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Simon Kennedy is a Senior Advisor with Teneo, based in Ottawa. Simon is a former senior federal public servant who spent decades at the highest levels of the Government of Canada. He held six deputy minister–level positions and played a central role in shaping national policy, legislation and regulation.

From 2019 to 2024, Simon served as Deputy Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. In that role, he led one of the federal government’s most active economic portfolios, overseeing major industrial policy initiatives to rebuild domestic biomanufacturing in the wake of the pandemic, develop critical minerals and electric-vehicle battery supply chains, and position Canada as a leader in frontier technologies such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing. He also directed legislative reforms to the Investment Canada Act, Competition Act and Telecommunications Act, and oversaw Canada’s foreign investment review process.

Previously, as Deputy Minister of Health from 2015 to 2019, Simon led Health Canada’s extensive regulatory and health promotion mandate, including the Government’s decision to legalize and regulate cannabis, reforms to pharmaceutical pricing, food labelling and tobacco control, and the federal response to the opioid crisis. Earlier in his career, as Deputy Minister of International Trade, he oversaw the conclusion of landmark trade agreements with the European Union and South Korea. As G-20 Sherpa, he advised the Prime Minister on international economic affairs. He also served as the Prime Minister’s lead negotiator with the White House on the successfully concluded Canada–U.S. Action Plan on Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness.

Simon currently serves on the boards of Finchley Pharmaceuticals, Quantum Valley Ideas Lab and the Ottawa Community Foundation, and has previously served on the boards of multiple public-sector organizations, including the Mental Health Commission of Canada, Canadian Institute for Health Information and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Simon holds an MSc in Communications Management from the Newhouse School at Syracuse University and a Bachelor of Public Relations (with distinction) from Mount Saint Vincent University. He is also a graduate of both the Advanced Management Programme at INSEAD and the Directors Education Program at the Institute of Corporate Directors, from which he holds the ICD.D designation.