A career comes full circle

January 28, 2021
Federal Retirees bids farewell to CEO Simon Coakeley.
Simon Coakeley had the perfect combination of passion and experience to lead Federal Retirees. Now he’s moving on to the Canadian Bar Association. 
 

Simon Coakeley, it seems, is not very good at retiring. After leaving a 30-year federal public service career in 2013, he returned to work in May 2016 as CEO of the National Association of Federal Retirees. And, after spending 4½ years at the helm of this organization, Coakeley has just started a whole new job as CEO of the Canadian Bar Association.

His proudest accomplishment with the Association was the unanimous support the new five-year strategic plan received at the 2019 annual members meeting, especially given that the Association had seen some challenging years with a previous plan. The new one paved the way toward stability.

As an advocate for retirees — and the many other groups he supported as a public servant — “passionate, but restrained” are the words Coakeley uses to describe himself.

“I do believe in the things I’m advocating for, and I believe in them strongly, but politicians get passionately advocated to all the time,” he says. “Sometimes a cooler, calmer, reasoned advocacy is actually a little more effective than the full-on passion.”

Looking back at his career, Coakeley says the highlight has to be his work on the establishment of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the National War Memorial in Ottawa.

As the assistant deputy minister of Veterans Affairs, he remembers working with the Royal Canadian Legion and a slew of other federal departments, including defence, the National Capital Commission, the RCMP and Public Works, on the highly complex project, all while not knowing how Canadians would react.

“To see how it captured the imagination of Canadians was amazing,” he recalls of the May 2000 ceremony when the Unknown Soldier’s remains were repatriated and buried. “There was more coverage than we expected,” he says. “And the governor general’s speech was absolutely wonderful.”

But what really confirmed how well the tomb was received was the following Remembrance Day that same year, when the droves of Canadians who came to the ceremony started laying their poppies on the tomb after the service.

“It was completely spontaneous,” he recalls, and from his workplace at Veterans’ Affairs headquarters in Charlottetown, P.E.I., seeing images of the tomb covered in poppies continues to be a fond memory.

There’s an arc to Coakeley’s career, which started with law studies after he completed high school and his first degree in Canada, having emigrated here from the U.K. at age 9. The three government departments where he spent the most time were Corrections Canada, Veterans Affairs Canada and the Immigration and Refugee Board and each has a direct link to making a difference “in real people’s lives,” he says.

“At Veterans’ Affairs, the employees were dedicated to improving the lives of vets,” he notes. “At Correctional Services, there’s a lot of commitment to individual offenders and their rehabilitation. And at the Immigration and Refugee Board, the decision-makers actually decide life and death things.”

When he joined Federal Retirees, he began advocating for the public servants with whom he worked for so long. And now he’s returning to his legal roots with the Canadian Bar Association role.

His colleague, Andrew McGillivary, Federal Retirees’ director of communications, marketing and recruitment, says Coakeley “humanized” the office of the CEO.

“He brought great capacity, professionalism, knowledge and experience,” McGillivary says, adding that Coakeley had vast public-service experience so he clearly understood the needs of the Association’s members.

Coakeley leaves Federal Retirees in good shape, he says.

“We are on absolutely solid footing, we have a fantastic team, board of directors and our finances are absolutely solid.”

That said, his successor will have a tough act to follow, according to Jean-Guy Soulière, national association president.

“Simon was very successful as our CEO because he trusted his staff and empowered them to exceed expectations and because of his excellent working relationship with the board of directors and myself as president,” Soulière says. “He believes in our mission and through his efforts a five-year strategic plan was developed as the direction to move forward. Huge shoes to fill.”

Jennifer Campbell is the editor of Sage.
 

This article will be appearing in the spring 2021 issue of Sage magazine.