John Ruffolo

Venture capital investor John Ruffolo is leaving OMERS Ventures, a fund he founded in 2011 as an arm of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System pension plan. During his tenure as CEO, Ruffolo led the fund to invest in several of Canada’s most successful tech startups in recent years, including Hootsuite and Shopify, and grew the fund’s portfolio to $800 million, making returns that have exceeded performance benchmarks. In his role, Ruffolo convinced other financial institutions to commit money to the fund, among them Bank of Montreal and Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada. Ruffolo is a co-founder of the Council of Canadian Innovators, along with Jim Balsillie, former Chairman and CEO of Research in Motion. Ruffolo will be replaced by Damian Steel, a managing partner at OMERS Ventures responsible for leading investments in the Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) sectors, who has stated that the fund will remain committed to venture capital. Ruffolo will remain at OMERS Ventures until the end of the year, serving in an advisory role.