In 1973 Chris received his Master’s in specialized aspects of economics from the University of British Columbia and two years later an M.A. in business administration (finance). A graduate of the Canadian Securities course and the program for co-operative studies at the University of Bologna, he has also earned the Canadian Financial Planner Certificate.
Chris began his co-operative odyssey as a founding director of the University Community Credit Union in 1975. In his early working years, he held positions with the Credit Union Reserve Board and the Bank of British Columbia.
From 1983 to 2015, Chris was employed at VanCity Credit Union in positions of increasing responsibility from Vice-President, Treasury, to Chief Economist. For more than 10 years during this period, he was also cross appointed to the Citizens’ Bank of Canada where he served as director, president and CEO.
For six years a member of CMHC’s Senior Lenders' Committee, he attended strategic planning sessions on operational and credit risk with major chartered bank representatives. Over the past eight years Chris has consulted for the BC Financial Institutions Commission and the Stabilization Central Credit Union (B.C.) on such projects the development and revision of innovative frameworks for liquidity management and other critical financial tools.
Chris was a founding directorand the Chair of the Community Forward Fund, which from 2012 to the present has provided funding targeted to not-for-profit providers of critical assets in affordable housing and community care in Canada. Most recently, Chris has been active in the field of education in far-east Asia.