Paul M. Tellier was born in 1939 in Joliette, Quebec. He earned a law degree from the University of Ottawa and joined the Canadian civil service. In 1985, he became the top-ranking Canadian civil servant when he was appointed Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet. In 1992, he became President and Chief Executive Officer of the Montreal-based Canadian National Railway (CN). Badly underperforming, the government sold the CN, and it was Tellier’s task to lead the painful process of privatization.  He reduced the size of the CN workforce from around 36,000 to some 17,000 by the year 2000. As a result, productivity per employee rose by a third and revenue per employee grew some thirty percent by the end of 2000.

To gain direct access to U.S. markets, Tellier engineered the purchase of the Illinois Central. The two railroads officially merged in 1999, and two years later, CN purchased the Wisconsin Central Railway to gain access to the upper Midwest. Tellier’s business plan of selected expansion and reductions in force allowed the CN to turn a profit. 

In January 2003, Tellier joined Bombardier Incorporated, a manufacturer of railcars and airplanes. The company’s business had suffered in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and Tellier was brought in to turn it around. Within three months of taking charge, Tellier announced job losses for 3,000 of the company’s nearly 30,000 aerospace employees. In December 2004, Tellier left the company to become chairman of GCT Global Container Terminals.