VP, Portfolio Research

Bank of Montreal; Toronto; On-site; CAD 97,000 - 181,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Tuition reimbursement

Accident and life insurance

Retirement savings plans

Job summary

Bank of Montreal is seeking a senior Portfolio Research professional to lead research focused on portfolio construction, risk, and decision quality. You will partner with portfolio managers and risk leaders to improve risk-adjusted returns across strategies.

The role emphasizes leadership, quantitative methods, and collaboration with data, technology, and product teams to deliver robust backtesting, governance, and production-ready research.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in portfolio research or related investment roles.
• Experience leading complex research programs and influencing decisions.
• Deep expertise in portfolio construction, optimization, risk modeling and attribution.
• Strong understanding of live investment processes and constraints.
• Python and SQL proficiency with method review capabilities.
• Experience with financial datasets and quantitative models in production contexts.
• Excellent communication of complex research to diverse stakeholders.
• Proven leadership and talent development in a collaborative setting.

Responsibilities

• Define and lead a portfolio research agenda to improve investment outcomes.
• Advise portfolio managers; identify risks, exposures, and optimization opportunities.
• Develop frameworks for construction, constraints, sizing and costs.
• Lead funding on optimizer constraints via backtesting across regimes and mandates.
• Advance risk models, scenario analysis, stress testing, and diagnostics.
• Lead attribution, holdings-based analysis and decision-quality studies.
• Establish governance standards for research design, validation and reproducibility.
• Collaborate with investment, risk, data, technology and product teams.
• Mentor quantitative researchers and analysts; cultivate curiosity and accountability.
• Evaluate new data sources, methods, and production-ready research technologies.

Skills

Portfolio research

Quant investing

Portfolio management

Risk management

Python

SQL

Communication

Leadership

Data analysis

Tools

Barra

Axioma

Bloomberg

FactSet

Job description

Application Deadline: 08/29/2026 Address: 100 King Street West Job Family Group: Customer Solutions

Key Responsibilities

• Portfolio Research Leadership: Define and lead a portfolio research agenda focused on improving investment outcomes, portfolio robustness, and the consistency of decision-making across strategies and mandates.
• Investment Insights and Advisory: Serve as a senior research partner to portfolio managers and investment leaders; identify portfolio risks, unintended exposures, concentration concerns, and opportunities to improve risk-adjusted returns.
• Portfolio Construction and Optimization: Develop and evaluate portfolio construction frameworks, optimization techniques, constraints, and sizing methodologies that balance expected return, risk, liquidity, capacity, turnover, and implementation costs.
• Optimizer Constraint Research and Calibration: Lead research on tuning portfolio optimizer constraints through robust backtesting across different investment signals, market regimes, and mandates; evaluate their impact on risk-adjusted returns, turnover, concentration, liquidity, capacity, stability, and implementation costs.
• Risk and Exposure Management: Advance the use of factor risk models, scenario analysis, stress testing, active risk, systemic risk, predicted beta, and other portfolio diagnostics to support effective oversight and challenge.
• Performance and Decision Analysis: Lead performance attribution, holdings-based diagnostics, and decision-quality studies to distinguish repeatable investment skill from factor, market, or implementation effects.
• Research Governance: Establish robust standards for research design, validation, documentation, reproducibility, model monitoring, and change management; ensure analytical outputs are transparent, auditable, and fit for use in live investment processes.
• Cross-Team Collaboration: Partner with investment, risk, data, technology, product, and distribution teams to develop practical solutions, improve shared capabilities, and communicate portfolio insights to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• People Leadership and Mentorship: Lead, coach, and develop quantitative researchers and analysts; set clear priorities, promote constructive challenge, and foster a culture of intellectual curiosity, accountability, and continuous learning.
• Innovation and Strategic Development: Evaluate emerging datasets, quantitative methods, machine learning techniques, and research technologies; prioritize innovations that provide measurable investment or operational value.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in portfolio research, quantitative investing, portfolio management, risk management, or a closely related investment role.
• Demonstrated experience leading complex research programs and influencing portfolio decisions across multiple investment teams or mandates.
• Deep expertise in portfolio construction, optimization, factor analysis, risk modeling, performance attribution, and empirical investment research.
• Strong understanding of how quantitative models operate within live investment processes, including implementation, liquidity, capacity, transaction cost, operational, and governance constraints.
• Advanced proficiency in Python and SQL, with the ability to review analytical methodologies, challenge assumptions, and guide scalable implementation.
• Experience working with financial datasets such as fundamentals, estimates, sentiment, macroeconomic data, factor risk models, security masters, holdings, transactions, and performance data.
• Proven ability to communicate complex research clearly and persuasively to portfolio managers, senior executives, clients, and non-quantitative stakeholders.
• Strong leadership, judgment, and prioritization skills, with a track record of developing talent and delivering high-quality outcomes in a collaborative environment.

