After more than a decade in the strategic marketing and consulting sector, Élise Legendre joined AAFC in 2003 as a Marketing and Trade Officer in the BC Regional Office. After nearly 18 years, in June 2021, she was appointed AAFC’s Chief Data Officer. She leads a small, passionate team of policy and IT professionals dedicated to both harnessing and unleashing the power of data to improve service delivery and support the sector’s sustainable growth.

Prior to this, she was responsible for the TFW Logistics file where her team in the Strategic Policy Branch, in collaboration with colleagues across the federal government, helped facilitate the safe entry of temporary foreign workers to support the agriculture and agri-food sector and ensure a secure food supply to Canadians during the COVID 19 pandemic.

She also held positions with the Corporate Management Branch where she was responsible for corporate reporting and with the Programs Branch, where she spent 10 years in diverse roles with the Business Risk Management Programs Directorate, as Head, Policy and Program Design, Assistant Director with the Financial Guarantee Programs and Chief, Disaster Assessment.

Ms. Legendre holds a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, BC) and a Bachelor degree in Arts, major in Political Sciences from Laval University (Sainte Foy, QC). She is also the proud mother of two teenagers, an avid hiker and volunteers with the 1st Aylmer Scouts group.