Legal team size: 17 people

What projects are you most proud to have worked on over the past 12 months?

The past year was full of meaningful work. In 2024, we facilitated the conversion and asset transfer of two new pension plans, which added 1,500 members and $280m in assets under management to the Plan. Making the integration seamless meant ensuring that existing plan terms were honoured in the UPP plan text and creating a clear path for members to resolve claims and disputes.

We completed more than 150 legal agreements, supported over 40 investment matters, and reviewed approximately 100 policies, pension forms, templates and workflow processes to ensure compliance with legislation and UPP’s plan terms. And we built a legal summer and articling student program to support the next generation of lawyers.

I’m especially proud of how we’ve risen to meet every challenge. I’ve been privileged to oversee the legal team’s growth to include 17 colleagues. The team’s diversity is a point of pride for both the organisation and me – we have thirteen women, and ten racialised professionals. That was intentional from the start. Diversity in backgrounds, perspectives, and lived experience positively impacts how we work together, and how we serve our members.

Each piece of work reflects UPP’s overall strategy: serving members well, investing for the future, and continuing to strengthen a foundation for growth.

Have you had any experiences during your career as a lawyer that stand out as particularly unique or interesting?

I started with UPP at launch in 2021, and it has truly been my most rewarding career experience. It’s not often that a lawyer gets to help build something from the ground up. That’s what drew me here – the opportunity to influence the structures, frameworks, and culture of a new organisation, and to do it alongside talented, dedicated colleagues.

My earlier career work in M&A taught me that nothing happens in isolation; success comes from teams working well together, united in purpose. I’ve really seen that at UPP. We worked closely with the three founding universities to draft agreements and governance frameworks, and our launch wouldn’t have been possible at all without our external counsel partner. Being involved in building UPP helped me rethink the role of a general counsel, and the impact we make as strategic business partners.

How does your team contribute to the overall business strategy of the company?

We see ourselves as partners in UPP’s success – trusted advisors, not just legal tacticians. When UPP assumed full administration responsibilities from the founding pension plans last August, our team implemented a comprehensive operating model to deliver legal support, including a privileged claim management platform, an updated dispute resolution framework, and an internal appeals process. Those aren’t just operational tools; they’re mechanisms to protect members and contribute to long-term organisational resilience.

We’ve also been deeply involved in UPP’s investment work as our in-house investment management has been built out. Over the past year, my team has helped analyse innovative ways to expand assets under management, including examining securities registrations, tax structuring, PBA compliance, and regulatory oversight. Enabling new investment capabilities is key to lowering risk and investment costs, which benefits our members.

The legal team contributes to UPP’s strategy by modelling the kind of intentional culture we nurture across the organisation: collaborative, inclusive, and growth oriented.