Archived - Minister Morneau Announces Membership of the Advisory Council on Economic Growth

Dominic Barton is the Global Managing Director of McKinsey & Company. In his 30 years with the firm, he has advised clients in a range of industries including banking, consumer goods, high tech and industrial. Prior to his current role, Mr. Barton was based in Shanghai as McKinsey’s Asia Chairman from 2004 to 2009 and led the Korea office from 2000 to 2004.

Mr. Barton is an active participant in international fora including the World Economic Forum, the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Les Rencontres Économiques d’Aix-en-Provence, the Asia Business Council and the China Development Forum. He has authored more than 80 articles on the role of business in society, leadership, financial services, Asia, history and the issues and opportunities facing markets worldwide. Mr. Barton is a co-author, with Roberto Newell and Gregory Wilson of Dangerous Markets: Managing in Financial Crises (Wiley & Sons, 2002) and China Vignettes: An Inside Look at China (Talisman, 2007).

Mr. Barton is the Co-Chair of the Focusing Capital on the Long Term initiative, along with Mark Wiseman of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Larry Fink (BlackRock). The initiative seeks to develop practical structures, metrics and approaches for longer-term behaviours in the investment and business worlds.

He is on the Board of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, is Chair of the Seoul International Business Advisory Council, a Trustee of the Brookings Institution, a member of the Singapore Economic Development Board’s International Advisory Council, a Board member of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, and Chairman of the U.S. President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa.

Mr. Barton has received multiple awards for his business leadership and contributions to the communities in which he has lived and worked. For example, in February 2013, he received the Order of Civil Merit (Peony Medal) from former President Lee of South Korea, and in August 2014, he was awarded the Singaporean Public Service Star (Distinguished Friends of Singapore). He is a Rhodes Trustee and an Honorary Fellow at Brasenose College, Oxford.

Mr. Barton is also an Adjunct Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing.

In her role as President and Chief Executive Officer of GE Canada and Vice President, GE, Elyse Allan is a passionate champion for Canada’s competitiveness, advancing the country’s science and technology base and competitive fiscal policy.

Ms. Allan actively engages in developing and shaping public policy through industry groups, research and advocacy organizations. She serves on the Board of Directors of the C.D. Howe Institute and The Conference Board of Canada, and the advisory board of Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission. As well, she recently completed her Board term at the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, where she served as Chair. Ms. Allan has participated on a number of federal and provincial government advisory boards focused on Canada’s competitiveness, energy strategy, economic development, transportation strategy and access to credit. Ms. Allan works to advance innovation and entrepreneurism through her role on the MaRS Discovery District Board of Directors and the leadership council for Scale Up Ventures. She has been recognized as a Top 100 Women of Influence by the Women’s Executive Network and as the YWCA 2012 Woman of Distinction (Business), and by Maclean’s and Canadian Business magazines as one of Canada’s most influential business leaders. In 2014, Ms. Allan was appointed Member of the Order of Canada for her community engagement and achievements as an innovative business leader.

Ms. Allan’s GE career began in 1984 and has spanned the U.S., Canada and several industrial and consumer GE businesses including aviation, energy and lighting. Her career outside GE included executive positions in the health care, energy and non-profit sectors.

Ms. Allan received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where she studied biology and environmental studies, and an MBA from the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. An active alumnus, she currently serves on the Tuck School Board of Overseers. She holds honorary doctorate degrees from Ryerson University, Saint Mary’s University and Royal Roads University.

A General Partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures, Katherine Barr focuses primarily on investments in technology platforms and services that leverage data analytics and machine learning to disrupt large markets. Her specific areas of investment focus include Retail and E-Commerce Innovation, Consumer Marketplaces and Services, and Work Force Innovation.

Ms. Barr is a Founding Board and Charter Member as well as former Co-Chair of C100, the leading Canadian technology entrepreneur association in North America, and guest lectures a yearly executive education negotiation session at Stanford University. She is on the board of Communitech, the leading technology innovation hub in Waterloo, Canada, is an advisor to 500Startups, and is an Emmy Noether Council Member at the Perimeter Institute, one of the world’s leading institutes of theoretical physics.

