Unbiased expert advice delivered with relentless commitment to client service
Everyone’s vision of financial success is unique. Relentless in our commitment to client service, we at Ascendant Wealth Partners make it our mission to understand yours and help you achieve it.
Preserving and enhancing wealth through objective, unbiased, and personalized advice, our team of experts collectively manages more than $7 billion, helping hundreds of families, as well as institutions and foundations, reach their financial goals.
We leverage best-in-class investment expertise to construct a bespoke portfolio for every client, investing our own money alongside theirs.
Our strength
Boutique care meets enterprise capabilities
We at Ascendant Wealth Partners share a relentless commitment to offering each client a tailored, high-calibre wealth management experience. That’s why our partners, Jim Bantis, Evan Howard, Bruce Kagan, Bruce Leboff, Adam Moody, Jonathan Paul and Sam Calamai chose to build their wealth management boutique within the largest firm in our industry nationwide. The resources and capabilities here are second to none, allowing us to augment our bespoke white-glove approach in myriad ways.
Comprehensive experience
Our team leverages a unique combination of advanced skill sets and deep industry experience.
150+ years of collective experience advising and investing on behalf of families, foundations, and institutions
10+ years working closely together as senior executives at one of Canada’s leading wealth management boutiques
Our partners have been entrusted with managing more than $7 billion in client assets
Corporate finance expertise, including business valuation as well as mergers and acquisitions
Taxation expertise from Chartered Professional Accountants, proficient in areas of accounting, assurance, insolvency, and restructuring
Trusted by hundreds of families to advise upon complex requirements, including family governance and philanthropic endeavours
Experience building and managing dedicated high-net-worth platforms for two leading Canadian bank-owned brokerage firms
An inside-and-out understanding of investment structures gleaned from experience designing and launching new investment products
Equity research expertise from the former Head of Canadian Equity Research at a global investment bank
Industry-leading network
We tap into the tremendous capabilities of RBC, an international institution and Canada’s largest bank.
Open-architecture platform that grants access to institutional-calibre investing via the world’s top-performing money managers methodically and continually vetted by RBC analysts
Portfolios constructed and managed with direct input and objective consultation from some 100 independent market analysts
Advantages of daily asset liquidity through RBC’s advanced credit and margin capabilities
Access to integrated expertise from the 250+ legal, tax, insurance, and accounting professionals comprising Canada’s largest wealth management services team
Advanced day-to-day banking solutions and preferred credit rates from RBC Commercial Banking, RBC Private Banking, and RBC Premier Banking Advisors
Award-winning expertise in areas of financial planning, will and estate planning, and insurance planning
What we do
FAMILIES
Your wealth, your way
Each family’s needs are unique, and the high-net-worth families Ascendant Wealth Partners serves have particularly complex requirements. We have the experience to accommodate and optimize for these complexities, and we do so in line with your preferences, catering to the level of service each family requires.
Our relationship with you and your family begins with an in-depth exploration of who you are, what you are trying to accomplish, and what success looks like for you. Be it in our office or in your home, spending time to get to know you is foundational to our highly individualized, high-touch service and helps us determine critical parameters for success.
Your wealth is multifaceted and dynamic, and so is the plan we develop for you. Our comprehensive approach takes into consideration all the elements of your life – evolving alongside it – and integrates the expertise of key professionals in each facet of wealth, including estate planning and intergenerational wealth transfer, tax optimization, philanthropy, business owner planning, and cross-border requirements.
Tailoring to your unique needs and objectives – taking into account your specific tax considerations and income needs – the Ascendant Wealth Partners Investment Committee determines the optimal asset allocation for your portfolio. As we design your individualized investment framework, we focus on capital preservation and strong risk-adjusted returns, keeping a keen eye to opportunity for you.
Specialists will always outperform generalists. That’s why we leverage the expertise of the world’s top investment managers in key market segments, drawing on ongoing guidance from RBC’s robust team of investment analysts as well as enhanced due diligence from the Ascendant Wealth Partners Investment Committee. In so doing, we select and optimize from 5,000-plus investment opportunities to which we have access to construct your portfolio.
