Peter MacKinnon - Candidate

(Acclaimed)

Mr. MacKinnon's career spans a range of professions including working as a scientist, entrepreneur, bureaucrat, business executive, diplomat, management consultant, and university professor. He has published on a wide variety of topics ranging from climate change through healthcare and modern business practices to astronomy and the state of China's science and technology strategy.

His consultancy work and previous employment have frequently involved the strategic application of advanced information technologies for corporations and governments around the world. Mr. MacKinnon is acknowledged as being one of those who brought the Internet to Canada. He also has been a pioneer in the commercialization of artificial intelligence and the establishment of high performance computing in Canada.

For five years Mr. MacKinnon represented Canada on the Information, Computers and Communications Policy Committee at the OECD in Paris. Other government work included two multi-year secondments through the Executive Interchange Program of the Government of Canada - first as Special Advisor for Advanced Information Technologies where he served in a central agency with wide ranging responsibilities for provision of policy and program advice, including communicating through Memoranda to Cabinet. The second secondment was as Special Advisor and Counsellor for Investment at the Canadian High Commission, London, England. In that capacity Peter was responsible for business and government relationships as they pertained to direct foreign investment between the United Kingdom and Canada. In that capacity he also was responsible for managing the science and technology portfolio within the Mission.

Mr. MacKinnon is an experienced business manager and executive working within technology intensive companies and industries. Responsibilities have included general and strategic management, in the form of CEO, world product mandates, development of business strategies and plans, raising venture capital, and R&D management, among others. In addition, Mr. MacKinnon has undertaken considerable international business travel over an extended period, including periods living in the United States, the United Kingdom, The Bahamas and China.