Ms. Barr currently sits on the boards of BuildDirect, WorkFusion and Ruby Ribbon, sourced and was a board observer for Ticketfly (acquired by Pandora (NASDAQ:P)), is an investor in Reserve, Ritual, KEY Concierge, Zuckerberg Media, FIGS, Retention Science and Storefront, and is responsible for the investments in Visible Measures and Infusionsoft.

Ms. Barr received a B.A. from McGill University, and completed an M.A. and the M.S. core curriculum in Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University.

Jennifer Blanke worked with the World Economic Forum from 1998 to 2002 as the Senior Programme Manager responsible for developing the business, management and technology section of the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos. Since 2002, she has been with the Global Competitiveness and Benchmarking team, including from 2007 to 2014 as team head. She is currently their Chief Economist.

Ms. Blanke has written and lectured extensively on issues related to national competitiveness and has served as lead editor of a number of regional and topical reports related to economic growth and development. Her expertise is in economic growth and development, national competitiveness and political economy.

She is the former Management Consultant for Eurogroup, Mazars Group, Paris, specializing in banking and financial market organization.

Ms. Blanke has a Master’s in International Affairs, Columbia University, and a Master’s and PhD in International Economics, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva.

As one of the world’s leading investment bankers and analysts of Asian economies, Kenneth Courtis influences major business decisions and moves markets with his public comments. For his unusual accuracy as a predictor of economic trends, business and government leaders seek his advice on matters of international economics, finance and investment.

He is widely sought after by the heads of major corporations and investors for his knowledge of how global market forces, financial and political developments, and corporate strategy interact. He has also worked closely with central banks, ministries of finance and heads of government. He has been called upon to advise the heads of governments of countries in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and North America, including four U.S. Presidents.

Dr. Courtis advises major clients throughout the Asia-Pacific region, Europe and North America, and has led a number of large, international corporate transactions centered on Asia and pioneered a number of investment banking areas across the region.

Dr. Courtis is currently finishing a new book on economic, financial, business and political developments in Asia and their broader implications internationally. He also is a regular columnist for Time International, writing mostly on Asian issues; and for Fortune magazine, covering global economic issues.

Dr. Courtis is Chairman of Starfort Investment Holdings, which has interests in financial advisory, funds management, private equity and commodities. He is the former Managing Director and Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia, where he advised on large corporate transactions, government financing programs and privatizations. Formerly a Chief Economist and Strategist, Dr. Courtis has lectured at Keio and Tokyo universities, Japan’s two most prestigious educational institutions, at the Institut d’études politiques, Paris, and at universities in North America, including Université Laval, in Quebec, as a tenured professor. He is a member of the boards and advisory councils and a trustee of a number of international firms, universities and research institutes in Asia, Europe and North America.

Dr. Courtis received an undergraduate degree from Glendon College in Toronto and an M.A. in international relations from Sussex University in the United Kingdom. He earned an M.B.A. at INSEAD (the European Institute of Business Administration), where he was recipient of the Heath Prize, and received a Doctorate with honors and high distinction from the Institut d’études politiques, Paris. He has lived and worked in Asia for more than two decades.

As President and Chief Executive Officer, Brian Ferguson is accountable for overall leadership of Cenovus’s strategic and operational performance.

Mr. Ferguson joined a predecessor company in 1984 and became a member of the Management Team in 1994. His business experience spans a variety of areas including finance, business development, reserves, strategic planning, evaluations and communications.

Mr. Ferguson earned a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Alberta, and has completed the University of Western Ontario’s Executive Management program. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Professional Accountants of Alberta.

Mr. Ferguson is a member of the TD Board of Directors. He is also a board member of the Business Council of Canada and a member of the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada. He has served on several other boards, including the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) Board of Governors. He continues to serve on CAPP’s Oil Sands CEO Council.

Suzanne Fortier has served as Principal and Vice-chancellor of McGill University since September 2013. Prior to her appointment as Principal, Professor Fortier was President of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada from 2006 to 2013, and held the position of Vice-Principal (Academic) from 2000 to 2005 and Vice-Principal (Research) from 1995 to 2000 at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, where she was a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and in the School of Computing.

