Michael Fenn

Michael Fenn has been a Senior Advisor at StrategyCorp since 2011, following an extensive career as a public-sector executive.

Michael has been an Ontario Deputy Minister under three Premiers, municipal chief administrator in Hamilton and Burlington, the founding CEO of Toronto-area regional transportation authority Metrolinx and earlier, the first CEO of the regional health authority serving the western Greater Toronto Area (Mississauga Halton LHIN). While on leave from StrategyCorp in 2019, he was Special Advisor to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, on the review of regional municipal government in Ontario.  Michael was appointed Visiting Fellow (Infrastructure) at Western University’s Ivey Business School, complementing his work as a management consultant with StrategyCorp.

As a volunteer, Michael currently serves as the Board Chair and President of Good Shepherd Non-Profit Homes Inc., which provides hundreds of homes in Hamilton, Toronto and Niagara.  He has served on the McMaster University Board of Governors, the Toronto Lands Corporation Board, and for four terms as a Board Director on the C$150 billion OMERS pension fund, serving on the Investment and Governance Committees. He is a certified board director (C.Dir. designation).

For a decade, Michael chaired the Mushkegowuk Expert Panel on Policing and acted as Facilitator of confidential negotiations on policing issues, jointly appointed by the Grand Chief of the Mushkegowuk Cree First Nations and the Ontario Solicitor General.

Michael’s research publications and reports for ‘think tanks’, academic institutions, governments and industry organizations, including the StrategyCorp Institute of Public Policy and Economy, have addressed a wide variety of topics, including:

• Artificial intelligence in municipal government;
• Regional collaboration in the GTHA;
• Funding for Canada’s ‘green infrastructure’ projects;
• Tax-exempt municipal bonds;
• Public-private partnerships in Ontario infrastructure;
• Seniors’ health care and housing;
• Reducing regulatory burdens facing small business;
• ‘Megatrends’ and the future of Canada’s infrastructure;
• Rural infrastructure in Ontario;
• The role of the city manager/CAO in Ontario and Canada;
• ‘Top ten tips’ for good municipal council-staff relations;
• Infrastructure in remote regions and in mining; and,
• Water, wastewater and stormwater policy in Ontario.

Michael’s career achievements have been acknowledged by a number of professional awards, including the Lieutenant Governor’s Medal of Distinction in Public Administration for Ontario, and the highest award for career achievement from Ontario’s two largest municipal administrators’ associations, the AMCTO’s Prestige Award and the OMAA’s Robert Baldwin Award. In 2010, he was one of two Ontarians added to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario’s Honour Roll. Michael’s municipal management career was profiled with a chapter in Professor Emeritus David Siegel’s book: “Leaders in the Shadows: The Leadership Qualities of Municipal Chief Administrative Officers”.  He is the co-editor of “The Role of Canadian City Managers: In Their Own Words”, published in 2024 by U. of Toronto Press, and its French-language version, «DG municipal: une profession à découvrir et à valoriser», from les Éditions JFD in Montréal.

A graduate of York University’s Glendon College, Michael has an MA in Political Science and the Diploma in Public Administration (Urban/Regional), both from Western University. He has also completed the Program for Senior Executives in State and Local Government from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.