Canada Post chair to step down after second term

Canada Post’s chair of the board, Marc Courtois, is stepping down after seven years in the role. The company said his second term as chair of the board of directors is now nearing its end, and it has begun inviting interested candidates to apply to succeed him.

The new chair will be appointed by the Canadian government.

Canada Post paid tribute to its outgoing chairman, saying that his leadership had been “vital” in repositioning the company’s business focus from mail to parcels, given the decline of letter mail volumes and growth of e-commerce.

The company said Courtois played an “instrumental” role in developing Canada Post’s five-point business strategy, which is seeking to reshape the company for the digital age, including switching doorstep mail delivery to community mailboxes.

Deepak Chopra, the Canada Post president and CEO, said: “Canada Post would like to express its gratitude to Marc for his guidance and leadership during one of the most significant transformations in our history.”

Courtois was appointed chairman of the Canada Post board of directors back in October 2007, on the back of more than 20 years’ experience in the finance sector working for RBC Dominion Securities Inc from 1980 to 2001 where he rose to the position of managing director.

Canada Post has placed a notice in the Canada Gazette, the government’s official newspaper, seeking candidates with significant experience on boards of directors, and of implementing modern corporate governance principles.

The notice said the ideal candidate would have knowledge of strategic corporate planning, monitoring and evaluation of corporate performance.

Volume slide

When Courtois was appointed chair of Canada Post in 2007, the company had seen its mail volumes and revenue steadily increasing each year. But with Canadians switching to digital communications, 2007 was the company’s peak year for letter volumes.

Mail volumes reached 11.8bn items in 2007, while company revenue reached $7.5bn.

As he leaves the company, Canada Post’s mail volume has dropped to less than 9.5bn items, annual revenue remains around $7.5bn, while the company has become loss-making thanks to the drop in mail volumes.

During his tenure, Courtois oversaw the appointment of new president Deepak Chopra, following the departure of Moya Greene to the UK’s Royal Mail.