October 17, 2023 – Laurentian University is pleased to announce the appointment of Sylvie Lafontaine as its new Vice-President Finance and Administration. In this role, Lafontaine will provide strategic financial and operational leadership to the University at this especially important time in the University’s transformation.
Lafontaine is a bilingual executive with over 25 years of experience in public and private sector organizations. She is currently the Senior Director of Decision Support – Financial Planning and Resources Management for the House of Commons in Ottawa. She led the implementation of a decision support organizational model enabling the House’s 3-year strategic plan, including the delivery of the 2023-24 budgets two months early to facilitate an earlier start on strategic initiatives. She also led the creation of standardized processes to increase consistency, transparency in budgeting and reporting. Prior to this, Lafontaine served as the Chief Administrative Officer for the University of Ottawa leading the consolidation of corporate services supporting the finance and administration sectors.
She has also held roles as the Senior Director, Strategy in the President and CEO’s Office of the Royal Canadian Mint, and as Chief Financial Officer and Vice-President, Corporate Services for the Standards Council of Canada. Her prior experience goes even further back with roles in the Canada Post Corporation and as an Assistant Deputy Minister for Service Canada. Lafontaine is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA), Chartered Accountant (CA) and a graduate of the Bachelor of Business Administration program from Université du Québec en Outaouais in 1983.
“The search committee quickly saw Sylvie’s depth of knowledge in financial and administrative operations. She demonstrated compelling and creative ideas, authentic relationship-building skills, and good judgment. She is just the kind of highly competent leader with integrity that the Laurentian community needs, and I very much look forward to working with her as we continue along our transformation path,” said Dr. Sheila Embleton, Interim President and Vice-Chancellor and Chair of the Search Committee.
“I believe deeply in the importance and potential of postsecondary education. Laurentian is especially unique because of its bilingual and tricultural mandate—this institution is special and I look forward to being part of the team that will continue this legacy of academic excellence and community,” said Lafontaine upon her appointment.
Laurentian would like to extend its gratitude to Michel Piché, Laurentian’s current Interim Vice-President Finance and Administration, who has served admirably in the role since fall 2021. Additionally, many thanks to the search committee for their time spent working with KBRS Executive Search on this critical hire. The members of the search committee included: Dominic Beaudry, Brenda Brouwer, Michel Delorme, Tammy Eger, Sheila Embleton, Tom Fenske, Nadia Mykytczuk, Tanya Shute, and Meredith Teller.
Lafontaine will begin her role as Vice-President Finance and Administration starting on October 30, 2023.