Metrolinx names new CEO: Phil Verster
August 25, 2017
By
CCE
Verster has graduate degrees in both engineering and business and a post-graduate diploma in law, most recently he was managing director of Britain’s Network Rail.
Phil Verster, incoming president/CEO Metrolinx
The Board of Directors of Metrolinx has appointed Phil Verster as its new president and CEO effective October 1, 2017. The position became vacant earlier this year when former CEO Bruce McCuaig stepped down after 6-1/2 years in the role to become an advisor with the new Infrastructure Bank.
Over the last 12 years, Verster has overseen operations and major construction of rail services in England, Scotland and Ireland.
Among his most recent assignments, as a managing director of Britain’s Network Rail, have been running Scotland’s railway operations, the ScotRail Alliance, and initiating work on the East West Railway, a new rail line linking Britain’s high tech corridor between Oxford and Cambridge.
“We’re implementing a $34-billion transit build – the biggest transit investment in Ontario’s history and one of the largest in the world today,” said Rob Prichard, Chairman of the Metrolinx Board, in a media release. “We’re quadrupling the number of weekly GO Train trips – from 1,500 to 6,000. We’re electrifying key GO rail lines to provide 15-minute express service all day long throughout the region, and we’re building new LRT lines to tie the region together.
“We sought as our next CEO a person with deep domain expertise and substantial executive experience operating and building railways. There are few people in the transit and rail industry with the know-how, experience and executive skills to drive transformation and maintain service at the same time. Phil Verster is one of them.”
Verster has graduate degrees in both engineering and business and a post-graduate diploma in law.
