Annette Verschuren

Annette Verschuren, is a Canadian business woman. She is currently the Chair & Chief Executive Officer of NRStor Inc. The company develops and manages energy storage projects.

Prior to this, Ms. Verschuren was the President of The Home Depot Canada, overseeing the growth of the company's Canadian operations from 19 to 179 stores between 1996 and 2011, increasing revenue from $600 million to $6 billion.

Career

Verschuren began her career as a development officer with the Cape Breton Development Corporation, a coal mining operation, in Sydney, Nova Scotia. She then worked with Canada Development Investment Corporation as executive vice-president, to help privatize crown corporations. Her next stop was as a Vice President of Corporate Development at Imasco Ltd., one of Canada’s largest holding companies. Ms. Verschuren then launched Michaels of Canada, a chain of arts and crafts stores before landing at the helm of Home Depot Canada.

Ms. Verschuren has been appointed to numerous government advisory roles. Among them: Economic Advisory Council, during the economic crisis in 2008, the Canada-U.S. Council for Advancement of Women Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders and the Advisory Council for NAFTA. Recently, Ms Verschuren participated in our Government’s Roundtable on Decarbonization.

Verschuren is a board member of Liberty Mutual, Air Canada, Saputo Inc. and Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL). In addition, Ms. Verschuren is the Chair of the MaRS Discovery District Board. Ms. Verschuren is on the board of the Ontario Energy Association.

Corporate social responsibility

In 2011, Verschuren was honoured as an Officer of The Order of Canada for her contribution to the retail industry and corporate social responsibility. In 2010, she was appointed co-chair of the 2012 Governor General's Leadership Conference. Verschuren was honoured by the Canadian Business Hall of Fame in 2019.

She is a founding member of the Rideau Hall Foundation. She co-chairs the Smart Prosperity Initiative.

SDTC

Verschuren served as a Chairperson of the Board of Sustainable Development Technology Canada, an arm’s-length agency created by the Canadian federal government in 2001 to fund Canadian cleantech projects with public money. In the fall of 2023, the government suspended SDTC from funding new projects following a third-party investigation into allegations from former SDTC employees.

On 8 November 2023, Verschuren admitted to the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics that she had approved grants worth more than $200,000 to her own company (energy storage firm NRStor Inc.), with the money having originally been part of the SDTC's efforts to fund SDTC-linked companies with existing funding arrangements during the COVID-19 pandemic. Verschuren announced on 19 November 2023 that she would resign as chair of the Board of Directors to allow the board move forward on recommended changes effective 1 December 2023.

Author

Verschuren is the author of ''Bet On Me: Leading and Succeeding in Business and in Life'' (Harper-Collins, 2017; ).

Honours

Verschuren has received Honourary Doctorates from Canadian universities St. Francis Xavier University and Mount Saint Vincent University.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Verschuren, Annette
Living people
Canadian women chief executives
Chancellors by university and college in Canada
Officers of the Order of Canada
St. Francis Xavier University alumni
People from North Sydney, Nova Scotia
Canadian women academics
Women academic administrators
Canadian academic administrators
Year of birth missing (living people)