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Originally published: March 16, 2016
Meet the OSC’s new Chair and CEO, Maureen Jensen, who was appointed to a two-year term effective February 10, 2016. The Investor Office recently sat down with her to discuss her background, the OSC’s evolution and its priorities for the coming year.
Meet Maureen
I’ve been with the OSC since 2011, when I joined as its Executive Director and Chief Administrative Officer. Before that, I served as Senior Vice-President of Surveillance and Compliance with the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada, which I came to after the Investment Dealers Association of Canada merged with Market Regulation Services Inc., for which I was President and CEO at the time. Prior to that, I was a director at the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Before I worked in securities regulation, I spent 20 years in the mining sector. I started my career as a geologist, and eventually moved into various technical and executive management roles at different mining companies.
These experiences have shown me that people can be leaders at any level of an organization. When you bring together can-do people, you get something special. That’s what we’re doing at today’s OSC.
On the OSC’s evolution as an organization…
The OSC has become a much more accessible organization to the public over the past five years, and we will continue to evolve in this way. Being open and transparent to investors and other stakeholders is very important for us to do our job. For example, we’ve become much more open regarding our business and financial reporting. Our annual Statement of Priorities and progress report set out our priorities and evaluate our financial and policy performance – important aspects of maintaining our transparency.
I’m very proud of the work that the Investor Office has accomplished since it re-launched last year. People are talking about the role the Office has been playing. Having an operational branch that’s focused on delivering investor research, policy, education and outreach provides our organization with an important understanding of the issues facing investors, which then allows all areas of the OSC to fulfill our mandate to protect investors.
On the OSC’s investor protection mandate…
We have a double mandate: to provide protection to investors from unfair, improper or fraudulent practices and to foster fair and efficient capital markets and confidence in capital markets. If you say that part of your mandate is investor protection, you need to put your resources there. That’s why we created the Investor Office, and that’s why in addition to building the Office’s capacity we’re also continuing to support the work of the Investor Advisory Panel and FAIR Canada. Through these steps, the OSC gains valuable insight into emerging investor issues and priorities.
Our recently published Draft Statement of Priorities charts a clear direction for what we want to achieve as an organization. It puts a real focus on investor protection and the need to improve investor outcomes. We encourage investors – and all stakeholders – to submit comments on the OSC’s Draft Statement of Priorities.
To read and submit comments on the OSC’s draft Statement of Priorities, click here.