Al R. Vilcius
Campbellville, Ontario, Canada
PROFILE
Currently contracted to Elections Canada as a Field Liaison Officer, Al was
previously operating under appointment in Council as Federal Returning Officer for
Halton. Prior to that, Al was most recently President & Chief Executive
Officer of Web Pearls Inc., a Waterloo, Canada "dot-com" computer
company engaged in developing software tools for enabling advanced mathematical
materials on the web, for both academic and commercial users. Since returning
to Canada in 1998 from a
posting in London, England as Senior Vice President, Risk
Management for Mondex International Limited (a former subsidiary of MasterCard
International), Al has contributed to a number of strategic business
initiatives, on a consultative basis, for various clients, from well known
financial institutions to NASDAQ listed "dot-com" companies. For
Mondex, which was a "smartcard" scheme developed in the UK for
cash-like payment using integrated circuit (IC) technology, Al acted as global
risk manager, being responsible for all aspects of risk, including the
development of quantitative methods aimed at fraud prevention and detection,
and creation of the necessary infrastructure at the international level through
relationship management. He left Mondex to pursue partnership opportunities in
the related area of biometrics, focusing on secure entry to information/process
systems by authorized users through the integration of advanced hardware
devices and logical systems tools. After a brief hiatus for personal
development and research, Al's attention remains focused on providing strategic
business intelligence to knowledge enterprises.
With a broadly based business background in both risk management and sales,
Al’s approach to management draws heavily on the experience and knowledge
gained in his previous positions, with Mondex, and with CIBC/Wood Gundy in
particular. As General Manager of Global Analytics in CIBC Market
Risk Management Division, Toronto,
his responsibilities included corporate governance for mathematical models used
within the Bank, as well as specialized deal analytics plus consultative and
special research projects in pursuit of new applications. He was one of the
four founding members of Market Risk Management at CIBC, which started
in 1987.
Al gained solid business experience from working in Corporate Lending,
Commercial Credit, and was a “model builder” (financial
engineer) for Commerce Leasing from 1979, making him the first
"quant" on Bay Street.
Al joined CIBC in 1978 after a two year stint as a Financial Analyst at the
Bank of Nova Scotia. His formal education and research is in mathematics, which
he also taught at the University
of Western Ontario. He is
also a co-founder of the Centre for Financial Studies within The Fields
Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, a past Director of The
Canadian Mathematical Society, and characterizes himself as "a retread
algebraist". He has served as an Economic Adviser to his Community, a
member of GARP, and a member of CommuniTech in Canada’s Technology Triangle,
and now as an Officer of the Crown for Parliament..
The MYERS-BRIGGS TYPE INDICATOR® for Al is INTJ which characterizes
him as a natural leader and long-range thinker who is independent, original,
analytical, and determined. In terms of leadership, Al's
communication style is Style 4, putting him solidly in the "ideas"
quadrant.