Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs & Chief Government Affairs Officer
ATCO Group
Dale Friesen is Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs & Chief Government Affairs Officer for ATCO. Appointed to the role in 2020, he oversees ATCO’s Government Relations and Indigenous Relations teams and provides strategic counsel to the company’s Executive Committee on relevant policy and legislative priorities.
Mr. Friesen has more than 30 years of experience with ATCO. He has served in technical and senior leadership roles in both Canada and Australia and has built and operated several power plants and cogeneration facilities, including the Bulwer Island Cogeneration Plant in Australia as part of the Queensland Clean Fuels Project. He also served as Vice President of ATCO Water, where he was responsible for business development in Canada, Australia, and the UAE.
From 2007 to 2020, Mr. Friesen led ATCO’s Sustainability group, which published the company’s first-ever Sustainability Report in 2008, incorporating best practices from the Global Reporting Initiative, the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, and the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. Mr. Friesen has attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties meetings from 2015 to 2023. His areas of focus include carbon markets, global climate and energy policy, and Indigenous economic reconciliation through the energy transition.
Mr. Friesen sits on and oversees various boards and committees; he is the chair of Electricity Canada’s Generation Council and leads their Net Zero initiative, as well as serving as Executive Officer of the Alberta Chamber of Resources Board and an Executive Board Member of the Canadian Council of the Americas. Further, he is a member of the ATCO Hydrogen Steering Committee and has served as a member of Environment and Climate Change Canada’s (ECCC) Technical Working Group for Clean Fuel Standards as well as the Technical Working Group for Natural Gas Greenhouse Gas Regulations.
A graduate of Mechanical Engineering from the University of Alberta, Mr. Friesen is a member of both the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta and of Engineers Australia.