Professor Fortier graduated from McGill with a BSc (1972) and a PhD in Crystallography (1976). Her research work has focused on the development of mathematical and artificial intelligence methodologies for protein structure determination. She has also made contributions to the development of novel techniques in crystallographic data mining to gain new insights from the large structural databases.

Professor Fortier is currently a member and Vice-Chair of the Science, Technology and Innovation Council. She is a member of the International Jury of France’s Investissements d’Avenir IDEX/I-SITE 2014, the Strategic Committee of Investissements d’Excellence Bordeaux, and the Canadian Business-Higher Education Roundtable. She also serves on the Board of Directors of Montreal International, The Conference Board of Canada and Universities Canada.

She has served as a member of several boards and councils, including the federal government’s Council of Science and Technology Advisors, the Board of Directors of the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Steering Committee of the Networks of Centres of Excellence, the Ontario Task Force on Competitiveness, Productivity and Economic Progress, and the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal.

Carol Anne Hilton is the Chief Executive Officer of Transformation International. Ms. Hilton is from the Nuu-chah-nulth Nation and is a recognized leading First Nations business entrepreneur with a Master’s Degree in Business Management from the University of Hertfordshire, England.

She has a solid understanding and application of First Nations economic development best practices and brings extensive knowledge and experience in community development, business management, corporate relations, engagement strategies and project management.

Ms. Hilton’s work involves incorporating an Aboriginal world view, while bringing First Nations, industry and government together to design new approaches for sustainable, inclusive development. Ms. Hilton has developed a new line of thought called Indigenomics, which is based on economic reconciliation.

Carol Anne Lee is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Linacare Cosmetherapy Inc. The company is headquartered in Vancouver’s historic Chinatown district. With longstanding family ties to the history of Chinatown, she is strongly committed to the revitalization of the area and is the Chair of the Vancouver Chinatown Foundation and the Vancouver Chinatown Revitalization Committee.

Ms. Lee has a Bachelor of Commerce from the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She serves on several boards and organizations including the Faculty Advisory Board of the Sauder School of Business, the Harvard Business School Canadian Advisory Board, the Leadership Council of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, and the Rideau Hall Foundation.

In 2015, Vancouver magazine listed her as one of the top 50 most powerful people in Vancouver.

Christopher Ragan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at McGill University. He is the Chair of Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission, which launched in November 2014 with a five-year horizon to identify policy options to improve environmental and economic performance in Canada.

Mr. Ragan is also a Research Fellow at the C.D. Howe Institute. From 2010 to 2013, he held the Institute’s David Dodge Chair in Monetary Policy, and for many years, was a member of the Monetary Policy Council. In 2009 and 2010, he was the Clifford Clark Visiting Economist at the Department of Finance Canada. In 2004 and 2005, he served as Special Advisor to the Governor of the Bank of Canada.

Mr. Ragan’s published research focuses mostly on the conduct of macroeconomic policy. His 2004 book, co-edited with William Watson, is called, Is the Debt War Over? In2007, Mr. Ragan published A Canadian Priorities Agenda, co-edited with Jeremy Leonard and France St-Hilaire, from the Institute for Research on Public Policy. Mr. Ragan is also the author of Economics (formerly co-authored with Richard Lipsey), which after 14 editions is still the most widely used introductory economics textbook in Canada. Mr. Ragan also has a regular column in The Globe and Mail. During the mid-1990s, he was the founding Editor-in-Chief of World Economic Affairs.

Mr. Ragan has taught a wide variety of courses, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, and in 2007, was awarded the Noel Fieldhouse teaching prize in the Faculty of Arts. For more than 15 years, Mr. Ragan has been teaching microeconomics for McKinsey & Company, a leading international consulting firm. He also teaches in EDHEC’s Global MBA program in France, and in the McGill-HEC Executive MBA program.

Mr. Ragan received his B.A. (Honours) in economics in 1984 from the University of Victoria, and his M.A. in economics from Queen’s University in 1985. He then moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he completed his Ph.D. in economics at M.I.T. in 1989.

Michael Sabia is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. Appointed in March 2009, Mr. Sabia is responsible for the strategic direction of the fund and the global growth of the organization.

