Les Dakens
Bio
Mr. Dakens is the Senior Vice President and Chief HR Officer at Maple Leaf Foods. He joined Maple Leaf Foods in January 2011. His responsibilities include executive leadership for all human resources development programs and employee relations initiatives to build Maple Leaf Foods into the single, most dedicated high performance culture in Canada.Prior to joining Maple Leaf, Mr. Dakens was the principal of a human resources consulting firm through which he provided executive level coaching to Human Resources leaders and Human Resources Committees of Corporate Boards of many leading Canadian companies.
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Previously he held the executive position of Senior Vice-President, People with CN Rail which he joined in 2001. Prior to that he spent most of his years in the food business, holding progressively senior roles in human resources with Cadbury Beverages before joining H.J. Heinz in 1990 as the North American Vice-President of Human Resources. He began his career with Nortel.
He has accumulated a wealth of knowledge and expertise over more than 30 years working with top tier companies and is widely recognized in North America as one of the top human resource professionals for his leadership in developing best practices. Mr. Dakens is also the author of two successful business books: Switchpoints, Culture Change on the Fast Track to Business Success and Employee Performance Scorecards.
Mr. Dakens holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from York University and is a graduate of the Institute of Corporate Directors’ Directors Education Program as well as a faculty member of the Directors College with the Conference Board of Canada.