Each year, Caldwell Partners International chooses 40 Canadians who were under 40 in the past year to honour for their outstanding achievements. Click here to learn more about the program, and find more winners in the list below.
When the recession hit in 2008, it was bad news for almost everyone. For Natasha Sharpe, however, it opened a big door.
Dr. Sharpe had spent a decade working in corporate finance and risk assessment at Bank of Montreal. When the recession hit, insurance companies realized they needed to change the way they did business and needed risk assessment departments. Last year, Sun Life Financial hired Dr. Sharpe as its first ever chief credit risk officer.
For someone who wanted to study global credit risk, this was a big opportunity. Dr. Sharpe’s job is to create risk policy for the company’s $110-billion in managed assets and lead a new department with seven direct reports in an institution with joint ventures all around the world.
“This is a big, conservative organization and for the past 150-odd years they’ve managed by taking conservative bets, investing in AA and AAA rated companies. The credit crisis changed all that,” she says. “We had Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, who were very comfortably rated companies, and all of a sudden you can’t trust the ratings … anymore, so how do you know if you’re being conservative?”
In addition to ensuring that Sun Life’s investments are not exposed to undue risk and that its assets are invested appropriately, Dr. Sharpe is also chair of the board at Kensington Health Centre, a 350-bed long-term care facility in downtown Toronto. She joined the board while in corporate finance at BMO, and has played a hands-on role in the centre’s construction.
It’s a role that connects her education with her passion for business. Dr. Sharpe earned PhDs in epidemiology and community health from the University of Toronto, but decided not to follow in the footsteps of her academic parents. Instead, she enrolled in the Rotman School of Management, earned an MBA and went into finance.
In corporate lending, Dr. Sharpe got to know a lot about Canadian businesses and the people who run them. When she left, she accepted a request to join the board of Coco Paving, “the only paving company of any size in the world run by a woman.”
Four months ago, Dr. Sharpe’s son was born, adding another role to her collection.
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