The Montreal Port Authority has announced the appointment of Paul Bird as President and Chief Executive Officer, effective June 8, 2026.
Bird most recently served as the MPA’s Chief Commercial Officer until March 2026 and brings six years of accumulated experience at the Port of Montreal to the role.
The appointment comes at a pivotal moment for the organisation, marked by the securing of a CAD 1.16 billion loan from the Canada Infrastructure Bank to advance the Contrecœur terminal project, whose financial strength has been recognised by Standard and Poor’s.
Bird’s deep familiarity with the Contrecœur project is a central element of his candidacy, having joined the MPA in 2020 as Senior Director of the expansion project before moving into the Chief Commercial Officer role.
In those capacities he played a key part in securing environmental permits, finalising design and engineering work, developing partnership agreements and initiating preparatory construction activities.
Prior to joining the MPA, Bird spent nearly a decade overseeing infrastructure across the mining, rail and port sectors at ArcelorMittal. He holds a degree in Applied Geology.
Nathalie Pilon, Chair of the MPA Board of Directors, described Bird as fully committed to advancing the Contrecœur terminal’s commissioning and the continued development of new markets for the benefit of Canada’s and Quebec’s economic growth, expressing the Board’s full confidence in his appointment.
Bird framed his priorities around leveraging trusted relationships with port teams and commercial and financial partners to ensure sound operational management as thousands of businesses rely on the port to diversify or reshore their trade flows.
