Harrie Vredenburg

Dr. Harrie Vredenburg is Professor of Strategy at the University of Calgary's Haskayne School of Business and is the Suncor Energy Chair in Competitive Strategy and Sustainable Development, a Haskayne research chair affiliated with the University's Institute for Sustainable Energy, Environment & Economy (ISEEE). He also holds an appointment as an International Research Fellow at Oxford University's Centre for Corporate Reputation (Said Business School) in the UK.

He was the founding director (1994-2007) of Haskayne's ISEEE-affiliated International Resource Industries and Sustainability Studies Centre (IRIS). Both IRIS and the academic programs its research has inspired were founded on Brundtland Commission principles of developing energy and natural resources globally in a sustainable manner. These initiatives have led to the Haskayne School of Business being consistently ranked by the Aspen Institute in the US as one of the top business schools worldwide in research and teaching in social and environmental sustainability and responsibility. He created and teaches a popular course called The New Capitalism: Social Issues, Innovation and Competitive Strategy in the Alberta Haskayne Executive MBA, a program ranked 36th in the world on the Financial Times of London (UK) rankings of Executive MBA programs. Since January 2009 Dr. Vredenburg has led Haskayne's initiative to launch an International Energy Executive MBA.

In 1995 Dr. Vredenburg was co-founder of the Haskayne School of Business interdisciplinary Master of Science (MSc) Program in Energy and Environment (now Sustainable Energy Development) for Latin America and the Caribbean offered in Quito Ecuador in partnership with the Latin American Energy Organization (OLADE) and he was academic chair of this program from 1996 to 2006. Since 2006, this program is being offered jointly with Universidad San Francisco de Quito. Mid-career professionals are drawn from some 15 regional countries for this program. A Calgary-based version of this MSc program has since 2007 drawn students from around the world. Dr. Vredenburg's work inspired the launch in 2002 of the Haskayne School of Business MBA concentration in Global Energy Management and Sustainable Development (GEMS), now the School's second most popular MBA concentration after Finance, which is offered to both Calgary students and to students in Haskayne's China program. The launch of the BComm concentration in Energy in 2007 was modeled on the MBA GEMS program. Masters and BComm program graduates are employed in industry and government worldwide. PhD graduates who studied under Dr. Vredenburg's supervision are teaching, researching and developing policy in Canada, in the US and in Latin America.

In addition to teaching in these various Haskayne Masters and PhD programs, since 2002 Dr. Vredenburg has served on the regular faculty of the European Summer School for Advanced Management (ESSAM) in Aarhus, Denmark, where he teaches a course on Energy, Competitive Strategy and Sustainable Development to MBA students from around the world. He has also since 2005 regularly lectured on strategy and governance in the Institute of Corporate Directors' Directors Education Program. Before joining the Haskayne School of Business at U of C, Dr. Vredenburg was a professor at McGill University's Desautels Management School. He has also been a visiting professor at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia and at the Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University in the Netherlands.

He has been actively involved since 2000 in planning and delivering the prestigious annual Global Business Forum in Banff, which draws international business and government leaders to the Canadian Rockies resort.

Dr. Vredenburg's research, focused on competitive strategy, innovation, environment, sustainable development and corporate governance in global energy and natural resource industries, has been published in the leading international management journals. He has authored or co-authored more than 40 scholarly papers in journals such as Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, MIT Sloan Management Review, International Journal of Economics and Business Research, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Journal of Business Administration, International Journal of Sustainable Economy, Global Business and Economics Review, Journal of International Business and Economics, Innovation, Journal of Business Ethics, Optimum: The Journal of Public Sector Management, Corporate Governance: An International Review, International Journal of Business Strategy, Ecology & Society, American Journal of Public Health, as well as in regionally important publications such as Latin American Business Review and Harvard Business Review (Latin America) and in industry-based publications such as the Journal of Petroleum Technology. He has also authored and co-authored government reports and chapters in edited books.

Prior to his academic career he worked in product management with American Express in Toronto and New York. Through his strategy consultancy, Arxpacis Inc, he has for more than 25 years consulted to both corporations and governments. Dr. Vredenburg's consulting clients have included TransCanada, Suncor, Bantrel, Telus, Shell Canada, Royal Bank, Alcan, General Motors, Zellers, Bayer, Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and the governments of Alberta, Canada, the US, the Netherlands and India.

