Biographies

Backgrounder

March 14, 2005

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Jalynn H. Bennett

Jalynn H. Bennett, C.M., is President of Jalynn H. Bennett and Associates Ltd., a consulting firm in strategic planning and organizational development in both the public and private sectors. She holds a degree, specializing in economics, from the University of Toronto.

Prior to July, 1989, Mrs. Bennett was associated for close to twenty-five years with the Manufacturers Life Insurance Company where she had extensive experience related to Canadian capital markets as well as senior corporate management responsibilities as Vice-President of Corporate Development from 1985 to 1989 and a member of the Senior Management Team.

She is a Director of The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Sears Canada Inc., and The Cadillac Fairview Corporation Limited.

She is currently a member of the Lawrence National Centre for Policy and Management Advisory Council, Richard Ivey School of Business; a member of the National Advisory Board of Canada's Outstanding CEO of the Year; and a member of the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation.

Mrs. Bennett has participated in many consultative initiatives with the public sector, working primarily in the areas of macro-economics, trade, tax policy, regulatory reform, pension reform, employment policy fields, and competition policy. From 1985 to 1991, she chaired the Financial Services Sectoral Advisory Group on International Trade for the Minister of International Trade. She is a past Director of the Bank of Canada (1989-1994), serving on the Executive Committee of the Board. As well, she is a past Commissioner of the Ontario Securities Commission (1989-1994). In 2000-2001, she chaired the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (Ontario) Task Force on Investing in Students. She was also a member of the Premier's Advisory Panel on the Role of Government in the 21st Century (2004).

Mrs. Bennett has served on a number of Boards in the not-for-profit sector. She is the past Chair and an honorary member of the Board of Governors of Trent University. She sits on the Board of Trustees of SickKids Foundation. Mrs. Bennett was a member of the Toronto Stock Exchange, Canadian Stock Exchange and the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants' Joint Committee on Corporate Governance (The Saucier Committee).

Mrs. Bennett has been a recipient of a YWCA of Metro Toronto, Women of Distinction Award in Public Affairs and Communications, and a McGill University Management Achievement Award. She was made a Fellow of the Institute of Corporate Directors in 1999 and a Member of the Order of Canada in 2000.

She holds an honourary degree, Doctor of Sacred Letters (honoris causa) from Trinity College, University of Toronto.

Marcel Côté

Founding Partner
SECOR Consulting

Marcel Côté is a founding partner of SECOR Consulting. Over his 30-year career as a consultant, he has specialized in strategy consulting for top management. For the past few years, he has also been active in France, where he advises the top management of several large companies.

Mr. Côté holds an M.Sc. in Economics from Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) and is a Fellow of the Center for International Affairs, Harvard University. As an economist, he specializes in technological and regional development, a subject on which he has written three books.

Before co-founding SECOR in 1975, he taught at the Université de Sherbrooke and the Université du Québec à Montréal. During his career, he has acted as a consultant to government leaders in Quebec and Ottawa. He is an administrator for four public corporations, to wit, Sobeys, ING Canada, Nurun and Engenuity, and is very active in community and other organizations, particularly in the YMCA, the Compagnie de danse Marie Chouinard, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and the Forum des politiques publiques, over whose board he currently presides.

Dr. Roger Gibbins

President and CEO

Dr. Roger Gibbins was born in Prince George, British Columbia, and received his university training at UBC and Stanford University, California. He joined the University of Calgary in 1973, where he served as department head from 1987 to 1996. Dr. Gibbins was the English-language co-editor of the Canadian Journal of Political Science from 1990 to 1993, and has published 20 books and over 100 articles and book chapters, most dealing with western Canadian themes and issues. In 1998, Dr. Gibbins joined the Canada West Foundation as President and CEO. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1998, and served as President of the Canadian Political Science Association (1999-2000).