Two Northerners have been named to the provincial government's new Jobs and Prosperity Council.
Sudbury's Darryl Lake, founder and former CEO of the Northern Centre for Advanced Technology (NORCAT) joins Thunder Bay forestry consultant Genevieve Knauff, owner of gck Consulting and hme Entreprises on the 13-member board.
Among those named to the board from the business, labour and the research community are Mike Lazaridis, founder of Research in Motion; George Cope, president/CEO of BCE Inc and Bell Canada; Maple Leaf Foods president/CEO Michael McCain; and Nitin Kawale, president of Cisco Systems Canada.
A June 8 provincial news release states the board chairman is Gordon Nixon, president and chief executive of the Royal Bank.
Lake recently retired from NORCAT, while Knauff was honoured with an Influential Women of Northern Ontario Award in late May.
The council, which was named in the 2012 budget, will be tasked with generating new ideas and approaches for improving Ontario's long-term productivity and competitiveness. In reporting directly to Premier Dalton McGuinty, the council will have its first meeting later this month.