Giving back is a priority for Colin Lynch
January 29, 2021
In the 18 years since graduating from Sir John A. Macdonald Collegiate Institute in Scarborough, Colin Lynch has achieved quite a lot.
He’s the Vice-President & Director of Global Real Estate Investments at Toronto-Dominion (TD) Bank Asset Management with responsibility for nearly 700 properties in 20 countries around the world, a member of the Toronto Investment Board and co-founder of the Black Opportunity Fund (BOF) launched last June to serve and empower Canada’s diverse Black community.
The Harvard University graduate also sits on several Boards and was last year named one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 high achievers.
Seeing a photo which a friend posted on Facebook recently of their last day in high school prompted Lynch to pause and reflect on how far he has come.
“I thought about how much life has changed, the amount of experiences I have been able to have and what I have accomplished,” the 35-year old business leader said. “I went back into the moment and thought about myself. That was the end of high school and at that point it felt like the world, as I knew it, was coming to a close and everything was being changed. I had no anticipation of how things would evolve.”
Lynch, who started playing the piano at age five and graduated from the Royal Conservatory of Music, didn’t need to worry though there were some setbacks.
With his applications to prestigious American Universities, including Harvard, Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania rejected, he applied to five Ontario schools to pursue Commerce studies.
“I was disappointed that I didn’t get into Princeton or Harvard, but looking back, it’s understandable as I didn’t grow up in an environment where I knew what you needed to do to get into those schools, which started right at the beginning of high school,” said Lynch who completed his elementary education at Silver Springs Public School. “I didn’t have the repertoire of counsellors and all these people to help me figure out what to say in interviews.”
With the choice down to two, his preference was the University of Toronto over Queen’s University.
“U of T is in Toronto and I could continue doing my music,” Lynch, who also played the clarinet, organ and violin, pointed out.
He selected a roommate and went as far as paying his portion of the deposit for the residence.
A day before the enrollment deadline, Lynch’s parents convinced him to change course.
“Even though my dad was in construction, all of his colleagues had heard about the Queen’s Commerce program and thought it was good,” he said. “After this long conversation where I literally thought my life was ending, they said, ‘You really need to go there’.”
Lynch graduated in 2007 with a dual degree (Distinction) in History and Commerce.
After two years as an Investment Banking Analyst at Morgan Stanley, he enrolled in Harvard’s MBA program.
“I will never forget the letter I got from Harvard College when I was trying to get in at the undergraduate level,” said Lynch who was also admitted to Harvard and Yale law schools. “It read, ‘In life it matters less where you go. It matters more what you do’. That was a huge life lesson. I never forgot I was rejected from Harvard and I wanted to turn that around and right the wrong.”
The Ivy League School provided ‘an unprecedented platform’ for him to flourish.
“It was what I expected and more and also different,” he said. “I got the opportunity to go to Turkey through the Turkish Caucus at the Harvard Kennedy School and I was the only Business school person on that trip. We met with the Turkish President and Prime Minister, various government Ministers and the Central Bank Governor.”
Lynch spent just over three years as the Senior Engagement Manager with McKinsey & Company and eight months with Aimia Inc. as General Manager of Global Strategy before joining Greystone Managed Investments Inc. in 2015 as the Head of Growth & Strategy and co-founding the Global Real Estate Strategy.
“What I did there was to implement a couple of re-organizations that played a role in facilitating a lot of what Greystone accomplished,” he said. “TD recognized that growth and acquired Greystone in 2018. Prior to the acquisition, I philosophically had a choice. I could continue on management of an investment firm or I could try to play in the game. I had the experience of being in front office, but I now wanted to get the experience of being coach of the team or just being on the team. In an investment shop, I can create something, build it from scratch and run it with unprecedented skill given the size now not just of Greystone which was a $37 billion firm, but now TD, which combined with Greystone, was worth about $400 billion.”
Lynch’s leadership isn’t just confined to his job.
Tired of talking and depending on handouts, he was among a group of 51 Black leaders from financial, investment, legal and technology entities along with non-profits that are providing support and guidance to the BOF.
Once fully established, it aims to attract investment to grow the fund to $1.5 billion, generate $90 to $125 million in investments and philanthropic capital annually, permanently support over 450 community-based organizations, fill funding gaps for about 8,000 Black businesses and support a national ecosystem of partners working for transformational change.
“It is trying to endow and sustain the world’s largest fund for the Black community,” said Lynch. “It is for Black Canadians, Black organizations, charities, non-profits and businesses. Simply put, it is trying to give them the gift of finances that the Black community hasn’t received in equal proportion to many other communities in Canada.”
There are many who use their busy work schedules as a reason for not giving back.
Not Lynch who has made that a priority in his professional life.
He’s on the Board of Directors of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and a member of OneEleven 111 Advisory Committee and Queen’s University Board of Trustees Investment Committee where he oversees the university’s endowment and investment funds. Since 2013, he has served on the Queen’s School of Business Admissions Committee that reviews the Commerce program applications.
Lynch also served on the Boards of the Empire Club of Canada, Youth Empowering Parents that equip young people with skills to be volunteer tutors for adults in their community, Bright Futures of Burkina Faso founded by Queen’s alumni Tammy Chen and Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC).
He left TCHC in April 2019 as Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors and Chair of the Building, Investment, Finance and Audit Committee.
Serving on the Board of Canada’s largest social housing provider and the second largest in North America behind New York City Housing Authority was a labour of love.
“I saw 120,000 Torontonians in Toronto Community Housing and I heard the stories, whether it was the quality of living experience or all the turbulence of the organization,” the former Toronto Arts Foundation Emerging Leaders Committee member said. “When I was asked to consider applying to be on the Board, I certainly knew it was going to exact a ton of energy because the magnitude of what that organization tries to accomplish is humongous. I saw that as a potential to impact thousands of lives.”
Lynch has also been politically active.
He was the President of the Scarborough Agincourt Federal Liberal Association, an adviser to the President of the Liberal Party of Canada and the National Revenue Chair on strategic issues in 2012, a member of the John Tory mayoral campaign senior management team in 2014, the Pearson Centre for Progressive Policy Advisory Board member and an external adviser on the design and implementation of the $47 million provincial government Black Action Youth Plan.
Last December, he was the recipient of the Toronto Branch Award presented to Toronto-area based alumni who are excelling in their professional career, the arts and through volunteering.
“Colin exudes the Queen’s alumni spirit of excellence, selflessness, leadership and giving back,” said the university’s Black Alumni Chapter President Yinka Adegbusi who nominated Lynch for the award.
Born and raised in the Greater Toronto Area, Lynch is the older of two siblings.
Brian Lynch is a lawyer with Stikeman Elliott and a member of the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers.
Their parents, James and Jacqueline Lynch, are immigrants from Montserrat and Antigua respectively. They have been married since 1982.
“They are very wise people who I rely on for advice,” said Lynch who enjoys travelling and singles out London, Santiago and Honolulu as his favourite cities after Toronto. “They recognized that society isn’t kind to Black boys and made it clear that we had to work two times harder to succeed.”
The financial services sector is about numbers and analytics at which Lynch is very good.
What sets him apart is that he deeply cares about people, particularly those in marginalized communities, and is prepared to roll up his sleeves to help uplift them.
