Keith Creel - Date/Photographer unknown.

4 February 2013

CP Rail Lures Creel from Rival CN
and Names Him COO

Calgary Alberta - Canadian Pacific has hired the former executive vice-president and chief operating officer of rival Canadian National Railway Company, naming him president and chief operating officer of CP.
 
The appointment of Keith Creel is effective as of Tuesday. Hunter Harrison, the former CN chief executive who made the move to CP Rail last year, will remain the company's CEO.
 
"Keith joins CP after a very successful operating career where he rose from a management trainee in the operations department at Burlington Northern in 1992 to becoming EVP and COO at CN in 2010," Harrison said in a release. "I have worked with many talented operating people in this industry over the last four decades and Keith is by far one of the best young operating talents that I have ever seen."
 
Harrison, who took the helm of CP after activist investor William Ackman mounted a proxy fight that resulted in the departure of then-CEO Fred Green, has been working to improve the company's operating ratio, a key industry measure of railroad efficiency.
 
"I am thrilled to be joining CP during this historic time in its turnaround story," said Creel in a release. "I worked for Hunter for many years and am proud to be working alongside him once again. I am also proud to be leading an outstanding team in sales and marketing and operations that I know to be exceptionally talented railroaders. I am confident that together, we will continue down the path that has already begun to restore superior customer service and operational excellence at CP."
 
Prior to Monday's announcement, it was widely expected that whoever was named COO would be 68-year-old Harrison's logical successor for the CEO role.
 
Creel obtained a Bachelor of Science in marketing from Jacksonville State University and completed the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School. Creel served as a commissioned officer in the US Army and served in the Persian Gulf War in Saudi Arabia.
 
Amanda Stephenson.

Vancouver Island
British Columbia
Canada