Mark Carney is currently vying to secure his position as Canada’s Prime Minister. But five years ago, he almost became president—of Shopify. Carney was offered a role at the Canadian e-commerce company shortly after leaving his job as governor of the Bank of England, according to a former Shopify executive.
“In 2020, I spent an hour interviewing Mark Carney for a job,” said Craig Miller, who worked at Shopify for nearly a decade and served as its chief product officer between 2017 and 2020, in a recent LinkedIn post. “Then, as now, I was super impressed and thought he was the right person for the job.”
Miller was so impressed with Carney that he offered him the newly created role of Shopify’s president. Carney declined, opting instead to take a role at the investment firm Brookfield Asset Management as chair and head of transition investing. Shopify’s president position ultimately went to Harley Finkelstein, an early Shopify staffer who remains in the role today. Shopify and the Liberal Party did not respond to requests for comment from Observer.
“He was genuine, thoughtful, and wicked smart,” recalled Miller, who used his LinkedIn post to endorse the Liberal Party leader.
Initially founded as a tech startup in 2006, Ottawa-based Shopify has since blossomed into one of Canada’s most valuable publicly listed companies. It boasts a market cap of around $125 billion, second only to the Royal Bank of Canada, and focuses on allowing merchants to build and manage online stores.
Carney left Brookfield (and all other executive, board and advisory positions) this January to run in the Liberal Party’s leadership election. He succeeded Justin Trudeau as head of the party and Prime Minister in March and subsequently called a snap election that will take place today (April 28).
Carney, who formerly led the Bank of Canada through the 2008 Financial Crisis and the Bank of England amid Brexit, has touted his economic background while promising to cut down on government spending and resist tariff and sovereignty-related threats from the U.S. “He offers a steady hand in tumultuous times,” said Miller, who added that he doesn’t agree with all of Carney’s plans and positions.
Other Shopify executives have also taken to social media in recent weeks to voice their political opinions. Tobias Lütke, the company’s CEO and co-founder, earlier this month called Carney a “great candidate” in a post on X but criticized the Liberal Party for committing the nation to “continued economic decline.” Kaz Nejatian, Shopify’s chief operating officer, wrote that he voted for Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre.
Carney’s Shopify job interview wasn’t his only brush with the tech world. Between 2021 and 2025, Carney also served as a board member for Stripe, the Irish-American fintech company led by entrepreneur Patrick Collision. When asked about his experience with Carney, Collision described the politician as “awesome” in a post on X last month.
