Former Hockey Player Is Named Head of Canada’s Central Bank

A former Harvard goalie will soon take charge of Canada’s macroeconomic goals.

Mark J. Carney ’87, Canada’s senior associate deputy minister of finance was named the next governor of the Bank of Canada last Thursday and will assume the seven-year position in February.

Carney, who concentrated in economics and lived in Winthrop House, received his master’s degree and doctorate in economics from Oxford.

“He was someone who the younger members of the team looked up to,” William C. Kennish ’89, a teammate of Carney on the junior varsity ice hockey team, said in a statement e-mailed from London. “He was an excellent player who enjoyed his hockey but also was highly intelligent and focused on his studies.”

According to Michael G. A. Grace ’68, who interviewed him for Harvard, Carney’s varsity career was limited to just one memorable game. In it, he stopped 100 percent of the shots he faced, creating a rather formidable save percentage.

Carney also proved reliable outside the ice hockey rink. Before entering public service in 2003, Carney spent 13 years at Goldman Sachs, working in New York, London, and Tokyo and eventually becoming managing director of investment banking in Toronto.

Grace said that even at the time of his college interview, Carney was already expressing an interest in public service.

Carney’s promotion to become the head of Canada’s central bank surprised some analysts in the country. Most were predicting that W. Paul Jenkins, senior deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, would get the top spot. But Joseph J. Oliver, president and CEO of the Investment Dealers Association of Canada, said that Carney’s experience as an investment banker would be an important asset for his new job. “This will be invaluable since the Governor’s role transcends pure monetary policy,” Oliver said in an e-mail.