Canada West Foundation searching for new CEO

Martha Hall Findlay will leave the Canada West Foundation at the end of this month to take a position as senior vice-president and chief sustainability officer at Suncor.

The foundation announced Findlay’s departure Monday, noting vice-president Colleen Collins will act as interim CEO while a search takes place for another candidate.

Hall Findlay said while she’s excited about the new role, she’s “certainly sad to leave this family behind.”

“I’ve had a fantastic time here and I do leave with a heavy heart in some ways,” she said. She noted the public policy think-tank was started nearly 50 years ago “by a group of people frustrated that decisions were being made in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto that were affecting the West.”

Hall Findlay said the West is in a

“particularly challenging but fascinating time,” citing factors including the politics of alienation.

“The recent federal election didn’t cause that sense of alienation and frustration; the election results were a symptom of that frustration,” she said.

Findlay became president and CEO of the Canada West Foundation in September 2016. She was a Liberal member of Parliament from 2008 to 2011, twice running for the leadership of the federal party. She is described in her bio as a corporate lawyer, senior business executive and successful entrepreneur with more than 25 years of domestic and international experience. She’s also a former national ski racer.