David Beatty

Professor David R. Beatty C.M., O.B.E., F.ICD, CFA, is Chair of the David & Sharon Johnston Center for Corporate Governance Innovation and Professor of Strategy at Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.

One of the world’s most experienced corporate directors and educators, David has served as a Director on 40 boards in Canada, America, Mexico, Australia and England and been chairman of 9 public and 2 private companies.

He was the founding Managing Director of the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance (2003-2007), an organization that today represents 50 institutional investors with ~$3 trillion of assets under management (AUM).

In 2004, he helped create and still helps oversee the Canadian Directors’ Education Program with the Institute of Corporate Directors (ICD), a rigorous 12-day course that has now graduated over 8,000 senior Canadian entrepreneurs, directors, and family office members. Upon graduation and the completion of both an online examination and then a simulated Board meeting, a post-nominal is bestowed – the ICD.D. David was made a Fellow of the ICD- the F.ICD – in 2012.

Overseas, he has taught in dozens of other jurisdictions. For example, From 2010 until 2017, he created and led the Directors Education Program for Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest company headquartered in Dammam, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

In 1994, he was made an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace for his services to Papua New Guinea. In Papua New Guinea, he was the principal economic architect for Independence in 1975. He was subsequently presented with the 30-year independence medal.

In 2012, he was awarded a Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee medal for his contributions to Canadian mining. In 2013, he was inducted into the Order of Canada (C.M.), the nation’s highest civilian honor. The only recipient ever to be cited for his work on Canadian Corporate governance.

In 2018, he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) a grouping of global asset managers with AUMs ~$50 trillion in 47 nations. He was only the third Canadian to be so recognised.