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Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #38, Chrystia Freeland

Our annual ranking of the people whose smarts, connections and clout are changing the city as we know it

By Toronto Life

| November 19, 2015

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Chrystia Freeland

Parliament Hill

38 Freeland may have the most impressive resumé in Canadian politics. She’s a Harvard-educated former Rhodes Scholar who speaks five languages and has climbed to the top of newsrooms at the Globe and Mail, the Financial Times and Thomson Reuters. Her 2012 book, Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else, was a bestseller. She’s undefeated in politics, her most recent win in October against NDP candidate Jennifer Hollett, a former MuchMusic VJ. Freeland showed a fearlessness (plus a savvy knack for making the nightly news) in August when she crashed the men’s-only Cambridge Club, where Joe Oliver was supposed to be speaking. She brings a loaded Rolodex to the Centre Block, where she’ll be minister of international trade.

Friends in High Places:

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg (they went to college together); Larry Summers, former Harvard president and long-time advisor to Clinton and Obama.

More of Toronto's Most Influential People

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Chrystia Freeland

Parliament Hill

Friends in High Places:

More of Toronto's Most Influential People

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #1, Drake

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #2, John Tory

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #3, Kathleen Wynne

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #4, George Cope

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #5, Gerald Butts

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #6, Guy Laurence

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #7, Ian Black

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #8, Jennifer Keesmaat

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #9, Larry Tanenbaum

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #10, Naomi Klein

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #11, Katie Telford

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #12, José Bautista

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #13, Patrick Brown

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #14, Piers Handling and Cameron Bailey

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #15, Randy Lennox

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #16, John Ruffolo

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #17, Nick Kouvalis

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #18, The Weeknd

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #19, Brendan Shanahan

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #20, Ted Livingston

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #21, Ratna Omidvar

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #22, David Thomson

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #23, Mark Saunders

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #24, Galen Weston

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #25, Charles Khabouth

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #26, Eric Hoskins

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #27, Tim Hockey

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #28, Josh Donaldson

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #29, Jeff Remedios

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #30, Tatiana Maslany

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #31, Zunera Ishaq

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #32, Margaret Atwood

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #33, Anthony Rose

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #34, Marie Henein

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #35, Tanya Taylor

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #36, Jeff Stober

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #37, Kirstine Stewart

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #39, Kevin Donovan

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #40, Saäd Rafi

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #41, Gary Slaight

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #42, Kristin Cochrane

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #43, Matt Galloway

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #44, Katie Taylor

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #45, Sam Mizrahi

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #46, Peter Gilgan

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #47, Andre De Grasse

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #48, Mathieu Chantelois

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #49, Robert Deluce

Toronto’s 50 Most Influential: #50, Karen Kain

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