Q&A with Jennifer Pyper, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations in Toronto, Ontario

Tell us a bit about your role and responsibilities at Slate.

I joined Slate in 2017 because I was looking to grow in my career and gain real industry experience after being a CPA for five and half years with Deloitte, working in public accounting.

As Senior Vice President of Investor Relations, I’m involved in capital raising and investor relations activity across Slate’s private fund business. This includes everything from overseeing the launch of new fund products, to developing marketing materials, preparing fund diligence packages, and coordinating all the materials and information our investors need through the fundraising process.

In addition, I manage all client service and relationship efforts with existing investors across Slate’s business. The key responsibilities associated with this part of my role include managing the preparation and delivery of investor reports, managing the development of fund communications and materials, and working alongside our investors to address any of their informational needs in a timely manner, in addition to ongoing relationship management.

How has your career evolved over your time at Slate?  

I started my career at Slate in a finance and accounting role for Slate Grocery REIT, which aligned with my finance background and served as a natural extension of my public accounting role at Deloitte. After a year, I was presented with an opportunity to move to an investor relations role on the private side of the business. This appealed to me in particular, as it allowed me to utilize many of the analytical skills I developed working in accounting and finance, while enabling me to further refine my communication and presentation skills in a more client-facing role. The culture at Slate really encourages self-development, which gave me the confidence to take on a different kind of role, ultimately allowing me to expand, broaden and strengthen my skill set.

Why did you choose to work in investor relations and what is the significance of working with teams across the firm?

Working in investor relations can be summed up in one word: dynamic. I love investor relations because it’s a truly unique role that utilizes diverse skills and requires you to constantly be learning and developing, as the work spans all our investment strategies and teams across Slate’s global platform. It provides you with the opportunity to always be working on a new initiative that contributes directly to the growth of Slate’s business.

Investor relations is one of the roles at Slate that provides you with the exposure to work across each of our business lines and collaborate with all of our teams, including our investment, asset management and development teams, and our accounting, tax, legal, compliance and communication teams. This aspect of the role deepens your understanding of the overall business, and ensures you have the knowledge to effectively communicate and work with our investors across various strategies and capital raising initiatives.

What skills are most important to your role in investor relations?

You have to know the business inside and out, learning and adapting rapidly, in order to deliver quality and timely information to our investors. In investor relations, it’s vital to have the ability to comprehend and contextualize “the big picture.” It’s important to be able to put yourself in investors’ shoes to understand their perspective, which in turn helps us to develop strategies, investment solutions and processes and procedures that drive excellence and ultimately create value for our partners. Communication, critical thinking skills, and attention to detail are equally important.

The investor relations team manages significant investor materials and touchpoints, so having that critical eye and drive is extremely important. Beyond conventional skills, creative capacity and thinking outside the box is also required, as almost all “asks” of this role are unique and ever changing – having the ability to bring forward new and creative ideas to present an investment opportunity or explain an investment strategy is key.

How do you continue to learn and grow in your role?

I think the nature of this role lends itself to constantly growing and evolving. By launching new investment strategies and working across different markets, you are continuously gaining new knowledge and further developing your skill set. In a sense, I’ve been personally growing at Slate since I started here in the accounting department and was encouraged and supported to take a role on the investor relations team. I think it speaks to the broader management team’s focus on supporting individuals in their professional development and providing them with opportunities in the organization that best positions them for success and continued career development.

What is your favorite part about working at Slate?

What drew me to Slate when I first joined and what I continue to love is its entrepreneurial and collaborative culture. Over the past few years, Slate has grown exponentially into a larger, more sophisticated institution, however, it does continue to maintain an entrepreneurial culture, empowering everyone on the team to think creatively and bring forward new ideas. Equally important is that Slate encourages team collaboration – the ability to share best practices and leverage the strengths of various team members when executing initiatives allows you to feel supported in your role and positions you for success.