Robert Waite is one of North America’s foremost experts in the fields of communications and stakeholder relations. Mr. Waite is Managing Director of Waite + Co., a firm specializing in Board and CEO-level communications strategy and advice. With offices in Toronto and Ottawa, Waite + Co. draws on its founder’s experience working with six corporate CEO’s; two distinguished United States Senators; and as a member of the Executive Branch of the United States government. He has led, modernized and transformed communications, government relations, marketing, donations, sponsorship, CSR and investor relations functions at companies as diverse as IBM, Ford, CAE, CIBC and Canada Post Corporation.

Earlier in his career Mr. Waite served as Press Secretary to Senator Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts and Senator Bob Dole of Kansas. While working for Senator Dole he wrote the speech nominating George H.W. Bush for vice-president of the United States, delivered at the Republican National Convention in Detroit. He also served on the staff of the 1980 Republican Platform Committee.
Mr. Waite served as Vice President, Public Affairs at the Export-Import Bank of the United States during the Reagan Administration. Prior to entering government service, Mr. Waite was an award-winning journalist and writer, including three New England Journalism Association best columnist awards. He served as national political correspondent for Pacific New Service (PNS), covering the 1976 Democratic and Republican presidential primaries and the general election. He subsequently was assigned as PNS’ East European correspondent, based in Warsaw, Poland, where he covered the rising influence of trade unions and the Catholic church as counterweights to communist regimes.

Mr. Waite continues to write and publish on topics of business leadership, politics, fundraising and education and also delivers speeches and lectures to academic and general audiences. He is currently researching a book on critical success factors for new-to-the-position CEOs.
Mr. Waite is Chair of the Canadian Stamp Advisory Committee; University Admissions Advisor for the Ottawa Soccer Club; an Ontario Cabinet member for the Friends of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights; a member of the Program Committee of the Canadian Journalism Foundation; a member of the Parents Advisory Council at Carleton College, Northfield, MN and the Parents Council at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA; serves on the Board of the Killay-Meany Foundation; is a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society; and a PR Seminar Seminarian.
He is past Chair of the Ottawa Liaison Committee of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce; past Chair of the CIBC YouthVision Scholarship Committee; served on two United Way of Greater Toronto campaign cabinets (1993 and 2002); a past Trustee of Hebron Academy; past Treasurer of the Canadian Science Writers Association; a past Board member of the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business; past member of the Senate Press Secretaries Association; and he served as Employer Representative at the International Labor Organization (ILO) in Geneva, Switzerland (1982).

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Mr. Waite received his undergraduate education at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he majored in European social history. He holds certificates in Corporate Social Responsibility (University of Toronto, 2009); Theory and Practice of Investor Relations (University of Michigan, 1995); and Marketing (Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley, 1989). He is also a 1982 graduate of IBM’s Advanced Management School at the Thomas Watson Center in Armonk, New York.
Mr. Waite holds dual Canadian – U.S. citizenship. He is married to Karen Shigeishi-Waite, CFO of Otis Canada Ltd. They have residences in Toronto and Ottawa.

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