Richard James Currie (born 1937 in

Saint John, New Brunswick Saint John is a seaport city of the Atlantic Ocean located on the Bay of Fundy in the province of New Brunswick, Canada. Saint John is the oldest incorporated city in Canada, established by royal charter on May 18, 1785, during the reign of Ki ...

) is a Canadian businessman.

Education

He entered the

University of New Brunswick The University of New Brunswick (UNB) is a public university with two primary campuses in Fredericton and Saint John, New Brunswick. It is the oldest English-language university in Canada, and among the oldest public universities in North Americ ...

in 1955 on a Beaverbrook Scholarship and was elected president of the first-year class."Richard Currie named chancellor of the University of New Brunswick"
''

'', retrieved June 14, 2006 He later received a

Bachelor of Engineering A Bachelor of Engineering (BEng) or a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE) is an academic undergraduate degree awarded to a student after three to five years of studying engineering at an accredited college or university. In the UK, a Bache ...

in Chemistry degree from the

Technical University of Nova Scotia The Technical University of Nova Scotia (TUNS) was a Canadian university located in Halifax, Nova Scotia. TUNS was officially founded as the Nova Scotia Technical College on 25 April 1907. On 1 April 1997 it was merged into Dalhousie Universit ...

in 1960. He worked as an engineer until 1968, when he entered

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

to earn a

Master of Business Administration A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

degree in 1970.

Career

In 1960, he joined Atlantic Sugar Refineries as a Process Engineer and was a Refining Superintendent from 1963 to 1968. After graduating from Harvard in 1970, he became a Senior Associate at McKinsey & Co., a management consultant firm based in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

."Executive Profiles: Richard J. Currie"
'' Canadian Business Resource'', retrieved August 25, 2006. In 1972, he joined

Loblaws Loblaws Inc. is a Canadian supermarket chain with stores located in the provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan. Headquartered in Brampton, Ontario, Loblaws is a subsidiary of Loblaw Companies Limited, C ...

as a Vice-President, becoming Executive Vice-President in 1974, and President in 1976. Loblaws increased its market share over 350 times in 25 years while under his control, reaching $14 billion before he stepped down on December 31, 2000. Through this, it became the largest private sector employer in Canada. In 1996, he was appointed President of Loblaws parent company,

George Weston Ltd. George Weston Limited, often referred to as Weston or Weston's, is a Canadian food processing and distribution company. Founded by George Weston in 1882, the company today consists of Weston Foods, a wholly owned subsidiary, and Loblaw Companie ...

, where he increased the share price from $16 to $123. In 2002 he stepped down from Weston and was appointed Chairman of BCE Inc. on April 24 of that year. He, along with Lynton Wilson, Anthony S. Fell,

James Fleck James Douglas Fleck, (born February 10, 1931), sometimes known as Jim Fleck, is a Canadian businessman and academic. Personal Fleck was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on February 10, 1931 to Robert Douglas and Norma Marie Fleck. He married M ...

Hal Jackman Henry Newton Rowell Jackman (born June 10, 1932) is a Canadian billionaire businessman who served as the 25th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario from 1991 to 1997. He is the son of former Member of Parliament Harry Jackman and philanthropist Mary R ...

and John McArthur, helped establish a chair in Canadian business history at the

Joseph L. Rotman School of Management The Joseph L. Rotman School of Management (commonly known as the Rotman School of Management, the Rotman School or just Rotman) is the University of Toronto's graduate business school, located in Downtown Toronto. The University of Toronto has be ...

, which is the first chair of its kind in Canada. Worth $3 million, it will help fund courses and research related to the progress of the commerce industry in Canada, along with the legal, economic and political events that impacted its history. He was the Chairman of BCE Inc. and Bell Canada from 2002 to 2009 and currently sits on the

board of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

of CAE, and Staples, Inc. and is also a Trustee of The Art Gallery of Ontario and a Director of Historical Foundation of Canada. Along with these titles, he is also Chairman of the Board of Telesat and was a Director of Imperial Oil Limited, and a member of the International Advisory Boards of RJR Nabisco and Jacobs Suchard.

University of New Brunswick involvement

On May 24, 2003, he was appointed Chancellor of the University of New Brunswick by the lieutenant-governor in council, at UNB's 174th Encaenia. His duties are to serve as the honorary head of UNB and also as a member of its Board of Governors. In 2004, he established the Blake-Kirkpatrick Scholarships (now the Currie Scholarship) in memory of his two grandmothers: Ida Mae Blake and Jannet Kirkpatrick. On October 20, 2005, the University of New Brunswick established a Chair in Nanotechnology in his honour. This is the first Chair in Nanotechnology in Canada. In Fall 2011 work was completed on the Richard J. Currie Center, a five-storey, 139,000-square-foot athletics and gymnasium complex, named in honor of Currie, who was also the primary donor. Currie donated over $20 million toward the construction of the building, the largest single donation a New Brunswick university has ever received."The Richard J. Currie Center @ UNB Fredericton"
''

'', retrieved October 16, 2011.

Awards

*1997, Made a Member of the

Order of Canada The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the ...

*1997, Distinguished Canadian Retailer of the Year Award *2001, Awarded Canada's Outstanding CEO of the Year *2004, Promoted to Officer of the Order of Canada *2005, Awarded Retail Council of Canada's Lifetime Achievement Award *Inducted into the Canadian Business Hall of Fame *2010, Awarded Doctor of Letters as an honorary degree from Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Currie, Richard 1937 births Bell Canada Businesspeople from Saint John, New Brunswick Canadian university and college chancellors Harvard Business School alumni Living people McKinsey & Company people Officers of the Order of Canada University of New Brunswick alumni