Edouard Merette

Édouard Mérette is a Singapore-based senior executive and board director with more than 25 years of corporate-management experience spanning Canada, Europe and Asia Pacific. Trained as an actuary, he studied at Laval University (1981–1984) and is a Fellow of both the Society of Actuaries and the Canadian Institute of Actuaries. He has lived in Singapore for roughly 15 years and built the core of his career in the professional-services and financial-services sectors.

Much of his executive track record was in benefits and human-capital consulting. He spent about six years on Mercer's Global Executive Committee, the final year of which he served as President, Asia Pacific, and subsequently spent seven years as Chief Executive of Aon Hewitt, Asia Pacific. He later moved to the institutional-investing side as Managing Director / Head of Asia Pacific for the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ / "La Caisse"), one of Canada's largest pension fund managers, helping build out its Asia Pacific presence from Singapore.

Since leaving CDPQ he has concentrated on board and advisory roles. In September 2016 he was appointed non-executive Chairman of Unigestion Asia, the Singapore arm of the Geneva-based asset manager, tasked with leading its regional growth strategy; he succeeded Bill Foo, with Group Chairman Bernard Sabrier citing Mérette's global profile and knowledge of Asian financial markets. He is a Director of Riverside Asia Partners Pte. Ltd. (part of The Riverside Company's global private-equity platform), a Senior Advisor at G3 Good Governance Group, and has served as an Independent Non-Executive Director of the payments platform Bluechain.

He is active in the region's governance and director community, serving on the Advocacy and Research Committee of the Singapore Institute of Directors and having previously sat on the advisory board of Nanyang Technological University's (NTU) MBA business school. He is bilingual in French and English.

• Operates primarily as an institutional/private-equity director and advisor rather than a classic startup angel; his deal exposure sits in the lower-middle-market and asset-management space via The Riverside Company / Riverside Asia Partners.
• Geographic conviction on Asia Pacific, particularly Singapore as a hub — the through-line across his Mercer, Aon Hewitt, CDPQ, Unigestion and Riverside roles.
• Strong tilt toward financial services, asset management, professional services and corporate governance — the sectors where he has operated as a CEO, board chair and advisor.
• Values governance, board quality and institutional discipline; his ongoing work with G3 Good Governance Group and the Singapore Institute of Directors signals that well-run boards and clean governance are central to how he evaluates and adds value to companies.
• Note: aggregator platforms (e.g., Foundersuite) surface him under "Angel Investors / Seed," but this appears to be a directory classification rather than a stated seed-stage thesis.