Sean Riley

 Director – biography

Sean Riley

Sean Riley, president of St. Francis Xavier University since 1996, has enjoyed a career spanning the worlds of business, finance, government, and, most recently, academia.

He is currently a director on the board of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada.  He previously served on the association’s Standing Advisory Committee on International Relations.

Dr. Riley served as a ministerial adviser on policy and legislative affairs in the Department of External Affairs, the Privy Council Office, and the Department of Finance, between 1976 and 1984.

Moving to the private sector in 1985, he joined the National Bank of Canada as a manager in North American corporate banking and later treasury. Between 1989 and 1996, Dr. Riley was managing shareholder, President and CEO of a medium-sized industrial company in Montreal.

Since returning to his alma mater as president, Dr. Riley has been active on many university, volunteer, and private sector boards, including the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation, the Nova Scotia Research and Innovation Trust, the Advisory Committee to the Coady International Institute, and the selection committee for the Order of Nova Scotia.  He has chaired several selection committees for CIDA’s University Partnerships for Cooperation and Development program.

Dr. Riley is a graduate of St. Francis Xavier University and holds master’s and doctorate degrees from Oxford University, where he studied on a Rhodes Scholarship. His doctoral specialization was in international relations, with a thesis on Canadian foreign policy.