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Chartered Financial Analyst Keith Walton, ‘94 MBA, remembers his wife’s discomfort when attending finance conferences early in her career. She was usually the only woman in the room, and it was a struggle to be heard amongst men who often did not remember her name.

Theresa had a double major in accounting and finance and worked as a portfolio manager for Telus for many years while developing an all women’s public equity team and amplifying the voices of women in financial careers.

"She was very much a proponent of making sure that all voices were heard, and she believed different perspectives were important,” says Walton.

Theresa died of cancer in 2019, but her legacy will live on through a Â鶹ÊÓƵ bursary that Walton recently created to honour her life’s passion. Walton donated funds, as did Theresa’s sister and brother, Sharon Tougas and Gordon McNeil, towards the Theresa L Walton Bursary, an award that will be granted on a yearly basis to women majoring in finance with a focus on investments at the Â鶹ÊÓƵ.

“I wanted to have something as a reminder of how amazing she was, but also she would want to make sure that women’s voices aren’t drowned out in the whole investment space,” says Walton.

Walton shares his wife’s desire to cultivate different perspectives in the financial world, and does so through his work with Â鶹ÊÓƵ’s Program for Research and Investment Management Excellence (PRIME), a two-year long investment class. Eight to ten students are admitted each year through a competitive screening process to manage a fund worth over two million dollars, allowing for real-world investment experiences within an institutional setting. Students start out in the first year as analysts before working as managers in the second year.

“What happens in theory isn’t necessarily always what happens in reality,” says Walton. “I want to give the students a leg up that I didn’t have when I started so they understand how finance really works.”

Walton has an undergrad degree in economics and math, an MBA from the Â鶹ÊÓƵ, and a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation. He’s had a chance to work in many different aspects of finance. He’s built models for bonds; he’s worked at a trading desk in the public equity space; and worked with companies to build their investments. He worked for over 20 years for AIMCo in various positions with a number of different mandates. The equity team he was part of managed over 3 billion in assets that were invested in companies around the world.

While Walton successfully progressed, and worked on multiple impressive projects throughout his career, he says the biggest lesson he’s learned is that it’s not a race to get to the next big thing. He says it’s far more important to be grounded in the moment.

“Theresa and I had all sorts of plans of what we were going to do when we retired. Obviously, none of that will happen because she ended up with cancer and passed away,” says Walton.

“And so enjoy the day, enjoy your partner's company, enjoy what you’re doing. Make sure you watch the sunrise and be present in today. Don’t worry as much about tomorrow.”

It might seem counterintuitive to hear someone who’s dedicated their career to financial forecasting say we can’t predict everything in life. But it’s something that Walton hopes his students will also consider—he wants them to relish time with loved ones and enjoy each step of their careers rather than racing through each stage of life.