(Reuters) – The head of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), Mark Machin, has stepped down after disclosing he recently traveled to the United Arab Emirates where he arranged to be vaccinated against COVID-19, the country’s largest pension fund said on Friday.
CPPIB said it had accepted Machin’s resignation and appointed John Graham as chief executive officer.
Canada’s Ministry of Finance on Thursday called a media report about Machin traveling to the Middle East and receiving a COVID-19 vaccination “very troubling”.
Machin was not immediately available for comment.
Although there is no specific ban on Canadians traveling abroad, the federal and provincial governments have advised against overseas trips to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Canada trails behind many developed nations in its vaccination drive, with under 3% of the population inoculated so far. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has come under attack from opposition leaders and provincial premiers for the slow-burn roll out.
Machin, 54, received Pfizer’s vaccine shot after arriving in the UAE with his partner this month, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
According to the report Machin has stayed on in the UAE and is due to receive his second dose in coming weeks.
Machin, an alumnus of Cambridge and Oxford universities, joined CPPIB in March 2012 and was appointed as president and chief executive officer in 2016. He had a 20-year long career at Goldman Sachs Group Inc prior to joining the pension fund.
Machin rose steadily through the ranks during his two decades at Goldman Sachs Asia, running at various times their capital markets, financing and investment banking businesses. He ended his stint with the investment bank as vice chairman of Asia based in Beijing.
Incoming CEO Graham has been with CPPIB for 10 years. Prior to that he was with Xerox Innovation Group for over nine years.
Graham holds an MBA from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and a PhD from the University of Western Ontario.
Some Canadian federal and provincial leaders have resigned in the past month after their overseas leisure trips sparked public outrage.
Ontario’s Finance Minister Rod Phillips resigned in December after public outrage over a Caribbean vacation he took earlier this month in violation of his own government’s coronavirus travel warnings. https://reut.rs/3qZvDLh
(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)
