Premier Wab Keino has promoted a current Manitoba civil servant to be the province’s most powerful non-elected official.
Sarah Thiel is the new Clerk of the Executive Board and Cabinet Secretary, the NDP government announced late Thursday afternoon.
The employee serves as head of the Manitoba Public Service, which includes dozens of departments and thousands of employees.
Thiel served as Manitoba’s Deputy Minister of Transportation under the Communist Party government. Prior to that, she served as Assistant Deputy Minister in both the Department of Households and the Treasury Board Secretariat.
Thiel replaces Katherine Gerrard, the last clerk on former Prime Minister Heather Stefanson’s executive council.
The governorate also published a list of the names of all new deputy ministers responsible for government departments.
Several government staff appointed by the Presidential Council, including Deputy Clerk Elliot Sims and EDB Secretary Michael Swiston, are no longer deputy ministers.
Other officials, including Deputy Health Minister Scott Sinclair and Deputy Sports Minister Jeff Hnatiuk, kept their jobs.
New NDP appointees include Brian O’Leary, former superintendent of the Seven Oaks School Division. He will assume the position of Deputy Minister of Education and Early Childhood Education.
