Archived - Minister of Finance Announces Appointment of New Chair of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board

June 24, 2014 - Ottawa, Ontario -Department of Finance

Finance Minister Joe Oliver today announced the appointment of Heather Munroe-Blum as Chair of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), effective October 27, 2014. Dr. Munroe-Blum has served on the Board of Directors of the CPPIB since 2011. Her appointment as Chair is for a three-year term ending on October 26, 2017.

Dr. Munroe-Blum became the first woman to serve as Principal and Vice-Chancellor (President) of McGill University in 2003. She is a professor at McGill’s Faculty of Medicine and Principal Emerita, and is returning from a leave at Stanford University’s Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences.

• The CPPIB is a professional investment management organization that invests the assets of the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) not currently needed to pay pension, disability and survivor benefits.
• The CPP Fund ended its fiscal year on March 31, 2014, with net assets of $219.1 billion, compared with $183.3 billion at the end of the 2013 fiscal year. The portfolio delivered a gross investment return of 16.5 per cent for fiscal year 2014.
• In the most recent triennial review released in December 2013, the Chief Actuary of Canada reaffirmed that, as of December 2012, the CPP remains sustainable at the current contribution rate of 9.9 per cent throughout the 75-year period of his report.

• Biographical Notes

• The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board
• The Canada Pension Plan

Melissa Lantsman
Director of Communications
Office of the Minister of Finance
613-996-7861

Jack Aubry
Media Relations
Department of Finance
613-996-8080

Heather Munroe-Blum has served on the Board of Directors of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) since 2011.

Dr. Munroe-Blum became the first woman to serve as Principal and Vice-Chancellor (President) of McGill University in 2003. She previously served as Vice-President (Research and International Relations) at the University of Toronto and she serves on numerous not-for-profit boards and advisories.

She is the author or co-author of more than 65 scholarly publications. She is a founder of the Toronto-based Medical and Related Sciences Discovery District, a founding director of Genome Canada and the founding Co-Chair of the biannual State of the Nation Report of the Science, Technology and Innovation Council. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Royal Bank of Canada, and has served on the boards of the Four Seasons Hotels, Alcan, the Canada Forum of Rio Tinto Alcan, Yellow Media Inc., and Hydro One (Ontario), among others.

Dr. Munroe-Blum holds a Ph.D. with distinction in epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an M.S.W. from Wilfrid Laurier University and a B.A. and B.S.W. from McMaster University.