Professor Vredenburg is a member of the board of directors and audit and compensation committees of Petrobank, a Calgary-headquartered publicly-traded (TSX: PBG) mid-cap (~$5 billion) energy company. Petrobank's four business units are engaged in global industry-leading innovation – the heavy oil business unit, Whitesands, is a wholly-owned subsidiary and heavy oil/in-situ oil sands developer in northern Alberta and Saskatchewan which is the first to use new lower cost and lower environmental impact patented process technologies (THAITM and CAPRITM) which are expected to revolutionize the industry; the Canadian business unit, Petrobakken, 64% owned by Petrobank, is publicly-traded (TSX:PBN) and is engaged in conventional oil and gas development with a focus on new technological processes in southern Saskatchewan's rich Bakken light oil resource play, Alberta's Cardium light oil in the west Pembina area and northeast British Columbia's shale gas play; the Latin American business unit, Petrominerales, 66% owned by Petrobank, is publicly-traded (TSX: PMG) and is a conventional oil explorer and producer with a focus on Colombia and Peru and is also the largest owner of heavy oil leases in Colombia; Archon Technologies is a 100% owned R&D business unit focusing on heavy oil/oil sands technology innovation and global commercialization.
Dr. Vredenburg is also chairman of the board of Dionysus Energy Corporation, a small private Calgary-based early-stage venture company focusing on innovative oil and gas projects. Outside the private sector he serves on the board of directors and audit committee of the Calgary-based Van Horne Institute for International Transportation and Regulatory Affairs. Internationally he serves on the advisory boards of the Management Research Centre of the Instituto Superior de Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa (ISCTE) in Lisbon Portugal and of the European Summer School for Advanced Management (ESSAM) in Aarhus Denmark. He has also served for many years on local not-for-profit boards, including those of the Calgary Philharmonic and the Mountain View Chamber Music Festival.

From 2004 to 2006 Dr. Vredenburg served as a member of the Alberta Environmental Appeals Board, a quasi-judicial administrative tribunal whose expert members are appointed by Cabinet. This Board hears final appeals from individuals and companies lodged against rulings of Alberta's department of environment. He served on this board during a period when a number of cases before the board called for industrial economics and competitive strategy expertise.

Professor Vredenburg served on the board of directors and audit and governance committees of the Pembina Institute, a Canadian energy policy think-tank, from 2002 to 2007, and on the international steering committee of a specialist group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) from 1994 to 2007.

In 2008 Dr. Vredenburg was appointed by Cabinet to the Alberta Nuclear Power Expert Panel to advise the Minister of Energy and Government of Alberta on issues related to nuclear energy. The Panel's report was released in April 2009.

Professor Vredenburg is regularly sought out by print and broadcast media for expert commentary on energy issues.
Dr. Vredenburg earned a PhD in strategic management from the Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario in 1986 and holds MBA (international business & finance) and honours BA (history) degrees from McMaster University and the University of Toronto. In 2005 he earned the ICD.D designation of the Institute of Corporate Directors, as a certified corporate director. He was certified as a mediator by the Consensus Building Institute (Harvard-MIT Public Disputes Program) in 1997.

Professor Vredenburg received the Alberta Emerald Award for Environmental Excellence in Research and Innovation in 2002, the Macleod Dixon International Achievement Award in 2003, the Corporate Knights Magazine Institutional Impact Award in the same year, the University of Calgary International Achievement Award in 2005, as well as numerous Haskayne School of Business teaching and research awards. He is a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Policy Research (IAPR) and is a Fellow of the Latin American Research Centre (LARC). He is listed in the Canadian Who's Who.
Dr. Vredenburg was born in the Netherlands and holds dual Canadian/Netherlands (EU) nationality. He is married to Dr. Jennifer Maguire, a dentist with a private practice - Calgary Fine Dentistry - and they have three daughters. He is a Masters level endurance athlete, competing regularly in marathon and triathlon events including the prestigious Boston Marathon (2008) and the World Masters Games (2005). He is currently working on a book with the working title, A Delicate Balance: How Innovative Business and Farsighted Governments can get us to a Sustainable Energy Future.

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