In a turbulent year dominated by an unprecedented health crisis, top-ranking chief executives across Canada have taken decisive action to protect their staff, support their customers, and — in the most hard-hit industries — keep their businesses alive.
“The dreams, plans, and hard work of so many have been undermined by the global pandemic,” said David McKay, CEO of the Royal Bank of Canada, who observed how devastating this past year has been for so many families and businesses: “The sudden loss of loved ones. The loss of jobs and small businesses. Missing out on the valuable experiences of a normal school year.”
When Covid-19 hit, McKay acted quickly, temporarily closing hundreds of RBC branches and enabling nearly 90 percent of employees — more than 75,000 across 36 countries — to work from home. The CEO was rewarded for his response to the pandemic by buy-side analysts, money managers, and sell-side researchers at securities firms and financial institutions, who ranked McKay first among chief executives in the financial institution sector in Institutional Investor’s sophomore All-Canada Executive Team.
Elsewhere, the sudden drop in customers as people retrenched indoors forced what Air Canada chief Calin Rovinescu described as “the most painful decision of my career”: laying off half of the airline’s workforce. “Given the disappearance of more than 90 percent of our business, we regrettably had to retrench and downsize,” he said.
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To determine the members of Institutional Investor’s 2020 All-Canada Executive Team, we surveyed buy-side analysts, money managers, and sell-side researchers at securities firms and financial institutions that cover the region, including those who cast and received votes in this year’s 2019 All-America and All-Canada Research Team surveys. We asked voters to name the best chief executive officers, chief financial officers, and investor relations professionals at the companies in their coverage universes.
All votes are weighted by rating (five, four, three, two and one). We also asked them to rate the companies’ IR programs on the following attributes: company executes on strategy; corporate documents (inc. web site); IR team is well informed and empowered to speak; responds quickly and thoroughly to requests; senior executives are accessible; and timely and appropriate disclosure. These ratings were aggregated to produce an overall IR Program rank for each company. Nominations for Best Analyst Days, Best ESG/SRI Reporting, and Best Corporate Governance were also solicited from the voters as a separate award.
The overall rankings in each of the four categories — Best CEO, Best CFO, Best IR Professional, Best IR Company — are based on combined buy- and sell-side votes. Separate rosters (buy side, sell side) are also available for each award classification.
To earn the designation of Most Honored Company, a company must achieve two or more top-three appearances in the combined (buy-side and sell-side) rankings results; rank is determined by weighted score wherein each first-place position is worth three points; second place, two; and third place, one.
To be eligible for inclusion on the 2020 All-Canada Executive Team, a company must be headquartered or have operational or executive headquarters in the region. We keep confidential the identities of the survey respondents to ensure their continuing cooperation. Voters must meet eligibility requirements, and winners must achieve a minimum vote count. Survey results reflect the opinions from 168 investment professionals at 116 financial services firms.