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“It’s really a team effort and a team reward,” says Michael Rousseau, chief financial officer of Air Canada.

By the summer of 2007, Michael Rousseau had worked flat-out for nearly 20 years in demanding chief financial officer posts. His immediate goal after resigning from Hudson's Bay Co. (HBC) was to take some precious time for himself.

"I was going to take six months off, something I had never done between roles, to relax and maybe work on improving my golf handicap," Mr. Rousseau recalls. "But the day after the public announcement of my departure from HBC, the chairman of the board at Air Canada, David Richardson, whom I knew and respected immensely, called me and said they were searching for a new CFO at Air Canada.

"He said, 'Mike, do I have an opportunity for you."

Those words have proven prescient. As executive vice-president and CFO of Air Canada in Montreal, Mr. Rousseau, CPA, CA, has been instrumental in turning around the airline's financial fortunes when it comes to profitability, stock price and pension plan health.

The 59-year-old native of Cornwall, Ont., is also Canada's CFO of the Year for 2017. Last night, in front of more than 500 of his colleagues and other Canadian business executives, he received a handcrafted Nova Scotian crystal trophy during a black tie gala at Toronto's Ritz-Carlton hotel.

Financial Executives International Canada (FEI Canada), PwC Canada and Robert Half present the prestigious Canada's CFO of the Year award, which has been bestowed since 2003.

Canada's CFO of the Year selection committee chooses an individual that it believes has made an outstanding contribution to business in Canada through excellence in several internal and external attributes, including vision and leadership, corporate reporting and performance, innovation, ability to deal with business complexity, and social responsibility.

"Michael Rousseau epitomizes FEI Canada's mantra, which is 'leadership beyond finance,'" says Michael Conway, FCPA, FCA, Toronto-based president and CEO of FEI Canada.

"Michael was integral to the development and execution of the transformational strategy that was implemented at Air Canada," Mr. Conway notes. "This strategy obviously worked."

Being honoured as Canada's CFO of the Year is also recognition of his team at Air Canada and the people he has worked with in the past, Mr. Rousseau says.

"I've been influenced by many people, and had the good fortune of dealing with many different interesting issues over the last number of years, especially at Air Canada," he explains. "I'm certainly very proud of it," Mr. Rousseau says of the award. "It wasn't something I was expecting, but it's really a team effort and a team reward."

Mr. Rousseau's business and leadership talent were in demand early in his career, when United Cigar Stores Ltd., a subsidiary of Imasco Ltd., recruited him to become vice-president and controller in 1987. A year later, at age 30, he was named CFO.

That was the second stint at the company for Mr. Rousseau, who earned a bachelor of business administration from York University in 1981 and qualified for his CA designation in 1983.

He began his career articling with Deloitte Haskins & Sells (now Deloitte Canada) but soon left for the business world in 1984 as accounting manager at United Cigar Stores. In 1986, he joined auto parts giant Magna International Inc. as head of financial planning, but a year later, when United Cigar Stores offered him a big promotion, he accepted.

"Once a year, all the Imasco companies would travel to Montreal and sit in front of the Imasco senior leadership team, led at that time by Purdy Crawford and Brian Levitt," Mr. Rousseau remembers. "Each company would make a presentation on the business plan, which was always a bit intimidating for us, as we were by far the smallest company."

At the time, Imasco owned large and well-known companies such as Canada Trust, Hardee's Food Systems, Inc., Imperial Tobacco Canada and Shoppers Drug Mart Corp. So it was fascinating to meet, listen to and discuss business with those senior leaders, Mr. Rousseau says.

In 1993, Silcorp Ltd., which ran the nationwide Mac's Convenience Stores chain, recruited him as CFO. "Silcorp was a larger and very interesting company just emerging from a financial restructuring," Mr. Rousseau relates. "It was the first time I was a public company CFO, developing shareholder relationships."

While at Silcorp, Mr. Rousseau endured an initial hostile takeover bid from Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., the big Quebec-based retail chain, in 1995 and early 1996.

"We developed a plan to increase shareholder value more than the offer that Couche-Tard had presented our shareholders," he says. "Couche-Tard re-engaged with us on a friendly basis in 1998 with an offer of $23 a share, significantly more than their initial offer in 1995."

The shareholders agreed to that offer, but after Couche-Tard took over in early 1999, Mr. Rousseau decided to leave. "I was offered finance leadership roles in several companies around Canada," he says. "However, I wanted something different."

Moore Corp. Ltd., the business forms and printing services titan, recruited Mr. Rousseau to its head office in Chicago as CFO in 1999.

"It was just an incredible opportunity to join a much larger company," he says. "They were roughly $5-billion (U.S.) in revenue at that point in time, had a global footprint diversified into five distinct business segments, and were both a U.S. and Canadian publicly listed company. Working with a different management team in a different industry and country with different dynamics and challenges really attracted me."

When Mr. Rousseau returned to Canada to join HBC as CFO in 2001, his duties included spending considerable time on investor relations. HBC had two major retail brands well known to Canadians, The Bay and Zellers, both of which were facing stiff competition.

In 2005, U.S.-based InterTech Group, Inc., owned and controlled by Jerry Zucker, launched a hostile but eventually successful bid for HBC. Mr. Rousseau, who became president when InterTech took control, was tasked with putting together a new management team to accelerate repositioning the retailer's two brands.

Eventually he didn't see eye to eye with Mr. Zucker on the direction of HBC, so he exited in 2007, hoping for a well-deserved rest. That's when Air Canada came calling.

After meeting the company's senior people, Mr. Rousseau says he realized there was an "incredible challenge and opportunity." Two months later, he took his current role.

