Delegate General of Québec in Paris and Personal Representative of the Premier for La Francophonie
MSc, PhD
Henri-Paul Rousseau has served as the Quebec Delegate-General in Paris and the personal representative of the Premier of Quebec for the Francophonie since July 2024.
Mr. Rousseau holds bachelor’s degrees in arts and economics from the Université de Sherbrooke. He pursued his graduate studies at the University of Western Ontario, where he received a PhD and the T.M. Brown Award for the best thesis in economics in 1974. He began an academic career in 1973, first at the Université du Québec à Montréal and subsequently at Université Laval, where he became Chair of the Department of Economics. He simultaneously served as an economic advisor to the governments of Canada and Quebec.
In 1986, he joined the National Bank, where he held several strategic positions, including Senior Vice-President, Treasury and Financial Markets. From September 1990 to April 1991, he served as Secretary of the Commission on the Political and Constitutional Future of Quebec (the Bélanger-Campeau Commission). He was head of Boréal Assurances from 1992 to 1994 and then became President and Chief Executive Officer of Laurentian Bank of Canada, where he remained until June 2002.
He was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec in September 2002 and held the position until May 2008. In this capacity, he was the driving force behind the Montréal Accord in August 2007, the aim of which was to restructure asset-backed commercial paper to suit investors’ needs. From January 2009 to December 2017, he served as Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors of Power Corporation of Canada and Power Financial Corporation. He was a director of the Global Financial Markets Association from October 2010 to July 2014. He also served as a director of Santander Bank USA (June 2015–May 2024) and Santander Holdings USA (March 2017–May 2024), and chaired the Board of Directors of Noovelia from May 2018 to June 2024.
Mr. Rousseau’s contributions as an economist and engaged citizen have been singled out for recognition on many occasions. He received an honorary doctorate from Concordia University in 2004. Two years later, he was named to the Académie des Grands Montréalais for his achievements in the economic sector. Also in 2006, he was awarded a second honorary doctorate by Université Lumière Lyon 2 during the Entretiens Jacques Cartier forum on key societal issues. Two other honorary doctorates followed in 2007, one from the Université de Sherbrooke and one from Université Laval. He was appointed to the Order of Canada on December 27, 2018.
Mr. Rousseau has been personally involved with several social and cultural institutions and in the education and health sectors, leading numerous fundraising campaigns. He was one of the founders of the Collège des administrateurs in 2005 and the founder of the Tremplin Santé Foundation to support camps for youth, which he chaired from May 2010 to May 2024. In 2010, he co-founded Réseau QG100, an association of 100 multinational companies with head offices in Quebec, with Charles Sirois.
Mr. Rousseau was a visiting professor at the Paris School of Economics from September 2018 to May 2022, as well as a senior fellow at the C.D. Howe Institute and a visiting fellow at CIRANO from September 2018 to May 2024. He has been an adjunct professor at HEC Montréal since September 2019.
