Q &A
QUESTIONS FOR Claude Lamoureux, Co-Founder, Canadian Coalition for Good Governance
When you interviewed for the CEO’s role at Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan, you told then-chair Gerald Bouey that if you took on the job, you would ‘run it like a business’. What did you mean by that?
It could be that I had a negative view of government organizations at the time, but what I meant is that in a corporation, the CEO is given a clear mandate: he or she draws up a plan and determines objectives, and makes sure that they are followed. I’m a big fan of management by objectives, so I wanted to make sure that if I took on the role, this would be a result-oriented organization. I needed to communicate this, because I had worked in a corporation for many years — and I knew that in many cases, you are a captive of your history.
Running Teachers’ ‘like a corporation’ would also mean having an incentive plan in place, and having the CEO be transparent with the Board — but not having to check with them on every decision. If we were not meeting objectives, there should be consequences. I would expect the Board to get rid of us.
What really surprised me is that
