MONTREAL — Canadian National Railway Co., transformed from a financially crippled crown corporation barely 10 years ago into the darling of the transportation world, has lost its superstar chief executive, Paul Tellier.
Tellier will move to Bombardier Inc. to try to work the same magic there that he’s credited with accomplishing at CN, according to the Montreal Gazette.
He leaves behind a company that has boosted its shareholder value by 410 per cent since its privatization seven years ago and stirred the envy of the industry.
Tellier is the public face of that success. Behind it, however, is the new man who will lead the company starting Jan. 1 — and who’s really been running the railway and driving it into consistent profitability for the past four years. E. Hunter Harrison is his name. He’s blunt, he’s an American and he gets results. And though some fear his American approach will spell the end for CN as a Canadian corporation, others say there’s no better man to lead the railway. And there is near unanimity that there will be no change for shareholders or customers.
“We always viewed CN as kind of having two CEOs,” said Tony Hatch, an independent rail analyst in New York.
“Hunter Harrison knows railroading. In the past, that was almost a bad thing to say because it meant he was so old school and maybe not willing to change. “That’s certainly not the case with Hunter, who has changed not just CN but also the way the industry is looked at and the way the industry looks at itself.”
“I think he’s tough,” said Darius Gaskins, former CEO of Burlington Northern railway, who worked with Harrison.
“But I don’t think he’s a tyrant. And the industry’s had tyrants. Hunter’s a disciplined guy, a guy who expects a lot out of people. But I think he’s fair.
“He’s a very good businessman. He understands the railroad industry as a business. He’s always striving to make money, to utilize his assets.” Railway-asset utilization and scheduling has become synonymous with the name Hunter Harrison.