Queens Quay Blvd. is one of the major projects under way for Waterfront Toronto. When completed, the project will feature lanes for multiple transit systems, furthering the value of the land for mass use. (Rendering: Waterfront Toronto)
It takes most people years of arduous schooling, research, exploration, and real-world work experience before they decide what career paths their lives should take. But for seven-year-old Chad McCleave, it took a board game.
“This is great—I should try finance!” McCleave recalls himself thinking after winning his first round of property trading in Monopoly. Little did he know how indicative the statement would prove to be: today, McCleave serves as the CFO of Waterfront Toronto, the organization responsible for carrying out various revitalization projects along the city’s lakefront. Started as a partnership between three levels of government in 2001, Waterfront Toronto has grown into the largest urban redevelopment project in North America, enhancing the area’s value through brownfield revitalizations and other projects. The organization has generated jobs—the equivalent of more than 16,000 people working full-time in a single year—and $3.2 billion in output for the Canadian economy.
McCleave joined Waterfront Toronto in 2010, bringing with him a unique mix of private- and public-sector experience. “It’s about trying to run the organization like a business,” McCleave says, “but still keeping in mind the government’s multiple objectives.” Before joining, McCleave encountered Waterfront Toronto while working for PricewaterhouseCoopers as part of its municipal government advisory practice. Before that, he did something most finance professionals have never done: he was the municipal councillor for the Town of Newmarket, Ontario, which not only gave him experience working with a wide range of government projects but also fine-tuned his ability to communicate complicated financial information in layman’s terms for the general public. This skill helps him in his current role because it enables him to present financial ideas to his board so that they can make more timely and better-informed decisions.