CFO let go after 90 days, provided with one year’s salary as severance
Montreal-based Concordia University is paying former chief financial officer (CFO) Sonia Trudel a $235,000 severance package after 90 days on the job.
Sonia Trudel and the university parted ways on Nov. 16, 2015—just 91 days after she was hired as the university’s CFO. Trudel was hired by the university on Aug. 17, 2015 and worked with outgoing CFO Patrick Kelley, until she assumed her official position on Sept. 21, 2015.
Trudel is a chartered accountant, and was a CBC real estate general manager in the past. Additionally, Trudel was general manager of Nexacor—a Montreal-based realty corporation—and was vice-president of finance, administration, and asset management for the Old Port of Montreal.
“Our selection committee was impressed by [Trudel’s] experience, which includes working for public institutions that have faced funding cuts similar to those we are dealing with,” said Alan Shepard, President of Concordia University, in a June 26, 2015 news release.
The terms of Trudel’s severance package were discovered in documents that Concordia’s student paper, The Link, obtained through an access to information request.
Trudel is not the first Concordia employee to receive a large severance package. Concordia has been fined before by the Quebec Education Ministry for the amount of money that they pay for severance of top administrators.
Judith Woodsworth, for example, received $700,000 when she was dismissed as the university’s president in 2011. Prior to 2012, Concordia had paid a total of $2.4 million in severance to five members of the senior administration.
In the interim, Patrick Kelley will resume the position of CFO. As of Feb. 16, 2016 the university is in the process of looking for a new CFO according to a Concordia spokesperson.