Title: Senior Vice-President, Human Resources

Company: CI Financial

Location: Toronto, Ont.

Attributing her strength to her ability to be diplomatic, Lorraine Blair can handle situation in calm rational matter, and can be objective. Currently, she is senior vice-president of CI Financial, having been in financial services since 1985 and moved in the field and in 1994 she was asked to go into human resources and she set up the department from the beginning. Ms. Blair has a human resources management certification, also did a Post Secondary Program in Negotiations and Mediation and went to Rodman School of Business studied Employment Law, and has a Degree in Education from Ryerson.

Ms. Blair’s biggest challenge has been juggling her time between work and family life. She has had a number of accomplishments over the years, being able to maintain a level of professionalism through demanding responsibilities over the years. Ms. Blair would like to be able to have people view human resources profession in general, people don’t give credibility, they see  it as an afterthought, not where they need to come at the beginning. Ms. Blair wants to be remembered as someone who made a difference, able to create vision of women in leadership and development, and that she created programs for women leadership that affected positive change.

Eventually, Ms. Blair would like to take on additional responsibilities, incorporating services, under human resources, become more strategic and find a way to make a difference to the business, time effectiveness. She is inspired by the ability to make a difference, doing the right thing. During her free-time, Ms. Blair enjoys writing, gardening, cooking, exercising, walking her dog.