Gordon Nixon

President and Chief Executive Officer - RBC Financial Group

Gordon Nixon is president and chief executive officer of RBC Financial Group, the brand name for Royal Bank of Canada and its subsidiaries. He is also a director of Royal Bank of Canada and chairman of RBC's Group Executive.

Mr. Nixon began his career in 1979 at Dominion Securities in Toronto where he worked in Global Markets and subsequently the Investment Banking division. In 1986, he transferred to Tokyo to assume responsibility for the firm's operations in Japan. Dominion Securities was acquired by Royal Bank of Canada in 1987 and Mr. Nixon returned to Toronto in 1989 as a Managing Director of Investment Banking. In 1995, Mr. Nixon was appointed head of Global Investment Banking and in 1999 became Chief Executive officer of RBC Capital Markets and a member of Royal Bank's Executive Committee. He was appointed President of Royal Bank of Canada on April 1, 2001 and Chief Executive Officer on August 1, 2001.

Mr. Nixon is Chairman of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, and is on the Board of Directors of The Hospital for Sick Children, the International Monetary Conference and MaRS Discovery District for which he will become Chairman in 2009. He is also on the Canadian Advisory Boards of Daimler/Chrysler, Catalyst and Queen's University School of Business.

In 2007 Mr. Nixon was invested into the Order of Ontario and was the recipient of Canada's Outstanding CEO of the Year Award. He has an Honorary Doctor of Laws from Queen's University, and is a recipient of the CIJA/UJA Words and Deeds Leadership Award, the Rotary Foundation's Paul Harris Fellowship, a Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal, a Learning Partnership Champion of Public Education Tribute and an American Banker Innovator of the Year Award. Born in Montreal in 1957, Mr. Nixon attended Queen's University where he received an Honours Bachelor of Commerce degree. He and his wife live in Toronto and have three children.

Rank:1

Age:49

Tenure:5 yrs., 10 mos.

Salary:$1.4 mil

Bonus:$5 mil

Gordon Nixon received $14.9 million in total compensation last year, the most ever paid to a Canadian bank CEO. But Canada's largest bank also had a record 2006 under his leadership, earning a $4.7-billion profit, the biggest yet for a Canadian bank. The Montreal-born, Queen's University — educated Nixon led the growth by signing off on five U.S. acquisitions, including the first retail takeovers since fall 2003, when the bank paid US$80 million for a group of Florida branches owned by Provident Financial Group. On tap? Nixon said in March he wants to continue finding even more American banks to buy.