Bock, managing director and head of Vanguard Canada, revealed her plans to depart the asset manager in an internal memo sent to employees earlier this month.
Company spokesperson Matt Gierasimczuk confirmed to The Globe and Mail in an e-mail that Ms. Bock plans to retire, saying she will leave once a successor is found.
“Kathleen will continue to lead the day-to-day operations of Vanguard Canada to ensure a seamless transition as a thorough search for her successor is conducted over the next year,” Mr. Gierasimczuk wrote.
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Ms. Bock – who is also a board member of the Toronto-based Securities and Investment Management Association – has been with the U.S. investment fund giant Vanguard Group Inc. since 1997. She moved to Vanguard Canada in 2018 when she took over from Atul Tiwari, the inaugural country head who opened the first Canadian office in 2011 in Toronto.
“I want to offer my thanks and gratitude to this team for helping make this last chapter in my career such a memorable and fulfilling one,” Ms. Bock wrote in her memo to employees.
Over the past seven years, Ms. Bock has helped Vanguard Canada maintain its position as the country’s third-largest exchange-traded fund provider with more than $160-billion of assets in ETFs and mutual funds. About $100-billion of that resides in Canadian-listed ETFs.
Prior to her position in Canada, Ms. Bock was based in Malvern, Pa., as the principal and head of the Americas region for Vanguard Group, where she was responsible for certain operations in Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean.