Kseniya Lenarciak, MBA 12
When Kseniya Lenarciak, MBA 12, was 17, she left Russia to attend George Brown College in Toronto. A dedicated student with a strong command of English, her plan was to study for a degree in hospitality management, get some life experience and return to help manage a family business.
“I was privileged to have the opportunity to study abroad,” says the native of Perm, a picturesque city in the Urals, roughly 1,500 km from Moscow. “It wasn’t affordable for everyone. And although it wasn’t easy, I understood the significance of the opportunity.”
While Toronto was a bit of a culture shock — “We didn’t have McDonald’s in Perm,” Lenarciak jokes — she quickly adapted. Later, at George Brown, her curiosity was kindled by a world hitherto unknown to her in Russia: the world of investment management.
‘I don’t think there’s a better curriculum out there’
“I grew up in a post-Communist environment but commerce and finance were still relatively nonexistent,” explains Lenarciak. “School for me was very much in the Soviet mould. The country changed on paper but less so culturally.”
Lenarciak decided to change her original plan and go on to graduate school. With a number of MBA programs to choose from, she was persuaded by the advantages of the Goodman Program in Investment Management, which gives students based in either Toronto or Montreal the flexibility to work in finance-related jobs while they advance towards an MBA.
Ultimately, however, the John Molson School of Business program’s primary attribute — the Goodman MBA was the world’s first to fully integrate the requirements of the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Program Candidate Body of Knowledge (CBOK™) — convinced Lenarciak to give Concordia a shot.
“The CFA component was huge because I always prioritize efficiency and time management,” she admits.
While Lenarciak was enrolled in the Goodman program, she met two people who had a formative impact on her life and career. One was Montreal native Ned Goodman, LLD 97, the visionary benefactor of the program and one of Canada’s most respected investment managers and merchant bankers.
Goodman provided encouragement to Lenarciak’s MBA cohort and was periodically on hand when she worked for his company, Dundee Capital Markets, as an intern and then associate in 2012 and 2013.
“I had some memorable interactions with him,” recalls Lenarciak. “It’s funny because I was on the cover of the Goodman program’s brochure and he always recognized me from that. When I was at Dundee, he once gave me a lift home when we happened to share the same elevator at the end of the day. I distinctly remember him saying that he had never met a rich pessimist.”
‘I couldn’t be more grateful’
Born Kseniya Kashina, Lenarciak also met her husband, Max Lenarciak, while enrolled at Concordia. The couple were set up by fellow Goodman student Alena Vinogradova, MBA 14.
“Alena is my best friend and godmother to our children. She was a bit of a matchmaker for us.”
Max Lenarciak began his Goodman MBA after his future spouse, but left the program to take a job with Dynamic Funds, which was owned by Dundee before Scotiabank acquired it in 2011.
“We both have these very strong connections to Ned Goodman,” says Kseniya Lenarciak. “My adult life has been greatly shaped by Ned — from the program to my professional career and my husband. It all links back to him and I couldn’t be more grateful.”
Lenarciak has come a long way since she landed in Toronto as a teenager from Russia. Her CFA and Goodman MBA have helped her ascend the ranks at the largest asset manager in the world (try $7.4 trillion of assets under management as of Q4 2019), BlackRock.
As a Toronto-based vice-president with the company, Lenarciak works on the institutional client side of the business.
“I focus primarily on the buildout of our family-office coverage,” she says. “A family office is basically a standalone private investment firm for ultra-high-net-worth individuals. So we focus exclusively on some of the largest private holders of capital in the country and bring our investment solutions to them.”
Now with a successful career and three young sons, Lenarciak has made a life for herself in her adopted country. In 2015, she sponsored her mother and sister to come over from Perm and join her in Toronto.
“I was always kind of the pioneer in my family,” she says.
The Goodman Institute of Investment Management was established at the John Molson School of Business in 1999, thanks to a $1.95-million gift from Ned Goodman, LLD 97. Offered in both Montreal and Toronto, the MBA program was the first in the world to completely integrate the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Body of Knowledge™ into its curriculum.
