MONTREAL — Canadian National has named Jo-ann dePass Olsovsky to its board of directors, effective immediately.
Olsovsky, 56, is executive vice president and chief information officer at Salesforce, and previously spent 12 years at BNSF Railway as senior vice president and chief information officer. Her BNSF experience included overseeing the railroad’s drone inspection operations for bridges, track, and structures.
“We are pleased to welcome Jo-ann to CN as an independent director,” CN Board Chairman Robert Pace said in a press release. “She has deep expertise in advanced technologies and customer applications, and spent more than a decade as a senior executive at a Class I railroad. The intersection of her technology, operations and railroad experience creates a powerful combination of expertise that will be valuable to CN as we continue building the railway of the future using digital innovation to drive safety, operational excellence, customer experience and enhanced long-term shareholder value.”
The appointment of Olsovsky comes as CN faces a proxy fight from major investor TCI Fund Management, which seeks to add four candidates to the board. TCI has previously criticized the lack of railroad experience on the current CN board, and has asked the railroad to immediately name to the board its candidates — all of whom have worked in the rail industry or followed it closely.
Olsovsky, fills a vacancy created when Julie Godin resigned on Sept. 16 to focus on her position as co-chair and executive vice president, strategic planning and corporate develop, for GCI Corp. TCI said the way CN handled disclosure of that resignation illustrated problems with the railroad’s corporate governance practices; CN said it handled the departure properly [see “Activist investor critical of CN disclosure of board member’s resignation,” Trains News Wire, Sept. 29, 2021].
In a statement Thursday, TCI said it is “pleased that the CN Board has appointed a director with real railroad experience following our criticism of the incumbent Board’s lack thereof. We look forward to the four independent, highly-qualified nominees TCI has put forth — Gilbert Lamphere, Allison Landry, Rob Knight and Paul Miller—- having the opportunity to work with Ms. Olsovsky to help put CN back on track. We are disappointed, however, that instead of considering the candidates that TCI has proposed, CN’s Board is appointing hand-picked candidates ahead of the Special Meeting where all shareholders will have a say on the nominees and on the composition of the CN Board in general.”
— Updated at 9:45 a.m. CDT on Oct. 28 with statement from TCI on Olsovsky’s appointment.
