The Growth Equity team builds positions in the most attractive growth and venture backed companies by investing across a company’s lifecycle. The strategy is carried out through a combination of a thematic model and a partnership model leveraging the benefits of our GP relationships. We invest both directly and through co-investments in a wide range of next generation technologies and business models, focusing our direct investments in areas of high domain expertise. Among our thematic domains, we focus on direct investments within Innovations in Healthcare, Fintech, Climate Change Opportunities and Automobility. We invest primarily in North America and Europe, with direct investments ranging from investment sizes of $25M to $200M+ as we follow growth companies through their lifecycle.
Our Team
Leon S. Pedersen
Managing Director, Head of Growth Equity
Leon is a seasoned investing professional, with global experience in growth equity investing at high-profile investment management organizations.
Prior to joining CPP Investments in 2019, he worked for 22 years at Nordea Investment Management, and most recently spent four years as Head of Equities for Denmark-based BI Asset Management. In 2003, Leon co-authored The Thematic Investment Process, which highlights several structural growth drivers still relevant today.
Leon holds BS and MS degrees from Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, and attended the executive program at Singularity University in California in 2013.
Paul McCracken
Managing Director, Growth Equity
Paul leads the Innovations in Health Care strategy for the Growth Equities team. Prior to that, he was responsible for building the health care team and leading the launch and scale-up of multiple health care strategies for CPPIB Active Equities.
Prior to joining CPP Investments in 2009, Paul was a Senior Vice President at Barclays Capital and Lehman Brothers in New York, leading the Health Care Desk-Based Analytics team for trading in public equities and equity derivatives. Previously, Paul held a series of positions in financial services, private start-up ventures, and strategy consulting.
Paul holds a BA (Hons) in Chemistry and English, a BSc (Hons) in Chemistry, and a PhD in Organic Chemistry from Queen’s University.
Monica Adractas
Managing Director, Growth Equity
Based in San Francisco, Monica leads venture and growth investments for CPP Investments’ Growth Equity team within Private Equity. Monica joined CPP in 2019 and led the development of the Venture Capital program, which now includes fund investments with over 20 top-tier partners. In addition, the group actively pursues co-invest and direct investments in a variety of thematic areas.
Prior to joining CPP Investments in 2019, Monica built and led businesses in high growth environments, including Meta/Facebook, Box, and Starbucks. Most recently, she was Global Director at Workplace, an enterprise business she helped launch at Facebook. Monica spent 10 years with McKinsey & Company at the start of her career across San Francisco and New York.
Monica holds a BS in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.
Caitlin Walsh
Managing Director, Growth Equity
Caitlin is responsible for investing in growth stage private companies exposed to long-term secular growth themes, managing the Automobility and Climate Change Opportunities strategies within Growth Equity.
Prior to joining CPP Investments in 2014, Caitlin led strategy consulting teams at Bain & Co. She also worked at Basswood Partners, a New York based hedge fund, and at Merrill Lynch.
Caitlin holds a BS in Mathematics from McGill University and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.