Yann Robard

Yann Robard is the founder and Managing Partner of Dawson Partners, the Toronto-based alternative asset manager he launched in 2015 as Whitehorse Liquidity Partners (alongside co-founder Michael Gubbels). The firm specializes in providing structured liquidity to private equity investors, and under Robard it has grown to roughly $20–22 billion in assets under management within a decade, with offices in Toronto, New York City, and London and a staff that has expanded to over 200 professionals. Robard has publicly stated an ambition to eventually manage as much as $100 billion.

Before founding the firm, Robard spent 13 years at the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), joining in 2001 around the launch of its private equity program (with tenures spanning 2001–2006 and 2007–2015). He rose to Managing Director and Head of Secondaries and Co-Investments, where he led a team of 15 professionals across Toronto and London that invested more than C$7.5 billion across 49 transactions. He brings over 23 years of private-markets experience.

Robard holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Dalhousie University and is a CFA Charterholder. The firm's two names — Whitehorse and Dawson — are both inspired by Robard's roughly 1,000-km bicycle journey through the Canadian Arctic, a trip the firm cites as emblematic of his trailblazing approach to the secondaries market. The rebrand to Dawson Partners was completed in 2024, reportedly in connection with a trademark dispute over the Whitehorse name.

• Core strategy: Providing customized portfolio financing and structured liquidity solutions to private equity LPs and GPs — effectively a "preferred equity" approach that lets institutions turn bundles of illiquid fund stakes into cash without a full outright sale.
• Pioneer of preferred-equity secondaries: The firm built its reputation by financing diversified private equity portfolios using structured/preferred instruments rather than traditional discounted secondary buyouts.
• Aligned with both sides of the market: Robard frames the business around "balancing the interests of both GPs and LPs," positioning Dawson as a liquidity provider rather than an opportunistic discount buyer.
• Scale and concentration: Funds deploy into a relatively small number of large transactions (Fund VI targeted up to ~20 deals), favoring large, diversified underlying portfolios over single-asset bets.
• Global, sector-agnostic at the asset level: Exposure is driven by the underlying PE portfolios financed, which span sectors and geographies worldwide.
• This is institutional secondaries/structured finance — not seed or angel venture investing in operating startups.