John Akkerman

John W. Akkerman is a veteran of institutional asset management. He joined MacKay Shields LLC in September 2012 as Executive Managing Director and Global Head of Distribution, responsible for the firm's distribution, marketing, consultant relations, and client-service strategy, and served on the firm's Senior Leadership Team. MacKay Shields is a fixed-income and credit specialist boutique within the New York Life family of investment managers.

Before MacKay Shields, Akkerman spent roughly 16 years in leadership roles at AllianceBernstein, where he most recently led the firm's specialist institutional sales and marketing functions focused on alternatives and fixed income (his LinkedIn lists a Senior Managing Director title there). His earlier career began in banking and money management: he started as a corporate banking officer at Bank of Montreal in the early 1980s, was a business-development executive at Sun Life, and was a shareholder at TAL Investment Counsel before joining AllianceBernstein in 1996.

Akkerman earned a Bachelor of Commerce in Finance & Marketing from Saint Mary's University and an MBA from the University of Western Ontario (Ivey). He holds both the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) designations.

Following about twelve years leading distribution at MacKay Shields, Akkerman was elevated to Head of the Investments Client Group (ICG), Americas at New York Life Investment Management. In that expanded role he partners with leadership across New York Life's family of investment boutiques — which includes MacKay Shields, Apogem Capital, Ausbil, Bow River Advisors, Candriam, Kartesia, NYL Investors, and Tristan Capital Partners — to accelerate growth across the US, Canada, and select Latin American markets. This role sits within New York Life's 2025 initiative to unify its investment businesses into a single ~$785 billion global investment platform.

• Operates on the institutional/asset-management side, not the venture/angel side: his "investing" is directing distribution and client strategy for fixed-income, credit, and alternatives products, not writing checks into startups.
• Focus areas across his career: fixed income, credit, and alternative investments sold to institutional investors and intermediaries.
• Emphasizes long-term career and relationship-building philosophy. At a Duke FinTech seminar he framed success around three pillars — competency, likeability, and empathy ("awareness of colleagues' personal and professional circumstances").
• Personal career maxim he shared: *"Get into a good organization, don't worry about what the job is, do your best and use that job as a propeller."*