Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members.
My name is Aneil Jaswal.
I am a director on the strategy team at the CIB, where I lead work on measuring the impact of our projects and developing strategies across our priority sectors.
I'm happy to be here today as a witness for this committee's study. It is important to note that I am a recent employee of the CIB, having joined the organization in December 2021.
I was not involved with, and do not have knowledge of, the beginnings of the CIB or any of the contracts awarded by the CIB to McKinsey. For those reasons, which were previously communicated to the committee, I was not initially put forward as a CIB witness to help inform the committee's study. Other CIB staff, who may have more relevant knowledge, including our CEO, Ehren Cory, are also here today to best support the study.
That being said, in light of the committee's interest in my appearing, I have joined today to support the committee to the best of my abilities. To assist the committee in identifying where I might be most helpful, I would like to share a bit about my career and areas of expertise.
I did my Ph.D. with a focus on health policy and economics. To further my interest in economics and grow my skills outside academia, I joined McKinsey & Company in August 2016, as an associate consultant in its Montreal office. I worked there for just under two years, until February 2018. While at McKinsey, I worked on a variety of projects ranging from due diligence of large corporate investments to projects in the natural resources sector. I was not staffed on any federal government or CIB projects.
I left McKinsey over five years ago, seeking to work in the public service and get back to my policy interests. In March 2018, I joined the federal public service, working as a policy adviser at PCO, focused on mentoring and supporting the achievement of government results. In January 2020, I took on a new role as a policy adviser to the Minister of Finance, where I worked primarily on economic and health responses to COVID-19. While in government, I never worked with McKinsey or on the CIB.
I'd also like to share a bit about joining the CIB. I joined in December 2021, with an interest in using both my public policy and private sector experiences to support the CIB's goals of advancing infrastructure in the public interest. Having grown up in northern B.C., I've seen first-hand the challenges of a lack of infrastructure as well as the transformative, positive impact of getting critical infrastructure built, such as the port development in my north coast hometown.
Wanting to support this area of public policy, I applied to a CIB job posting I saw on LinkedIn. The hiring process was competitive, and I understand there were multiple applicants. I had never met Steve Robins or Ehren Cory before applying to the CIB. Before leaving government, as recommended for all exempt staff, I confirmed compliance of post-employment obligations, including receiving confirmation from the office of the Ethics Commissioner.
Since joining the CIB, I have worked on a variety of topics, including having rolled out a rigorous new standard for how we estimate the greenhouse gas emissions reduction of our projects as well as supporting CIB's advancement into new sectors. This includes zero-emission vehicle charging infrastructure, for which I'm excited to say we recently announced our first project to almost double the number of public fast chargers in Canada. I'm also currently helping to develop our strategy to support the enabling infrastructure needed for critical minerals development across the country.
In closing, since I joined the CIB, it has not awarded any contracts to McKinsey. As I mentioned, others may be better placed to answer your questions in that respect. However, I'm happy to assist however I may.
Thank you.