Heather Munroe-Blum

Canadian Children’s Literacy Foundation Co-Founder and Co-Chair, Chairperson, Board of CPP Investments (CPPIB) and Director, Royal Bank of Canada. From 2003-2013, served as the Principal (President), McGill University — the first woman to hold this position; 1994-2002, Vice-President (Research and International Relations), University of Toronto.

Dr. Munroe-Blum is a member of the boards of numerous academic, scientific and community organizations serving as Chair of the Gairdner Foundation, Member, the Advisory Board of Stanford University’s Centre for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences (CASBS), the MUHC – McGill MI4 Initiative (microbiology, immunology and infectious diseases), the McGill – MNI Tanenbaum Open Science Institute (TOSI), and, Member, Selection Committee, LUI Che Woo Prize for World Civilisation.

Contributing over her career to the advancement of higher education, public policy, and, science and innovation for broad public benefit, she is the recipient of numerous national and international awards and honorary doctorates, an Officer of the Order of Canada, an Officer of the Order of Quebec, a ‘Grande Montréalaise’, and, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Dr. Munroe-Blum’s childhood enchantment with literature was nourished by her parents’ reverence for books and reading, and the enriched public library system which nourished her insatiable desire to read. This was matched with the generosity shown by the Toronto Public Library system, which annually declared amnesty on the family’s overdue books, easing their otherwise insurmountable library debts. The role reading has played in her life, and this early public benefit have contributed significantly to her desire to share the gift of literacy with all Canadian children.

Dr. Munroe-Blum serves as Co-Chair of the Canadian Children’s Literacy Foundation, which she co-founded with Heather Reisman in 2017, towards the goal that Canada’s children become the most literate children in the world.