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James Harkness, P.eng
Senior Director, Client Consulting
James is a Senior Director at bfinance Canada, focusing on business development and client relationships with institutional investors. He has more than 25 years of experience across financial technology, data analytics and investment management.
Prior to joining bfinance, James held senior roles at Altus Group, Juniper Square and MSCI, advising institutional clients on performance analytics, valuations and data solutions. He began his career in technology and financial services, having worked at Fidelity National Information Services and BMO.
James holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA from Queen's University.
More insights from the team:
Private credit and the asset allocation challenge
Increasingly, asset allocation models are treating Private Credit as a strategic asset class with its own clearly defined profile, rather than an implementation solution within a fixed income or...
bfinance Platform: real assets, UK open-ended property funds in five charts
M&A activity, such as the recent news of the combination of the Columbia Threadneedle and PATRIZIA UK property funds fits a neat narrative.
Manager Intelligence and Market Trends - August 2026
bfinance's quarterly report for August 2026: read the team's latest insights on institutional investor activity, risk appetite, market developments and asset manager performance across all major...
Investor Spotlight: PGB - can impact investing become the default setting for private markets portfolios?
While many asset owners continue to debate the role of impact investing, Pensioenfonds PGB has already made its choice. The Dutch pension fund has decided that new private markets investments should...
Investor Spotlight: KWAP - navigating technological shifts in quant equities
Kumpulan Wang Persaraan (Diperbadankan) (KWAP) is Malaysia’s public sector pension fund and a key government-linked investment institution. Over the past decade it has built a quantitative...
Semi-liquid funds: managing the structural liquidity mismatch
Redemptions from US semi-liquid private credit funds continue to dominate the headlines. Often presented in absolute terms – 'billions redeemed' – without adequate context, much of the nuance around...
Investment Management Fees: Pricing pressure in the turbulent twenties
The latest instalment in the bfinance Fee and Cost Insight series highlights recent price pressures in both private and public markets as the turbulent twenties change the competitive landscape.
Why don’t MAC strategies typically include emerging market debt?
Emerging market debt offers yields that are hard to ignore. Yet across 47 MAC strategies reviewed by bfinance, a half allocated less than 10% to it and a third less than 1%. This piece sets out...
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