David Fransen

David is the Chair of the Waterloo Innovation Summit, and Executive in Residence, Global Partnerships, at Ontario Centres of Excellence. 

Over his 34-year career, David has served as a senior executive in government, academia, and the diplomatic corps, leading large interdisciplinary teams in path-breaking R&D, policy and program areas. He has consistently demonstrated a clear understanding of how to drive from innovative ideas to practical results.

In 1980, David moved to Ottawa so that he could conduct the research for his doctoral dissertation. Simultaneously, he began a career in the federal public service at the Department of Finance, moving from there to increasingly senior positions in a variety of departments. In 1986, he joined the fledgling Canadian Security Intelligence Service as a counter-terrorism analyst, from which he was seconded to the Intelligence Advisory Committee at the Privy Council Office (PCO) in 1988. From 1990 until 1995 he worked in the environment policy section of PCO, providing policy advice to two Prime Ministers related to such developments as the $3B Green Plan in 1990, the drafting of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, revisions to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, the creation of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, and the creation of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development.

In 1995, David joined Industry Canada as the Director of Economic Framework Policies in the Strategic Policy Branch. From there, he moved on to become the Director General of the Office of Consumer Af-fairs in 1997.

In 1999, David became the Director General of the Centre for Healthy Human Development at Health Canada. In this capacity, he chaired committees and boards that were responsible for such initiatives as the creation of a Canadian cancer control strategy, a Canadian diabetes strategy, the federal-provincial agreement on early childhood development, the web-based Canadian Health Network and variety of children’s and seniors’ health programs. In 2001, David returned to Industry Canada as Associate Assistant Deputy Minister in the Spectrum, Information Technologies and Telecommunication Sector, where he was responsible for revitalizing IC’s programs delivering Internet-based services to schools and communities. David became Assistant Deputy Minister (ADM) of the Industry Sector in 2003, where he was primarily responsible for providing policy advice and delivering programs related to Canada’s key economic sectors, eg. automotive, aerospace and defense, life sciences, clean tech, steel, and forestry.

In August 2004, David became ADM of Policy at Industry Canada, as well as the Director of Investment Canada. As ADM Policy, he was responsible for the Government of Canada's policies related to for-eign investment, research and development, science and technology, commercialization, intellectual property, and small business.  He chaired a wide variety of boards and committees, such as Industry Canada’s Senior Policy Committee, the federal government’s lead committee of Science ADMs, along with a variety of initiatives with external stakeholders, eg. the University Advisory Group (a Vice-President level committee from universities, the federal granting agencies and the private sector), and a joint initiative with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the Paper Burden Reduction Initiative. David was also a member of the founding Board of Governors of the Council of Canadian Acade-mies, a member of the Board of Directors of the Standards Council of Canada as well as Canadian Commercial Corporation, and the Secretary of the Minister’s Expert Panel on Commercialization, chaired by Joe Rotman.

In January 2006, David returned to the University of Waterloo (UW) to become the first Executive Director of the Institute for Quantum Compu-ting, and UW’s Associate Vice-President (Strategic Relations). David developed IQC’s first strategic plan as well as led the efforts leading to the design and construction of the Quantum Nano Centre. 

In September 2008, David was appointed Canada’s Consul General in Los Angeles. As Canada’s senior representative in Southern California, Arizona and Nevada, David focused primarily on promoting Canada/US business connections, seeking out every opportunity to facilitate practi-cal deal-making across sectors such as life sciences, aerospace & defense, clean tech, digital media, and the entertainment industry. 

Facilitating research collaboration between Canada’s universities and the world-class universities in this territory was another key priority. The revitalization of the Canada Endowment program at UCLA, increasing the number of Fulbright scholars at SoCal universities, and enhanced collaboration in stem cell research were among his accomplishments.

When David retired from the Government of Canada in April 2014, he re-turned to Waterloo where he is now the Chair of the Waterloo Innovation Summit, Executive-In-Residence, Global Partnerships with Ontario Cen-tres of Excellence, and advisor to Waterloo Region’s innovation leaders.

David has a PhD in History from the University of Toronto, a BA and MA from the University of Waterloo, and a Bachelor of Theology from Canadian Mennonite University. He and his wife have two children and six grandchildren.