Erik Schaefer

Mr. Erik Schaefer '91 is a partner at McKinsey & Company in Toronto and a leader in their Recovery and Transformation service line. In this capacity he advises clients, and where necessary, assumes interim senior management roles to drive operational turnarounds on large-scale industrial assets. He focuses primarily on the metals and mining industry, but has also led numerous transformations in other sectors including pulp and paper, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, and across functions spanning operations, sales, marketing, organization and purchasing. He recently spent two years in Asia Pacific as the Chief Transformation Officer and Deputy General Manager leading the distressed turnaround of one of the world’s largest precious metals mines.

Erik previously worked as a process design and project engineer at Sulzer Chemtech in Switzerland, Canada and Germany. There, he designed and commissioned large-scale fractional crystallization systems to ultra-purify chemicals and petrochemicals.

Erik is fluent in English, German and French and possesses basic, though rusty, conversational ability in Spanish. He holds an Honours Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Waterloo and an MBA with High Distinction (George F. Baker Scholar) from Harvard Business School. He and his wife Amy (’93, nee Lazier) are both alumni of the College, and their children Martha and Alex currently attend the Senior and Middle Schools.

Erik serves on the Finance Committee.