Our work for you and your family is ongoing. Through regular touchpoints and meetings, we continually build upon and deepen our relationship with you to ensure we understand and cater to your needs as they evolve. With any shift in your objectives – or in our view of market investment opportunities – we review and adjust your plan or portfolio as needed.
INSTITUTIONS AND FOUNDATIONS
Advice you can place your trust in
Institutional investors face a broad array of complex challenges – chief among them generating sufficient returns to meet their operating, spending, and liquidity requirements. Acting as an “outsourced CIO,” our experts at Ascendant Wealth Partners shoulder all investing responsibilities and execution on behalf of our clients, including portfolio construction, asset mix monitoring, benchmarking, governance, and risk management.
We are trusted stewards to a wide range of institutional and non-profit clients across Canada, with extensive experience serving family offices, foundations, endowments, and non-profit organizations with international ties. We have specialized expertise in catering to the particular and complex requirements of regulated insurance and financial companies, providing them with strategies for risk management, asset allocation, as well as liability and capital analysis.
Our high-touch investment approach starts by collaborating with your team, uncovering your organization’s circumstances, constraints, as well as current and future investment objectives.
We design an investing framework tailored to your organization, working alongside you to develop custom investment policy statements, ESG-related policies, a rebalancing approach, and risk management.
We have access to investment opportunities in all major asset classes, economic sectors, and geographic regions, including public market strategies, private credit, direct lending, and other accessible alternative investments. Among these, we strategically determine your optimal portfolio components and allocations based on the Ascendant Wealth Partners Investment Committee’s global economic outlook. In addition, we deploy an active management approach that shifts the asset allocations in a portfolio to take advantage of macroeconomic conditions.
Leveraging due diligence from RBC strategists, economists, and analysts – including the experts at the Global Manager Research Team – we select from an extensive universe of carefully screened asset managers (5,000+ firms worldwide) to construct your portfolio within a single unified account with consolidated reporting.
Well versed in the fiduciary duties involved in institutional-level investing, we provide objective, transparent, and in-depth reporting each quarter, which details your integrated asset mix among multiple asset types, overall portfolio performance, and benchmarking. In addition, clients receive detailed strategy information, manager updates, and relevant market commentaries.
Our promise
Relentless in our commitment to client service, we focus on meeting and exceeding your needs through proactive and unbiased strategic advice. Investing our personal capital alongside our clients’, we hold ourselves accountable for results and pride ourselves on communicating with transparency. You will know what is in your portfolio and why it is there, and we will keep you abreast of developments and our strategic responses to them.
Our people
Vast collective expertise spanning more than a century
The founders of Ascendant Wealth Partners have honed their partnership over more than a decade of working together, and collectively have more than 150 years of industry experience as trusted advisors to their clients. Supported by market, operations, and administrative experts, as well as wealth specialists, each partner brings deep experience and special skills to each interaction, opportunity, and challenge.
Jim Bantis
Evan Howard
Bruce Kagan
Bruce Leboff
Adam Moody
Jonathan Paul
Sam Calamai
Our mission
At Ascendant Wealth Partners, our mission is to serve as trusted stewards of our clients’ capital and legacy. We deliver sophisticated, institutional-quality wealth management with deep personal care, guiding investors through complexity with clarity, integrity, and discipline. We foster a culture of excellence, collaboration, and continuous improvement across our team, while advancing a multi-generational vision that sustains both client success and team longevity.
Insights
Ascendant Wealth Partners Insights
A top down summary and up to date information on the economy and investment markets – read our updates to learn more about how current events impact your portfolio.
Navigating the New Normal: Investing in an Age of Heightened Geopolitical Risk
Navigating 2026: Strategic Investing Amid Persistent Volatility and Market Noise
RBC Insights
Discover articles from thought leaders across RBC on a variety of relevant and engaging topics.
What does financial success look like for you?
Let’s define your vision of success and lay out a plan to help you achieve it.
Email:ascendant@rbc.com
Phone:416-289-5757