Shaifa Kanji

Assistant Deputy Minister, Chief Digital Officer of DTSS
Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

Shaifa Kanji assumed her role as Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Digital Officer of the Digital Transformation and Services Sector (DTSS) of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development Canada (ISED) on Aug 9, 2021.
She began her career in public service in 2011 and has led the digital transformation of Municipal Government (Region of Peel) and not-for-profit (Toronto and Region Conservation Authority) including establishing the vision and strategic technology direction for these organizations within a highly complex, political and multi-stakeholder environment.
Before joining the public sector, Shaifa spent her career across multiple sectors – telecommunications, (Bell Canada), financial (Royal Bank) and consulting (Accenture). Those experiences gave her a broad perspective on the critical elements required to drive change and transformation in complex organizational structures.
Shaifa holds an Executive MBA from The Western Ivey School of Business and a Computer Science degree from York University.