Preferred Skills

• Experience supporting a broad range of investment mandates, including mutual funds, ETFs, model portfolios, institutional portfolios, or multi-asset strategies.
• Experience with commercial risk models and investment platforms such as Barra, Axioma, Bloomberg, FactSet, or similar tools.
• Knowledge of machine learning, alternative data, model validation, experiment tracking, and model monitoring within an investment context.
• Experience modernizing research workflows, reducing technical debt, and moving analytical processes from ad hoc research into reliable production environments.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms, workflow orchestration, data lineage, CI/CD practices, and scalable research infrastructure.
• Ability to connect detailed quantitative analysis with broader investment, product, client, and business considerations.

Salary

Salary: $96,600.00 - $180,600.00 Pay Type: Salaried The above represents BMO Financial Group’s pay range and type. Salaries will vary based on factors such as location, skills, experience, education, and qualifications for the role, and may include a commission structure. Salaries for part-time roles will be pro-rated based on number of hours regularly worked. For commission roles, the salary listed above represents BMO Financial Group’s expected target for the first year in this position. BMO Financial Group’s total compensation package will vary based on the pay type of the position and may include performance-based incentives, discretionary bonuses, as well as other perks and rewards.

• BMO also offers health insurance, tuition reimbursement, accident and life insurance, and retirement savings plans.

To view more details of our benefits, please visit: https://jobs.bmo.com/global/en/Total-Rewards

About Us

At BMO we are driven by a shared Purpose: Boldly Grow the Good in business and life. It calls on us to create lasting, positive change for our customers, our communities and our people. By working together, innovating and pushing boundaries, we transform lives and businesses, and power economic growth around the world. As a member of the BMO team you are valued, respected and heard, and you have more ways to grow and make an impact. We strive to help you make an impact from day one – for yourself and our customers. We’ll support you with the tools and resources you need to reach new milestones, as you help our customers reach theirs. From in-depth training and coaching, to manager support and network-building opportunities, we’ll help you gain valuable experience, and broaden your skillset. To find out more visit us at https://jobs.bmo.com/ca/en.

BMO is committed to an inclusive, equitable and accessible workplace. By learning from each other’s differences, we gain strength through our people and our perspectives.

Accommodations are available on request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process. To request accommodation, please contact your recruiter.

Note to Recruiters: BMO does not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than directly from a candidate. Any unsolicited resumes sent to BMO, directly or indirectly, will be considered BMO property. BMO will not pay a fee for any placement resulting from the receipt of an unsolicited resume. A recruiting agency must first have a valid, written and fully executed agency agreement contract for service to submit resumes. BMO is a leading bank driven by a single purpose: to Boldly Grow the Good in business and life. Everywhere we do business, we’re focused on building, investing and transforming how we work to drive performance and continue growing the good.

Who we are

We’re proud to be fueling growth and expanding possibilities for individuals, families and businesses. More than 12 million customers count on us for personal and commercial banking, wealth management and investment services. As the 8th largest bank in North America by assets, we provide personal and commercial banking, wealth management and investment services to more than 12 million customers. In Canada, the United States and across the globe, we’ll continue to build, invest and transform to drive performance that serves the good that grows.