CP Rail - Marcella Szel

We're Connected

Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Canadian Pacific Limited, a diversified operating company active in the transportation, energy and hotel industries. CPR was incorporated in 1881 and re-organized under the CBCA in 1996. It owns and operates 14,000 miles of integrated transcontinental railway throughout Canada and into the Midwest US and the Northeast US. Parts of the business are operated by the CPR's wholly-owned subsidiaries, the Soo Line Corporation, the St. Lawrence and Hudson Railway Company Ltd., and the Delaware and Hudson Railway Company, Inc.

The company's business is based on funnelling traffic from strategic network feeders and connectors onto the 4,700-mile, higher-density, high-quality mainline network. The freight traffic is organized into three business groups: the Agri-products and Coal Group, the Resource Products Group, and the Intermodal and Automotive Group. As of the end of December, 1999, approximately 45 per cent of revenues derived from Agri-products and Coal, 25 per cent from Resource Products and the remainder from Intermodal and Automotive. Operating revenues approached $ 3.5 billion in 1999.

CPR owns a fleet of 1,500 locomotives and operates a fleet of more than 45,000 freight cars. The company continues its program of acquiring high-capacity grain hoppers and lighter, shorter aluminum coal cars to carry bigger payloads. There are over 18,000 employees working at CPR. The railway's customer service initiatives include customized portals on CPR's Web site for direct access regarding their business, a customer service call system, a formalized cross-functional approach through the Customer Relationship Management program for problem-solving and business development, and damage prevention programs.

Title: Vice-President, Strategy, Law and Corporate Secretary

Age: Ageless

Principal Outside Counsel: CPR broke new ground in 1996 when the company's head office moved to Calgary from Montreal. The opportunity was used to reduce the number of corporate counsel through a major out-sourcing program in Canada and the US. The winning consortium is made up of Macleod Dixon LLP in Calgary, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP's Toronto and Montreal offices, and Lawson Lundell Lawson & McIntosh in Vancouver. US counsel are Sidley & Austin and Leonard, Street and Deinard.

Organization of the Law Department: Marcella's team consists of 12 lawyers in Calgary, one in Montreal and 2.5 in Minneapolis. She is also responsible for CPR's administrative services outside Calgary, the claims department, privacy, and strategy and research services. The focus of CPR's corporate counsel is on regulatory affairs / policy development, railway commercial, railway financing, IT, environmental and managing litigation. In summary, strategic legal services are kept inside and everything else is referred to preferred counsel.

Balanced Legal Team: The experience with the out-sourcing of legal services has been successful, but it has been a series of continuous adjustments to make it a seamless arrangement. Tracking systems for file and work managed internally and by outside counsel are designed in-house. Efforts continue to perfect knowledge systems that share best practices and outcomes across all members of the consortium. There is a single point of entry in the Canadian law firm team for all work referred from the law department, and a co-ordinating group made up of CPR and law firm partners attends to service-related initiatives and file progress. Geography has become less important when it comes to choosing primary counsel for Canada.

Management Challenge: Competitive pressures affect the CPR. The advent of short lines, innovation in rolling stock, and new rules governing railway mergers guarantee that the future will differ from the past for CPR's legal services.

Management Style: Expectations for speed and results are unequivocal. Marcella makes the goals and performance metrics clear, and then delegates the details to members of the law department and to the participating law firms.

Career: Originally from Alberta, she has more than 20 years of direct legal experience with CPR in litigation and administrative law. She served as Alberta and regional counsel for the railway and other Canadian Pacific Limited companies until 1991 when she was appointed to lead the railway's effort at improved management processes in Montreal. She was appointed to her current position in 1993.

Marcella finds time for extensive community involvement and serves on the boards of the Council for Canadian Unity, the Esther Honens Foundation, and the Calgary Bar Association. Visitors to Calgary in the last year can ask her about the fiberglass cows - she was a board member of Udderly Art.

Marcella's appreciation of business in Canada grew because of her long-standing involvement with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, culminating with her responsibility as National Chair in 1998-1999. She received the award for Woman of Distinction in 1999.

Family: Two grown daughters - Sarah and Marcella

Currently Reading: An avid reader, the current sampling includes Leading the Revolution by Gary Hamel and A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle.