CN's corporate structure focuses operations and marketing squarely on customer needs and growth. This structure strikes a balance between what is best done on a system-wide basis and what is best done closer to the customer.

To better respond to customers, we created three geographic regions: Western, Eastern and Southern. Each region has responsibility for people, equipment, facilities and local sales.

The organization has four basic components.

1. Corporate Level

   The President and Chief Executive Officer, working closely with the Executive Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer, oversees corporate strategy, organizational effectiveness, performance targets and creation of shareholder value. He is also responsible for centralized operations and marketing as well as the decentralized regions.

   The Executive Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer is responsible for strategic planning, the business plan and budgets, corporate finance and financial and performance management.

   Senior corporate officers oversee information technology strategy, human resources and labor relations, legal affairs, and internal and external communications. Read more...

2. Marketing Business Units

   Led by an Executive Vice-President, the sales and marketing organization is responsible for market strategy, pricing policies and guidelines, and national account sales. Read more...

3. Network Operations

   The Senior Vice-President, Operations is responsible for development and implementation of train service plans, car and locomotive distribution, capital project planning and priorities and maintenance standards and policies. Read more...

4. Regions

   The three geographic regions are: Western (based in Edmonton), Eastern (based in Toronto), and Southern (based in Homewood, Illinois).

   The regions have expense and revenue management and service responsibilities. They are responsible for local account sales and also have operational responsibility for yards, terminals, local switching and joint facilities along with maintenance responsibility for local infrastructure and equipment. Read more...