As Sir Ron Kalifa, head of financial infrastructure and vice chair of private equity at Brookfield, reflected on the beginning of his career, he described a rigid, hierarchical environment and recalled physically writing in ledgers. Those physical ledgers may have exited banks years ago, but Kalifa believes that most large-scale financial institutions are still analogue businesses.
At a time filled with cryptocurrencies and digital payment systems, how can traditional banks catch up?
Kalifa joined University of Waterloo leadership, alumni, students and friends for an exclusive event last week at Level39, an incubator hub at Brookfield's Canary Wharf location in London, UK. The event featured a fireside chat between Kalifa and Jagdeep Singh Bachher (BASc '93, MASc '94, PhD '00), chancellor of Waterloo. Together, they discussed Kalifa's impressive career in finance, Brookfield's financial infrastructure strategy, and the future of the global economy.
"Many organizations are now challenging the large institutions," Kalifa explained. "And financial services, I think, is at a significant inflection point."
While large-scale financial companies might want to become digital-first players, Kalifa says they lack the agility to do it. But this doesn't mean that smaller, more agile Fintech companies are poised to take over. They don't have the scale, distribution or regulatory processes held by traditional institutions.
"So the task is: How do you get that agility into those large-scale organizations? And that's what the financial infrastructure strategy for Brookfield is about."
Kalifa leads investment in companies building behind-the-scenes technology that will allow us to move money or work within the global financial ecosystem more efficiently.
"It's the backbone of the global financial economy," Kalifa said. "Think about asset-light businesses that are the critical enablement factor driving banks, wealth managers, insurance companies. They can be a loans administration software. It can be a payments company ... a wealth management platform that connects distributors to the banks."
As cash becomes increasingly scarce, this type of technology is critical infrastructure for the future.
Investing in the world's future
Their financial infrastructure strategy is just one example of Brookfield's visionary approach to investment. The company has also partnered with Waterloo for more than 40 years, supporting scholarships and hiring more than 380 co-op students. Today, more than 150 Waterloo alumni work at Brookfield, including a number of senior leaders steering other future-focused strategies in AI, infrastructure and renewables.
Most recently, Waterloo was thrilled to partner with Brookfield to create the Brookfield Renewable Energy Hub, which gives Engineering and Environment students the valuable opportunity to engage directly with real-time clean energy challenges.
About the Global Futures event series
"Transformative Financial Futures" was one event in Waterloo's Global Futures event series, taking place in Canada and beyond. Alumni, students and friends can join us to see how the University of Waterloo community is turning challenges into opportunities for change. Attendees can hear from experts making real-world change in economics, society, technology, health and sustainability.
Each event is made possible by an industry partner. Thank you to Brookfield for hosting the "Transformative Financial Futures" event, and their generous support to other initiatives within our community.
