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The executive who oversees investments on behalf of Canada’s largest pension fund is leaving in a surprise move that is in marked contrast to the “orderly long-term succession plan” of his predecessor.

Sources told the National Post that Mark Wiseman is departing soon from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, where he has been chief executive for almost four years.

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Following the Financial Post’s initial report, CPPIB announced Thursday that Wiseman is leaving to take a “senior leadership” role at Blackrock next month.

He will be succeeded atop the pension giant on June 13 by Mark Machin, CPPIB’s senior managing director and head of international.

Wiseman, 45, took over from David Denison in June of 2012, a handover that had been planned for months.

Denison spent seven years at CPPIB, which invests funds not needed to pay current pensioners, before retiring the year he turned 60.