Chief Executive and President of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives Announces Succession Plans

January 23, 2009

Thomas d’Aquino, the Chief Executive and President of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) announced today his intention to pass the torch to his successor in January 2010.

Mr. d’Aquino has led the Council (formerly known as the Business Council on National Issues) since 1981 and for two years prior to that served as the Council’s legal advisor during its formative stage.

“I have had the extraordinary privilege of working with over 1000 chief executives and leading entrepreneurs during the past three decades”, Mr. d’Aquino said.  “Our journey together has been marked by intellectual and entrepreneurial achievement and a passionate commitment to the idea that business leadership should contribute in a significant way to building a more prosperous and stronger Canada.”

Mr. d’Aquino advised the Council’s Board of Directors of his decision last August and Council Chairman, Gordon Nixon, formally notified the Council membership of Mr. d’Aquino’s intentions at the CCCE’s New Year Members’ Meeting held in Toronto this week.

The succession initiative will be chaired by the Council’s Honorary Chairman, Richard George, President and Chief Executive Officer of Suncor Energy.  The Board of Directors has mandated its Executive Committee, working with Mr. George, to identify and recommend Mr. d’Aquino’s successor.

Looking back over three decades of research and advocacy, Mr. d’Aquino said that the CCCE can take pride in its contributions in the areas of fiscal, taxation, international trade, competition, energy, environmental, foreign policy, defence and governance policies.  “Two defining core strengths have helped us in the pursuit of our goals.  One is our role as independent thinkers, strategists and incubators of innovative ideas.  The other is our ability to translate our ideas into actions and concrete results, free of partisan bias.”

“The unflinching support, engagement and loyalty of our member chief executives and entrepreneurs year in and year out have been vital to our success”, said Mr. d’Aquino, “as has been the hard work of a small but exceptionally able headquarters’ staff”.

Following his departure from the Council next January, Mr. d’Aquino will apply his experience as an entrepreneur, lawyer and professor of international business and will continue to work at the nexus of public policy and business strategy both nationally and internationally.  He will serve as a corporate director, a strategic advisor to chief executives and entrepreneurs, a member of several foundations, and as Chief Executive of Intercounsel Limited, a company he founded in 1976.

The Canadian Council of Chief Executives is a not-for-profit, non-partisan organization composed of 150 chief executives and leading entrepreneurs representing every major sector of Canadian business.

CCCE members lead companies that collectively administer $3.5 trillion in assets, have annual revenues of more than $800 billion, and are responsible for the vast majority of Canada’s exports, investment, research and development, and training. In addition to Mr. d’Aquino, the members of the CCCE’s Executive Committee are: Chair, Gordon M. Nixon, President and Chief Executive Officer, Royal Bank of Canada; Honorary Chair Richard L. George, President and Chief Executive Officer of Suncor Energy Inc.; and Vice Chairs Dominic D’Alessandro, Paul Desmarais, Jr., Jacques Lamarre, Hartley T. Richardson and Annette Verschuren, the chief executives respectively of Manulife Financial, Power Corporation of Canada, SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., James Richardson & Sons, Limited and The Home Depot Canada and Asia.