CP reports that Vancouver 2010 may announce its selection for a chief executive officer (CEO) as early as next Wednesday at a meeting of the Vancouver 2010 Board of Directors.
A search committee has reviewed 200 candidates and conducted extensive interviews for the position.
Michael Phelps, head of the search committee said, “we’re down to a very few names right now and we are conducting interviews. It may well be we are ready to make a recommendation to the board but one has to be ready for any eventuality. If we’re not ready (by Wednesday) it will be soon thereafter”.
The former Vancouver 2010 Bid president John Furlong is the only person to publicly say he wants the job.
The 20-member board of directors must approve the search committee’s recommendations.
Members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had said recently that they were frustrated it’s taken the Vancouver board so long to find a CEO.
But Canadian IOC member Dick Pound, a member of the Vancouver board of directors, defended the process. He said, “what is important is to get the right person. If it’s a week or two months longer, who cares. The disruption changing someone in midstream would cause, we have to avoid that if we can”.
Some believe Furlong should get the position. Alpine Canada president Ken Read said the contacts Furlong made within the IOC and among international sports organization during the bid process make him the logical choice.
Read told CP, “I fully understand the need to go through the process. My instincts and what I am hearing tells me the right person is there and its time to give him the job and to get on with organizing the Games”.
