CNA Welcomes New President and CEO

OTTAWA (October 22, 2013) – The Canadian Nuclear Association welcomes Dr. John Barrett as the new President and Chief Executive Officer.

Dr. Barrett brings to the CNA a rich expertise in international relations, Canadian foreign policy, corporate business planning, and strategic communications. His career spans the federal public service, international organizations, policy think-tanks and universities, with a particular focus on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

Dr. Barrett has guided numerous international negotiations, most recently as Canada’s Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, where he was Chair of the IAEA’s Board of Governors. As Canada’s Ambassador to the United Nations in Vienna, he chaired the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice. He has served as Ambassador to Austria and to the Slovak Republic.

Dr. Barrett began his career in academia, earning a BA and MA from the University of Toronto and a doctorate from the London School of Economics. He took up the post of Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of International Relations at UBC before moving to Ottawa to join the Canadian Centre for Arms Control & Disarmament, a policy think tank.

At the beginning of the 1990s, Dr. Barrett was Director of Policy Planning at NATO at a time of great change following the end of the Cold War. At NATO he showed a talent for strategic communications, becoming chief speechwriter for successive NATO Secretaries-General while drafting the Alliance’s foreign policy statements. After returning to Canada, he continued high-level speechwriting and strategic communications for, inter alia, the Minister of National Defence (DND), the Governor General (Rideau Hall) and two Prime Ministers (Privy Council Office).

In 2005, Dr. Barrett re-joined Foreign Affairs, adding strategic corporate planning and performance management to his portfolio. As Director General of Strategic Planning, he developed the department’s Integrated Corporate Business Plan and served as Chief Risk Officer.

In 2009, he was appointed Canada’s Ambassador to Austria as well as Ambassador to the International Organizations in Vienna.

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For more information:

Erin Polka
Communications Officer
613-237-4262 ext. 101