He faced adversity from the start. "Unfortunately when I joined Air Canada, our balance sheet was not very strong, and it couldn't deal with an economic shock like the 2008-'09 financial crisis," Mr. Rousseau says. "So the first couple of years were very difficult," he recalls, noting that the airline had to manage cash tightly and make difficult investment trade-offs.

A key liquidity issue was the cash requirements to fund the Air Canada pension plan because the company had a significant deficit in that area. It had to work out an agreement with its five union groups and the federal government to ease the required funding payments.

"There was a significant amount of repair work that had to be put in place over that period to give us a better foundation," Mr. Rousseau says. "Much of the very intensive work around pension reform, raising liquidity, reducing costs and extending labour contracts was completed in 2009 and 2010."

Air Canada's pension plan covers about 30,000 retirees and 26,000 active employees, and the company is committed to paying each of them their full and earned benefits. "I take this very seriously," Mr. Rousseau stresses.

"Our turnaround has been one of the most successful stories in Canadian pension history," he asserts. "We went from a $4.2-billion deficit in 2012 to a $1.9-billion surplus at January 1, 2017. We improved the value of the pension plan by $6.1-billion and secured all of our employees' and retirees' pension plan benefits."

The company also made big changes to boost profitability. In 2016, Air Canada had record adjusted net income of $1.15-billion, more than double the $531-million it posted in 2014.

Air Canada's stock price hit a low of $0.97 in 2009 during the financial crisis. Today it is roughly $14, Mr. Rousseau points out.

He credits his team, including vice-president and controller Chris Isford, who oversees financial controls and reporting; and senior vice-president of finance Amoz Kazzaz, who steers the planning and analysis aspects of Air Canada's operations.

Mr. Rousseau is clearly liked by his staff, says FEI Canada's Mr. Conway. "It's always a team that goes forward, and he has developed a strong team that has produced those results for him," he observes.

"It's been such an incredible ride," Mr. Rousseau says. "The first four or five years were really spent repairing the financial issues, improving relationships with all stakeholders and developing a path forward. The last four or five years have been taking advantage of those opportunities we have created, and the market has rewarded us for all our hard and excellent work. There are still a lot of opportunities and value to be realized."

David King, the Canadian director of Robert Half in Toronto, says Mr. Rousseau is a deserving winner of Canada's CFO of the Year award because he's an influential leader with Air Canada.

"His tenure with Air Canada as CFO dating back to 2007 shows a very steady hand in both the financial as well as the strategic guidance of the company," Mr. King observes. "The results of the organization, and some of the specific impacts he's had on things like pension reform, have really been very impressive."

Bruce Waterman, FCPA, FCA, a Canada's CFO of the Year winner in 2008 and Calgary-based chair of the selection committee, also cites Mr. Rousseau's successful effort to turn around Air Canada's financial fortunes over the past decade.

"They've had very good financial results, which, in a challenging industry like the airline industry, is very impressive, and Michael can take a good deal of the credit," he says.

Mr. Waterman lauds Mr. Rousseau's leadership skills. "I liked the fact that Michael really led a lot more involvement with not only the investment community from an equity point of view, but the lenders," he says. "He initiated a lot more outreach to the financial community and the stakeholders, both from an equity and debt point of view."

Among the many colleagues who have influenced him over the course of his career, Mr. Rousseau says, three individuals stand out. The first is Norm Latowsky, his CEO at United Cigar Stores.

"He taught me professionalism," Mr. Rousseau says. "I was a very young CFO at 30 years old. He taught me good listening skills and gave me a sense of what business leadership looked like and how it operated."

He also singles out Robert MacLellan, who was chairman of the audit committee at Silcorp: "Rob was very focused, very direct, very decision-oriented." Mr. Rousseau says. "I learned from Rob, and my style right now reflects that to a large degree."

Calin Rovinescu, president and CEO of Air Canada, receives special mention too.

"We've developed a very strong relationship," Mr. Rousseau says. "What I admire and enjoy about Calin is his passion, his strategic intensity, and his flexibility and courage. We've dealt with very complex and sensitive issues, and I've grown to respect Calin very highly."

Mr. Rousseau serves on the board of directors at Toronto-based Enercare Inc., which provides home heating and cooling services, where he has been chair of the audit committee for 12 years. He has also been a director of Montreal-headquartered Resolute Forest Products Inc., where he chairs the compensation and governance committees, for six years.

"Although it's a lot of work having a full-time CFO role, especially with Air Canada and sitting on two public boards, I enjoy it," Mr. Rousseau says. Given the exposure I have to different companies and industries, it makes me a better manager and a better leader."

"Over the past decade, Michael Rousseau has provided impressive leadership for Air Canada as CFO. His management skills are respected throughout the business community," says Tahir Ayub, CPA, CA, managing partner, markets and industries, at PwC Canada.

"This award is a testament to the significant value brought by not only the CFO but also by the accounting profession to businesses of all sizes across Canada," Mr. Ayub adds.

Mr. Rousseau has four adult children from his first marriage – Shawn, Lindsay, Samantha and Christine, who all live in British Columbia – and two stepchildren, Francesa and Julien, with his wife, Josephine. "I'm proud of all of them," he says.

Mr. Rousseau devotes as much time as he can to charities such as the Air Canada Foundation and "the incredible work they do for children."

As for hobbies, his passion is basketball. "I've played basketball all my life, including in the CA league when I was with Deloitte, and love the game," Mr. Rousseau says. "I used to play a lot of basketball. However, I just recently stopped playing because I can't find a league that fits my busy schedule.

"Now I'm still trying to find time to play more golf and reduce my handicap," he jokes.


This content was produced by The Globe and Mail's advertising department in consultation with Canada's CFO of the Year. The Globe's editorial department was not involved in its creation.

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