During the 1980s, Fournier was prominent among a group of young French-Canadian entrepreneurs who were very influential in changing the real estate landscape in Montreal. He started his career at leading developer Canderel where he became vice-president. He subsequently launched his own investment firm, which owned and redeveloped numerous properties in Quebec, including two very well-known downtown Montreal landmarks, the Ogilvy store and the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Prior to joining Ivanhoé Cambridge, he was the Chairman of the Board of engineering consulting firm Genivar, now WSP Global, and a member of the Board of Directors of national retailer Canadian Tire. He was also a Director of the Summit Industrial Income REIT. In July 2008, he was named Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer of SITQ, which was then the office real estate subsidiary of the Caisse. He left one year later and, in June 2010, he returned to the Caisse as Executive Vice-President and President of its global real estate group, including all office, retail, multiresidential and commercial mortgage lending businesses. After taking office, Fournier merged all of the Caisse's real estate subsidiaries and assets except commercial mortgage lending into Ivanhoé Cambridge in 2011. Under Mr. Fournier’s leadership, the teams at Ivanhoé Cambridge have built major global portfolios of assets in the residential, office and logistics sectors. The company also formed strong strategic partnerships and executed substantial co-investments with international firms such as Blackstone, TPG, Hines and Rockpoint. Ivanhoé Cambridge also launched several large-scale development projects in cities around the world, including the Projet Nouveau Centre in downtown Montréal, CIBC Square in Toronto, DUO in Paris and RiverPoint in Chicago. During Mr. Fournier’s tenure, Ivanhoé Cambridge completed $100 billion in transactional volume and real estate assets grew from $31 billion to $65 billion, generating net investment income of close to $24 billion, with an average annual return of 11.8%. On August 14, 2019, Daniel Fournier announced his retirement from Ivanhoé Cambridge as of the fall of 2019..
Philanthropic activities
In recent years, he has chaired fundraising campaigns for La Maison du Père, The Lighthouse Children and Families, and the Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer. He also was Co-Chair of the $40-million campaign of Bishop's University, near Sherbrooke, Québec, and until February 2020, he served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the McCord Museum Foundation, in Montréal. Fournier ran for office in 2006 as a Conservative Party candidate. He was defeated but received close to 15% of the votes in a race involving 11 candidates. In 2007, Fournier contributed a chapter to Reconquérir le Canada: Un nouveau projet pour la nation québécoise, a book defending Canadian federalism within Quebec.
