Canadian Club – Ontario CEO Panel

 

Ontario CEO Panel

Steve Carlisle (GM), Mary-Ellen Anderson (Microsoft), and Bruce Flatt (Brookfield)

Moderated by Tiff Macklem and Kilian Berz

“The Future is not destiny: CEO perspectives on realizing Ontario’s potential”

 

A discussion with Steve Carlisle, Mary-Ellen Anderson, and Bruce Flatt, as they share insights on how Ontario can reach its prosperity potential. The conversation will be led by Tiff Macklem and Kilian Berz, Chair and Member, respectively, of Ontario’s Panel on Economic Growth & Prosperity. This luncheon marks the launch of the Panel’s latest report, The Future is not destiny: CEO perspectives on realizing Ontario’s potential.
The report identifies the strengths of the province through a series of interviews with top executives from firms headquartered in Ontario, and based on these strengths, presents some Big Ideas on how to move forward to create a future that realizes our potential.
Biography

Stephen (Steve) K. Carlisle
President and Managing Director, General Motors of Canada Company

Stephen K. Carlisle was appointed President and Managing Director of GM Canada on November 20, 2014. Born and raised in Woodstock, Ontario, Carlisle began his GM career in 1982 as an industrial engineering co-op student at the Oshawa Truck Assembly Plant. Over the course of his career with General Motors, Carlisle has held a number of senior leadership positions that have taken him across the globe, including Vice President of Global Product Planning and Program Management, 2010-2014; Vice President of U.S. Sales Operations, 2010; and President and Managing Director of Southeast Asia Operations, 2007-2010.

Carlisle is an active business leader, currently serving on the Ontario Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity; the Dean’s Advisory Council, University of Waterloo Faculty of Engineering; the Chair of the Advanced Technology Committee of Canadian Automotive Partnership Council and former Chair of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers Association (2014 to 2016).

Carlisle also holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo and a Master in Business Administration from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Despite many years abroad, Carlisle remains an avid hockey enthusiast, and has enjoyed returning to the GM Canada Salaried Hockey League.

Mary-Ellen Anderson
Vice-President, Developer Experience & Evangelism

As a Vice President within Microsoft Canada’s newly formed Customer Success Unit (CSU), Mary-Ellen Anderson is responsible for helping customers adopt and realize maximum business value from the Microsoft Cloud. This includes leading a team of Solution Architects to help customers build cutting edge, cost effective and secure applications and infrastructure across a wide variety of industries.

Prior to joining the CSU, Mary-Ellen led the Developer Experience and Evangelism group (DX) charged with inspiring, fostering and supporting the development of industry leading applications and services across all platforms.

After spending nearly two decades producing content for organizations such as CBC and CTV, Mary-Ellen joined Microsoft in 2007 as the Executive Director for MSN Canada.

Whether working with Enterprise customers or Independent Software Vendors to leverage the power of the Cloud or supporting developers and start-ups to create amazing applications to make the impossible, possible, Mary-Ellen is passionate about innovation.

A veteran of online media, Mary-Ellen came to Microsoft from CTV.ca, where as Supervising Producer she directed daily news and special event coverage as well as co-developing innovative features such as the CTV Broadband Network and Second-Screen programming.

Mary-Ellen first jumped to online as one of the original producers of CBC.ca. Prior to going digital, aside from a brief stint creating Interactive games, she spent more than a decade working in television and radio, producing current affairs, children and entertainment programs.

Bruce Flatt
Chief Executive Officer, Brookfield Asset Management

Bruce Flatt is Chief Executive Officer of Brookfield Asset Management, a leading global alternative asset manager with approximately $250 billion of assets under management. Brookfield is a global value investor with a focus on the real asset sectors of real estate, renewable power and infrastructure.

Mr. Flatt joined Brookfield in 1990 and has been CEO for 15 years. Under his leadership, Brookfield has developed a global presence with 700 investment professionals in 100 offices across over 30 countries. Activities are conducted through three flagship private funds for institutional clients and four permanent capital listed entities: Brookfield Property Partners, Brookfield Renewable Partners, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners and Brookfield Business Partners, all of which trade on the NYSE.

Mr. Flatt chairs Brookfield’s Investment Committee, whose investment approach is to acquire high-quality assets at less than replacement cost by looking for opportunities in out-of-favor regions and sectors, during periods of financial upheaval or operational challenge. It then uses its deep global operating experience to improve long-term performance on behalf of its clients.

Prior to his current role, Mr. Flatt ran the company’s real estate operations, including the acquisition out of bankruptcy of Olympia & York in New York in the early 1990s, which became the basis of growth for the property group. Following this acquisition, the company proceeded to build and acquire a portfolio of iconic office buildings globally by investing in numerous corporate distress situations. The same build out was completed with Brookfield’s renewable power business, its infrastructure business and, more recently, the scaling up of its private equity business.

Recent significant transactions include the acquisition of the Colombian hydro company Isagen, Canary Wharf and Center Parcs in the UK, a major stake in GGP in the U.S. and Australian infrastructure company Babcock & Brown and Asciano port company.

Mr. Flatt has been on more than 20 public company boards over the past two decades.

Professor Tiff Macklem
Dean, Rotman School of Management

Tiff Macklem became Dean of the Rotman School in 2014.

From 2010-2014, Tiff served as senior deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, sharing responsibility with the governor and four deputy governors for monetary policy and for the Bank’s role in promoting financial stability. He was also the Bank’s chief operating officer and a member of its board of directors, overseeing strategic planning and coordinating the Bank’s operations. Macklem has also played a leading role in efforts to ensure stable financial systems worldwide.

Prior to his appointment at the Bank, Tiff served as associate deputy minister of the federal Department of Finance and Canada’s finance deputy at the G7 and G20, the IMF, and the Financial Stability Board. He also served as chair of the Standing Committee on Standards Implementation of the Financial Stability Board. In that role, he worked to establish an international system of peer review to promote and assess the implementation of new financial standards across the 24 most financially important countries in the world.

Tiff is a well-known expert in monetary and financial systems and has contributed articles to academic journals, as well as providing chapters and commentaries on monetary and financial sector policy and international economics in books and conference proceedings.

Since coming to Rotman, Tiff has also been appointed the chair of the board of the Global Risk Institute, chair of Ontario’s Panel on Economic Growth and Prosperity, a director of Scotiabank, and a member of the Asian Business Leaders Advisory Board.

Kilian Berz
Senior Partner & Managing Director, The Boston Consulting Group

Kilian Berz is a Senior Partner and Managing Director, and has led the Canadian Practice of The Boston Consulting Group for six years. Kilian has worked extensively as a consultant across many industries, for government and not-for-profit organizations. Kilian’s expertise is focused on portfolio strategy development and organizational transformation.

Kilian is Chair of BCG’s Centre for Canada’s Future and Global Head of the Financial Institutions business. He is a founder and co-chair of the Pecaut Centre/LEAP and also a board member of Civic Action.

Kilian has been appointed as Special Advisor to the Prime Minister with a focus on increasing business investments in Canada.

Kilian holds a Master of Philosophy in Economics from the University of Oxford, and an undergraduate degree in Business Administration from Bonn University.

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