Randolph Mank

Personal background

Mank was raised in the small village of New Dundee, Ontario and later Kitchener, Ontario. He attended Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario (B.A. Honours English and Political Science, 1977; M.A. Political Science 1979), and the London School of Economics (Ph.D. research on energy policy 1979–81).

Professional background

Mank joined the Canadian Foreign Service in 1981 and served abroad in Athens, Greece, Stockholm in Sweden and Jakarta in Indonesia. Mank undertook Japanese language studies in 1990–92, and subsequently served for four years at the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo as counsellor and head of Diet (parliamentary) relations. In Ottawa, at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, he served in various positions including Deputy Director for Japan, as well as Director for Policy Planning with responsibilities for a foreign policy review and the G8 foreign ministers' process.

In 2004, Mank led the Canadian response to the tsunami in Aceh. After two subsequent years based in Ottawa as Director-General for Asia South and South East Asia, he was assigned as Canada's High Commissioner to Pakistan in 2008. In 2010, Mank was appointed as Canada's High Commissioner to Malaysia. He is the founding patron of the Malaysia-Canada Oil and Gas Council, and worked closely with Petronas on investment in Canada.

Mank moved to the private sector in 2012, working as Vice President Asia for BlackBerry and is the firm's CEO/Chairman based in Singapore.

Mank has served as the honorary chairman of the Indonesia-Canada Chamber of Commerce and as the honorary patron of the Malaysia-Canada Business Council. He is on the executive boards of the Canada-ASEAN Business Council and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Singapore.

He founded MankAsia consulting in 2014 and is based in Singapore.