Our Board of Directors: Stella M. Thompson
Stella Thompson is a co-founder and principal of Governance West Inc., a consulting firm formed in 1996, specializing in assisting boards of directors to achieve excellence in the governance of their organizations.
Governance West's clients include a wide range of business, public sector and not-for-profit organizations. Stella brings to the company over thirty years of experience encompassing membership on a number of corporate and not-for-profit boards, executive and management positions at a number of large corporations, and consulting assignments with both large and small organizations. Stella is a frequent speaker at national conferences and seminars.
Currently, Stella serves on a number of Boards including the following:
o Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.
o Alberta's Electricity Balancing Pool
o Alberta WaterSMART
o Canada Foundation for Innovation
o Calgary Airport Authority
o Genome Alberta, Vice Chair
o Talisman Energy Inc
Stella is or has been a member of various committees on the boards of which she is a member, including Audit (for two of her current Boards), Compliance and Ethics, Human Resource, and Governance Committees. She currently chairs two Governance and Human Resource Committees and a Pension Committee.
She also serves on the Board advising on Canada's Top 40 Under 40 contributors and the Calgary Herald's Citizens' Advisory Board. In past years, Stella has been a member of a number of other boards such as Enmax, Laidlaw Inc, Agra Inc, Perigee Inc, Allstate Insurance Company of Canada, Mount Royal College, the Prime Minister's National Advisory Board on Science and Technology, and the Alberta Research Council.
Before becoming a consultant in 1991, Stella worked in the petroleum industry, first in Australia and then in Canada. She has held senior positions with major oil companies in the exploration and production sectors. Latterly, she had responsibility for a number of large operating departments at Petro-Canada in the refining and marketing sector including refined product distribution, product supply and trading, and the credit card operation. As a Vice President, she was responsible for many diverse areas in the Products Division including strategic planning, the controller function, information systems, materials management and energy futures trading.
Stella has a B.A. in Economics from the University of Calgary and an M.A. in Economics from the University of Alberta. In 2005, she received the ICD.D certification granted by the Institute of Corporate Directors and is an instructor for the ICD's Director Education Program. Also in 2005, she was recognized by the Women's Executive Network and the University Of Western Ontario's Richard Ivey School of Business as one of Canada's Top 100 Most Powerful Women.
Our Board of Directors
• P. Kim Sturgess (CEO)
• Nancy Blair
• Brenda Kenny
• Clayton Sissons
• Fred A. Stewart
• Stella Thompson
• Darrell Toma
• Mike Scarth (Secretary)