Before joining the Caisse, Mr. Sabia was with BCE, holding such positions as President and Chief Executive Officer, Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, and Chief Executive Officer of Bell Canada International. From 1993 to 1999, he occupied various roles with Canadian National Railway, including Chief Financial Officer. He spent the preceding decade working as a senior official in the Department of Finance and the Privy Council Office of the Government of Canada.

Mr. Sabia obtained a Bachelor of Arts in politics and economics from the University of Toronto and holds graduate degrees in politics and economics from Yale University.

He is a trustee of the Foreign Policy Association of New York, and a member of the Canada-Mexico Leadership Group and the Asia Business Leaders Advisory Council.

Among many other community activities, Mr. Sabia currently co-chairs the capital campaign of Université de Montréal, Polytechnique Montréal and HEC Montréal.

Angela Strange is a FinTech and Consumer focused Investment Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. She is also co-chair of C100, a non-profit that bridges Canadian entrepreneurs with Silicon Valley’s most influential expat technology entrepreneurs, executives, and investors, to help Canadian companies succeed on the global stage.

Ms. Strange came to A16Z from Google, where as a Product Manager, she launched and grew Chrome for Android and Chrome for iOS into one of Google’s most successful mobile products.

Prior to Google, Ms. Strange was Director of Product Management and Business Development at Ruba.com (acquired by Google), and a Senior Associate Partner at Bay Partners, where she focused on the Consumer Internet sector.

Ms. Strange has also worked as a consultant at Mercer Management Consulting in its technology practice in Toronto. While at Mercer, Ms. Strange won several marathons and achieved a seventh place national ranking in Canada. She spent two years training as a professional athlete.

While pursuing her MBA at Stanford, Ms. Strange helped to develop the curriculum for a new course on Women in Entrepreneurship, and served on the Board of StartUP, a non-profit organization supporting entrepreneurs in East Palo Alto.

Ilse Treurnicht is the CEO of MaRS Discovery District, a leading innovation hub in Toronto. MaRS supports entrepreneurs building young high growth firms in the health, clean technology, work and learning, and finance and commerce sectors, and works with partners to catalyze, scale and adopt innovation.

Ms. Treurnicht joined MaRS in early 2005 from her role as President and CEO of Primaxis Technology Ventures, a startup-stage venture capital fund focused on the advanced technologies sector. Prior to Primaxis, she was an entrepreneur with senior management roles in a number of emerging technology companies. She served as Chair of the Canadian Task Force on Social Finance in 2010, and is a member of the Science, Technology and Innovation Council.

Ms. Treurnicht holds a DPhil in chemistry from Oxford University, which she attended as a Rhodes scholar.

Mark Wiseman assumed the role of President and Chief Executive Officer in July 2012 and is responsible for leading the CPP Investment Board and its investment activities.

Mr. Wiseman joined the CPP Investment Board in June 2005 as the organization’s Senior Vice-President, Private Investments. He was later named Executive Vice-President, Investments, responsible for managing all of the investment activities of the CPP Investment Board—Public Market Investments, Private Investments and Real Estate Investments.

Prior to joining the CPP Investment Board, Mr. Wiseman was responsible for the private equity fund and co-investment program at the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. Previously, he was an officer with Harrowston Inc., a publicly traded Canadian merchant bank, and a lawyer with Sullivan & Cromwell, practising in New York and Paris.

He also served as a law clerk to Madam Justice Beverley McLachlin at the Supreme Court of Canada. From 2004 to 2007, Mr. Wiseman was Chairman of the Institutional Limited Partners Association, a non-profit organization committed to serving limited partner investors in the global private equity industry.

Mr. Wiseman is a Board member for the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance, is Co-Chair of the Focusing Capital on the Long Term initiative and serves on the Boards of several not-for-profit organizations, including the Capital Markets Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto and Right To Play International. He was the United Way Toronto Campaign Chair for 2015 and is also a past Chairman of Youth Without Shelter, an emergency shelter for homeless youth.

Mr. Wiseman holds a BA from Queen’s University and a law degree and MBA from the University of Toronto. He was also a Fulbright Scholar at Yale University, where he obtained a master’s degree in law and is a certified member of the Canadian Institute of Corporate Directors.