Estelle Métayer is one of the world’s leading experts on competitive and strategic intelligence. She specializes in how leaders can build and improve their strategic decision-making processes and competitive intelligence functions to avoid strategic blind spots. Her best work is done when companies need to drastically change the way they do business and/or grow aggressively. A former consultant with McKinsey & Company, Métayer is fluent in both French and English and skilled at communicating and simplifying complex business ideas and strategies.
Métayer was the president and founder of Competia, a leading training organization for executives and analysts in strategic Intelligence, prior to selling it in 2004. She began her career at ING Bank based in both the Netherlands and Poland, where she studied the financial risks of expanding into emerging countries. She than gained first-hand practical experience while managing competitive intelligence, business development, and strategic planning at CAE Inc.
Today, Métayer is a reputed public speaker and facilitates strategic workshops around the world. She is also an adjunct professor for McGill University, where she teaches in the advanced leadership programs, the International Masters for Health Leadership, the Analytics Leadership Program, and the Executive MBA program, among others. Métayer also leads courses on strategic blindspots, technology oversight, governance of technology, and social media crisis management for the Canadian Institute of Corporate Directors, and has been a guest lecturer at IMD, IMB, INSEAD, and MIT.
In 2000, Métayer received the Arista Sunlife Award for “Entrepreneur of the Year,” and was a finalist in 2001 for the “Women of Merit” award from the YWCA. She is an experienced board member, having served on boards of both public and private companies across three continents. She is currently the chair of the board of Nortera, a North American food manufacturer; an independent member of the board of BRP Inc.; an independent member of the board of Audemars-Piguet; a member of the board of Ivanhoe Cambridge; and a member of the board of the Institut des Administrateurs de Société.
Métayer was trained in the Netherlands, where she obtained her MBA and PhD from the University of Nijenrode. She is also a commercial pilot and flight instructor.
