Roger Parkinson

"I like the idea of trying to make the Humphrey School one of the very best and most respected public policy schools in the United States. Dean Atwood has now laid the foundation to make that possible."

Areas of Expertise

Journalism, the newspaper business

Biography

Roger Parkinson has been chairman of the University of Toronto Press since 2001 and a member of the board since 1998. He has spent his career in the newspaper business, most recently with the Globe and Mail, as publisher and CEO from 1994 to 1999 and as chairman from 1998 to 2001. From 2000 to 2002, he also served as president of the World Association of Newspapers. Before coming to Canada, Parkinson was an executive fellow at the University of St Thomas. He spent 10 years at Cowles Media Company, as publisher and president, first of the Buffalo Courier-Express and then the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Parkinson started his publishing career in 1969 with the Washington Post Company, first as an executive with Newsweek magazine and subsequently as a vice president of the Washington Post.

Parkinson currently serves on the academic board of the University of Toronto and previously served on the business board and the audit committee. He was the founding chairman of ROBTv (now Business News Network) and the founding chairman of the Canadian Newspaper Association. He serves on the dean's advisory council of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, the Institute of Strategic Studies in London, and the Canadian International Council. He is on the executive committee of the World Press Freedom Committee and previously served as vice chairman of the InterAmerican Press Association and on the board of IFRA, the international technology association of the newspaper industry.

Parkinson served in the U.S. Army, enlisting as a private in the infantry and eventually serving as a 1st Lt. in the U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets) in Vietnam, earning a Bronze Star. He holds a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Harvard University. In 2004, he earned an MA in international relations from the University of Toronto.

Resume (PDF)

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