Gary J. Smith

Mr. Smith has held a number of senior leadership positions with the Fortis Group throughout his 35-year tenure. He was previously Executive Vice President, Eastern Canadian and Caribbean Operations, Fortis Inc.; President and Chief Executive Officer of Newfoundland Power; Vice President of Customer Operations and Engineering of Newfoundland Power; and Vice President of Operations and Engineering of FortisAlberta.

Mr. Smith holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical) from Memorial University of Newfoundland. He has completed the Finance for Senior Executives Program at the Harvard Business School. Mr. Smith currently serves as a Director on the Boards of Newfoundland Power, Maritime Electric, FortisOntario, Caribbean Utilities, FortisTCI, and Belize Electric Company Limited (BECOL), all Fortis utilities. He is also the Chair of the Board of Directors of Wataynikaneyap Power PM, a Fortis subsidiary acting as the Project Manager for the Wataynikaneyap Power Transmission Project, a partnership with 24 First Nations that is building a transmission line to connect 17 First Nations communities in Northwestern Ontario to the power grid.

He is a member of the Board of Directors of Junior Achievement Canada, a Chair of the Canadian Business Hall of Fame Governance Committee, Chair of the Board of Directors of the Dr. H. Bliss Murphy Cancer Care Foundation and also a member of the Dean’s Advisory Committee to the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Mr. Smith is past Chair of the Board of Directors of Junior Achievement of Newfoundland and Labrador and past member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Electricity Association. He was elected as a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering in 2021. He is a member of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Newfoundland and the Steering Committee on Power Engineering for the Canadian Standards Association.