Robert Asselin

Senior Vice President, Policy – Business Council of Canada

Robert leads the policy team and the Council’s work on economic and fiscal policy. He has written extensively on economic growth, innovation and industrial policy. Robert brings more than 10 years of experience in providing policy advice to government, including in roles as Policy and Budget Director to Canada’s Finance Minister and as Advisor to Prime Ministers Paul Martin and Justin Trudeau.  Prior to joining the Council, he spent two years at BlackBerry as Senior Global Director, Public Policy. Robert also spent nearly a decade in academia as Associate Director of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa and as Visiting Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. He sits on the advisory board of the U.S. Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and serves as a Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy and at the Public Policy Forum.