Charles-Antoine St-Jean

President and CEO

CPA Canada’s Board of Directors appointed Charles-Antoine St-Jean, FCPA, FCA, as president and CEO, effective July 20, 2020.

In this role, Charles-Antoine leads one of the largest professional accounting bodies in the world with more than 220,000 members. Prior to taking this role, Charles-Antoine was appointed Chair of the Public Sector Accounting Board in 2017 and served as a member from 2006-2009. From 2004 to 2007, he served as the Comptroller General of Canada.

Charles-Antoine brings to CPA Canada an exceptional track record, strong leadership abilities and a broad array of professional skills.

He earned his accounting designation and served as Partner and Managing Partner at EY for most of his career. Charles-Antoine worked closely with many clients in the Telecom and Financial sectors before shifting his focus to the public sector. He then worked extensively with many public sector clients in Canada and internationally, at all levels of governments, including many state-owned entities. Charles-Antoine also worked in Europe for a few years at KPMG.

Charles-Antoine was named a fellow in two provinces, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario and Quebec. The U.K. Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy awarded Charles-Antoine the honorary designation of CIPFA for his body of work for advancing the cause of financial management in the public sector. The Financial Management Institute also named him a life-time honorary member of the Institute for services rendered to public sector management.

He has lectured on governance and financial management in public sector for many years at Université Laval (Directors College Program) and University of Ottawa.

Charles-Antoine has served on multiple not-for profit organisations boards over the years. In recognition of his professional and charitable work, he received the Trudeau Medal from the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management.