Mark Carney: Most trusted Canadian, new Bank of England governor, hockey player?
In the 1980s, Harvard University’s hockey team was winning U.S. national championships, and Mark Carney, who will become the next governor of the Bank of England in July 2013, was the Harvard’s Crimson’s goalie. But was he any good?
“Wow, this guy stopped every shot he ever faced,” Harvard athletics spokesman, Casey Hart, stated with a deadpan expression.
Hart then explained the statistics – Mr. Carney was the backup goalie that stopped all five shots fired his way in his one and only varsity game. It’s one of the few backup roles the 47-year-old has ever played, however it is believed he did play for the Bank of Canada in the annual hockey tournament.
(Mark Carney in his days as a hockey player – once given the task of preventing goals, now given the task of saving the UK economy as the governor-designate of the Bank of England)
In a country where civil service and business tend to be two solitudes, and central bankers tend to be policy wonks rather than puck-heads, Mr. Carney is a jock and proven deal maker who walked away from one of the top-paying jobs on Wall Street – a $3-million-plus-a-year partnership in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. – to become a public servant.
“Mark is one of the most capable and well-rounded individuals you will ever meet. He’s been successful in athletics, academics and business, and there’s every reason to think he’ll be a resounding success at the Bank of Canada,” said Doug Guzman, head of investment banking at RBC Dominion Securities and a former colleague at Goldman, shortly before Carney took over his role with at BoC.
His friends say the father of four, who met his British-born wife at Oxford University after seeing her play in a hockey game, has always seen public service as a duty, and saw his bosses at Goldman Sachs leave the firm for senior roles in the U.S. government.
Born in Fort Smith, NWT, Mr. Carney grew up in Edmonton after his father, a high school principal, went back to school, then went on to become a professor. Mark was valedictorian and a star basketball and hockey player at Edmonton’s St. Francis Xavier High School before going to Harvard, then Oxford. At university, Mr. Carney earned a PhD in economics, while many peers were gunning for the more practical MBA.
Who says hockey players are all brawn and no brains?
