The CPP Investment Board today appointed David Denison, currently president of Fidelity Investments Canada Ltd., as the organization’s next president and CEO. Denison will join the CPPIB on January 17 succeeding John MacNaughton.

MacNaughton, who has led the CPPIB since 1999, announced his plans to retire earlier this year.

Prior to heading up Fidelity Investments Canada, Denison served as president of one of Fidelity’s business units in the United States. Fidelity is one of the world’s largest financial services companies with managed assets of US$1 trillion.

Denison has extensive experience in financial services in Canada and internationally. He began his business career in 1981 as a chartered accountant with Price Waterhouse, was a senior executive in Merrill Lynch’s Canada, Europe and Middle East operations from 1984-1988, and served as CFO at S.G. Warburg Canada, Midland Walwyn and Mercer Consulting, and COO of Bunting Warburg immediately before joining Fidelity Canada in 1995.

The CPPIB says it selected Denison from a list of outstanding candidates following a rigorous six-month search process managed by a selection committee of the Board, with the assistance of a leading global executive search firm.

“David Denison is a seasoned executive with two decades of experience within global financial services organizations, and an impressive record of accomplishment. His integrity, broad management experience and success in strategy execution are precisely the qualities that the board sought in a new CEO,” said Gail Cook-Bennett, chairwoman of the CPP Investment Board, in a release.

“I have great respect for what the CPP Investment Board has achieved over the past five years and I am very excited about the opportunity to build on those achievements in the future,” said Denison.

Denison is a member of the Board of Governors of York University and the York School, a director and treasurer of the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, and a member of the Campaign Cabinet for the United Way of Greater Toronto. Born in Gander, Newfoundland, Denison worked for six years as a secondary school mathematics teacher in Toronto before earning his Chartered Accountant designation and beginning his business career. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto with Bachelor’s degrees in Mathematics and Education.