Board of Governors

Members

Gordon G. Thiessen, OC, PhD

Gordon Thiessen was appointed Governor of the Bank of Canada on 1 February 1994, for a term of seven years, retiring on 31 January 2001. Mr. Thiessen studied economics at the University of Saskatchewan and received an Honours BA and an MA. He also lectured in economics at the university. Thereafter, he attended the London School of Economics, from which he received his PhD in Economics. He joined the Bank of Canada in 1963 and worked in both the Research and the Monetary and Financial Analysis Departments of the Bank. Mr. Thiessen spent the period from 1973 to 1975 as a visiting economist at the Reserve Bank of Australia. In 1996, the government of Sweden awarded Mr. Thiessen the Order of the Polar Star in recognition of the assistance provided by the Bank of Canada to the Swedish central bank.

In 1997, Mr. Thiessen received an honourary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Saskatchewan, and in 2001 an honourary Doctor of the University degree from the University of Ottawa. He became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2003. In 2002, Mr. Thiessen became the Founding Chair of Canada’s new auditor oversight agency, the Canadian Public Accountability Board. He served in that position until 2008. He has also served on the boards of corporations, a university, and a research organization, as well as on a number of investment committees.