I originally met Dawn Jia through our daughters and first knew her as the mother of an academic standout and international public speaking champion. Over time, however, I came to realize that the apple does not fall far from the tree.
Dawn is the CEO of UBC Investment Management Trust, overseeing a $7.5 billion portfolio that includes the UBC Endowment Fund and UBC staff pensions. Her role as the key decision-maker for a portfolio of such scale and complexity places her among a very small group of leaders in Canada — and an even smaller group of women.
Sitting down with Dawn to discuss her path to leadership, she is disarmingly humble and authentic, even remarking, “Authenticity is what you will get from me.”
Dawn’s leadership journey began early in China and evolved from a deep appetite for knowledge and mastery. Although she was initially drawn to both the arts and academics, encouragement from her family led her toward engineering, and she ultimately completed an engineering degree at Tianjin University.
She admits that technical skills came naturally to her and that she worked very intentionally to develop the interpersonal abilities she viewed as essential to a successful life and career. Astute and naturally curious, Dawn possesses a remarkable ability to synthesize large amounts of information while continually refining her understanding of complex issues, including social and cultural systems and interpersonal nuance.
Soon after moving to Canada from China, she realized that people skills carried particular importance within Canada’s collaborative workplace culture. Unlike the more hierarchical and structured leadership she had observed in China, Dawn recognized that leadership in Canada requires building a vision, earning buy-in at every level, and aligning teams around shared goals. As Dawn explains, “Leadership is not about coming up with an idea and just sending instructions down. It is about forming a vision, getting buy-in, and helping people work together to implement it.”
As an immigrant arriving in Canada in her late 20s, Dawn learned how to adapt quickly and was invigorated by the opportunity to evolve and grow in a new country. She pivoted toward completing an MBA and noticed that those who asked for opportunities and threw their hat in the ring tended to be rewarded over time. She emailed CIBC directly and asked for an interview. “Whatever you want, just ask,” she emphasizes, acknowledging that fear of rejection has little place in personal growth and that courage, curiosity, and persistence should guide young people. “I just wanted one company to give me an opportunity to show what I can do,” Dawn recalls. CIBC did, and her trajectory toward leadership began.
It was adventure that initially drew her to Canada, but it was family and future opportunity that ultimately kept her here. Her daughter Rachel was born in Canada, and Dawn recognized the benefits of raising her in a country filled with opportunity, especially for women leaders. As a single mom, Dawn was deliberate about carving out time for Rachel, recognizing the importance of reducing travel while her daughter was young and dedicating three hours each day to quality one-on-one time together. “I just needed to prioritize differently,” Dawn states, admitting that she would often continue working for several more hours after putting Rachel to bed. As Rachel matured, Dawn gradually reintegrated travel into her schedule, remaining thoughtful about how much she would take on during different stages of Rachel’s life.
As one of the few women leading a large investment portfolio in Canada, Dawn is passionate about helping younger women step into positions of responsibility. She notes that women often hold themselves back because they believe they must meet or exceed every expectation before putting up their hand and acknowledges that many women become stuck in a cycle of overpreparing. She views these as internal barriers as much as external ones, noting that women may possess nine out of ten qualifications for a role but still hesitate because they have not mastered the tenth. Men, by contrast, will often put themselves forward with only a handful of the required qualifications. “Whatever you want, just ask,” Dawn reiterates, encouraging women to confidently present themselves as professionals who can offer solutions.
Over time, Dawn has developed several systems and approaches that have allowed her to succeed both professionally and personally. She is comfortable knowing she can never have complete certainty, that she can be wrong 40 percent of the time, and that probabilistic thinking means her overall outcomes can still be highly successful. One of her guiding principles is knowing when to cut losses and move on. This philosophy is central to her methodology, and she understands that perfectionism is impossible and decisiveness matters. Her investment decisions require making choices without certainty and resisting the fear of failure. This mindset has served her well, and she continues to achieve exceptional results professionally while also building a fulfilling personal life, with a daughter who is thriving and poised for an impressive post-secondary academic and professional future.
Today, Dawn’s definition of success extends beyond investment performance and focuses more heavily on the culture she creates and the people she inspires at the office. Reflecting on her years at Barclays and the team atmosphere she admired there, Dawn emphasizes the importance of hiring smart, kind people and then creating a workplace where they feel energized and engaged. She underscores the importance of finding true passion through work, alongside authenticity and meaning. “True success means people come to work excited,” she says, and her enthusiasm leaves little doubt that her team feels exactly that way.