Claude Perron is the President and Founder of FIAM, an initiative he conceived in January 2020 to position Montréal and Québec within the global network of innovation as a centre of excellence in AI-enabled finance. With more than forty years of experience across asset management, capital markets, corporate leadership, and academia, he is dedicated to fostering an ecosystem where innovation, collaboration, and talent development converge to shape the next era of asset management.

The creation of FIAM reflects Claude’s enduring commitment to mobilizing the financial community around ideas and innovations that will shape the future. For more than fifteen years, he has played a unifying role across the major professional associations in finance (AIMA, CAASA, CAIA, CFA,EMB), helping transform its flagship Méchoui event into one of the country’s most widely recognized and anticipated industry gatherings. FIAM carries this spirit forward—bringing together institutional, academic, technological, and entrepreneurial leaders around a shared ambition: to harness artificial intelligence as a strategic lever for global competitiveness and the next evolution of asset management.

FIAM now focuses on advancing this collective mission by cultivating a New Generation of professionals equipped to navigate the intersection of finance, data science, and AI. The McGill-FIAM Asset Management Hackathon embodies this ambition, serving as a global laboratory for skill development and innovation.

Rooted in Montréal but inspired globally, this mission advances through the insights and perspectives of a worldwide community.

Widely recognized within the Canadian investment community, Claude champions the conviction that the future of asset management belongs to institutions that embrace AI with purpose, responsibility, and vision.

His multidimensional career provides the foundation for this vision:

• Academic leadership — Head of the Administration Department at UQAM and co-founder of CIREM-HEC, now part of HEC Montréal Executive Education.
• Corporate leadership — CEO of CN Express and Senior Vice-President, Development at Dominion Textile.
• Capital markets & investment management — Institutional Sales Co-Head at Marleau Lemire (Dundee), senior investment banking roles at Midland/Merrill Lynch, and 26 years in leadership at Gestion Cristallin.