Guest Speaker: Susan Howson, Friday, February 21, 2020
Foundation Day Rotary Lunch
Location: Fairmont, Tudor Rooms 7 and 8
Topic: The Rotary Club of Toronto Foundation
Host: The Foundation Board
 
Susan Howson is a third-generation Rotarian. Growing up with parents who believed in giving back to their communities – preferably through Rotary – it was a natural step to join the Rotary Club of Toronto in 1991. Women had only recently been allowed to join Rotary and Susan was one of the first 10. 
After graduating from Western University in 1976 with a BA in history, Susan joined Wood Gundy’s clerical staff. In the following nine years, she completed a range of security courses, enabling her to rise through departments that included Compliance, Foreign Exchange and Money Market. In 1985, she left Wood Gundy to spend the summer deciding what to do next.
After a discussion with George Beck (a member of the Rotary Club of Toronto and a close family friend) on the options available in the investment industry, George offered her the opportunity to join Andras   Canavest Hetherington (now Mackie Research Capital Corporation, MRCC) to train with him and eventually take over his business.  She joined the firm September 1985 as the firm’s sole woman investment advisor. Thirty years later, Susan is a portfolio manager and a director of MRCC, with $160 million of assets under management with additional responsibilities in maintaining MRCC’s portfolio system and guiding other portfolio managers.
 
Susan was President of The Rotary Club of Toronto in 2007/08 has been involved with several committees including Research and Appeals, Membership and Fundraising. She currently manages Rotary’s executive retreat/build-it-and-paint-it camp weekend. Susan is also the current President of the Rotary Club of Toronto Charitable Foundation.
 
Additionally, Susan is President of St David’s Tower, a non-profit apartment on Donlands Avenue.
Susan is married to David Weatherston, whom she met in 1985.  She has two children, Alison and Michael, and was a grandmother in March 2019.