Director and CEO - Robert Sirman
Robert Sirman was originally appointed Director of the Canada Council for the Arts for a four-year term effective June 26, 2006. In April 2010, he was reappointed for another four years to June 2014.
After graduating from the University of Toronto with an MA in sociology, Mr. Sirman worked for over a decade in the Ontario Government, including five years in the province’s first Ministry of Culture. He then joined the Ontario Arts Council in 1980, where he served for 10 years as Director of Operations and Director of Research and Policy Planning.
In 1991, Mr. Sirman was appointed Administrative Director of Canada’s National Ballet School. During his 15 years in that position, he stabilized the School’s finances and spearheaded an award-winning $100-million capital expansion program that tripled the School’s physical plant and re-animated the North Jarvis neighbourhood in which the School had operated since 1959.
Since his arrival at the Canada Council, the Council has enjoyed a 20% increase in its ongoing government appropriation, undertaken the most extensive strategic planning process in its history, reorganized internally following a year-long organizational design review, and successfully completed its first special examination by the Office of the Auditor General.
Mr. Sirman has served on a number of volunteer boards throughout his career, and in 2002 was librettist for James Kudelka’s full-length ballet, The Contract. In 2004 Mr. Sirman was featured by the Toronto Star as one of the city’s top 10 “leading lights” in arts and culture, and in 2005 was honoured by having a Toronto street – Sirman Lane – named after him. Mr. Sirman currently serves on the board of the George Cedric Metcalf Charitable Foundation in Toronto and is treasurer of the International Federation of Arts Councils and Cultural Agencies (IFACCA) based in Sydney, Australia.
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(Photo credits: Martin Lipman/Courtesy the Canada Council for the Arts)