The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario has announced the appointment of Dave Forestell as Chair of its board of directors.
Forestell replaces Lalit Aggarwal, who recently announced his resignation from the role of AGCO Chair to focus on personal business affairs and spend more time with his family.
Having been a sitting member of the commission’s board since December 2018, Forestell’s experience also includes presiding as iGaming Ontario’s Chair since July 2021.
To assume the leadership role of the AGCO board, Forestell has stepped down from his position with iGO, and the process has begun to appoint his successor.
Forestell also serves as Vice President, External Relations (Canada) for TC Energy, and has held the roles of VP, International Corporate and Commercial Banking, and VP, Office of the President and CEO at Scotiabank, as well as senior positions in government and the private sector.
The AGCO Chair has also worked in Venezuela and Chile, where he led corporate affairs and corporate social responsibility for several mining projects and served as Chair of a Joint Venture board of directors. He is currently on the board of governors for the Ontario College of Art and Design University.
Leaving a position he has held since June 2019, Aggarwal was praised by AGCO as being a strong and values-based leader, creating a diverse board, guiding the board and commission through the pandemic, and instilling enhanced governance practices and structures including iGO.
In particular, AGCO highlighted Aggarwal’s efforts in the development and implementation of igaming structure and regulation in Ontario, cannabis retail sector regulation, support of numerous charitable gaming modernisation initiatives and the implementation of recommendations from the Office of the Auditor General of Ontario.
Earlier this month, iGO reported Ontario’s igaming numbers for the first quarter of its 2023-2024 fiscal year, declaring a total gaming revenue for the Canadian province of C$545m, up 3.6 per cent compared to FY2022-23 Q4’s $526m.
