Katharine Preston

Vice President, Sustainable Investing

Katharine Preston is responsible for leading OMERS Sustainable Investing team. In this role, she leads the development and advancement of OMERS approach to Sustainable Investing and most recently, OMERS Climate Action Plan. The world class team supports OMERS with implementing our sustainable investing strategy of integration, collaboration, and engagement across the enterprise. To achieve our objective, Katharine and the team work closely with OMERS investment, risk, finance, and communications teams on matters such as ESG integration, climate risk, stakeholder communications and reporting.

Working in the pension industry for more than 15 years, Katharine previously served as Director, Responsible Investing at OPTrust, an Ontario-based public sector pension plan. At OPTrust, Katharine was instrumental in defining a strategy for integrating sustainability-related factors into investment practices. Prior to joining OPTrust, Katharine held positions with Innovest Strategic Value Advisors (now part of MSCI) and Stantec Inc.

Katharine currently serves on the Board of Directors for the United Church of Canada’s Pension Plan; the Investment Committee for the University of Guelph and recently completed a final term on the board of the Pension Investment Association of Canada (PIAC). Katharine also sits on the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance’s Environment & Social Committee and chairs the Investor Leadership Advisory Panel of Climate Engagement Canada.

Katharine holds a Bachelor of Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering from McGill University, as well as an MBA from the Schulich School of Business, York University. She also holds a Certificate in Fundamentals of Alternative Investments from the Chartered Alternative Investment Management Analyst Association (CAIA).