The WFE's Women Leaders 2025 - Cheryl Graden, Chief Legal and Enterprise Corporate Affairs Officer and Corporate Secretary, TMX Group

Name: Cheryl Graden

Job title: Chief Legal and Enterprise Corporate Affairs Officer and Corporate Secretary

Organisation: TMX Group

1. Brief description of nominee’s role and job. 

Cheryl Graden is Chief Legal and Enterprise Corporate Affairs Officer and Corporate Secretary at TMX Group. She reports to the CEO, is an officer of TMX Group Limited and its subsidiaries and serves on certain subsidiary boards. Ms. Graden has responsibility for the legal, regulatory and board affairs of TMX Group; additionally, the scope of her role has expanded over the years to include oversight of enterprise risk management, government relations, vendor management, facilities, ESG and sustainability and corporate communications. Bringing these corporate affairs functions together under Ms. Graden's leadership has led to greater consistency and alignment, enabling a strategic enterprise approach that serves TMX's stakeholders well.  

2. Short bio (career highlights, education, interests/hobbies). 

Ms. Graden began her legal career at Torys LLP in 1996. In 2001, she joined a multinational Fortune 500 energy company as their first in-house counsel for Canadian operations, where she grew the function and led a team. She joined TMX Group in 2004 as the first Chief Legal Officer of one of its former energy market subsidiaries, Natural Gas Exchange (NGX), located in Western Canada. As TMX grew, her role expanded to include broader TMX matters and exposure to the unique range of capital markets businesses that TMX had grown or acquired (in Canada and globally). In 2013, Ms. Graden was promoted to Vice President, Cash Clearing and Energy and two years later was promoted to her current role. She is an acknowledged expert in many areas related to capital markets and has been a regular speaker on these topics across North America. 

Ms. Graden holds Bachelor of Laws and Masters of Law (Securities) degrees from Osgoode Hall Law School, is called to the Bar of Ontario and is a Member of the Law Society of Upper Canada. Having been classically trained in ballet, her interests include the performing arts, as well as film, travel, hiking and making memories with friends and family. Ms. Graden also spends time volunteering, including on the board of Junior Achievement, a non-profit organisation that helps educate youth from diverse communities about financial literacy and business. 

3. What were your professional highlights and challenges of 2023? 

In 2024, TMX Group was focused on advancing our long-term growth strategy to diversify, globalise and innovate. We undertook several important initiatives across our business to serve clients better now and into the future. 

One important priority for our team was supporting merger and acquisition (M&A) activity throughout the business. In 2024 this included the integration of VettaFi Holdings LLC, a leading indexing and analytics business, and TMX VettaFi’s subsequent addition of end-to-end indexing provider iNDEX Research. These acquisitions increase the depth and value of data-driven insights that TMX Group provides to clients, expands the company's digital capabilities and global reach and enriches TMX Group's industry-leading support for ETF issuers.  

Along with the execution of our global growth strategy, a key role we play on an ongoing basis is as an advocate for capital markets and the important role they play in our economy and our society. As the owner-operator of Canada’s major exchanges and capital markets infrastructure, TMX has a responsibility to live our corporate purpose to make markets better and empower bold ideas. Over the course of the year, our team made meaningful progress in our efforts to advocate for informed policies and regulations that support fairness, efficiency, inclusion and growth for all market participants  – to the benefit of all Canadians.  

4. Tell us about a few of your key achievements throughout your career? 

I took on the role of Chief Legal Officer in 2015, a time when the organisation was on the cusp of some transformative changes. We had a new CEO and a new Chair of the Board. As a rapidly expanding global business in a world where change is accelerating — be it geopolitical, social or technological — we had to do things differently to manage new internal and external pressures, across a wider range of locations and time zones. Gone were the days when the general counsel’s office played a supporting function, focused solely on legal expertise. Business partnership now leveraged the depth and enterprise breadth of lawyers who lead on multiple fronts beyond legal to business, M&A, governance and culture. 

One of my first challenges in the "New World" was figuring out how to transition the department's operating model to take into account this new pace of change and lead the assimilation of multiple corporate functions together with legal. The evolution of the department into a closely connected team of corporate affairs services and functions that operate seamlessly to support the enterprise took time, but has been quite organic.  All of these functions are enterprise-wide, share a common purpose and have similar priorities and skill sets. The innovation, efficiencies and idea-creation that has emerged from these roles operating closer together has enabled us to evolve faster and generate ideas that help the overall organisation. 

While this was a challenge, it also presented some big opportunities for the group and benefitted the broader company. Due to our uniquely broad and deep knowledge across the full scope of the business, and the demonstrated strengths of these professionals as good executors, we were approached to take the lead on non-legal large-scale enterprise-wide projects. Successfully integrating legal, governance, regulatory, compliance, government affairs, corporate communications and ESG and sustainability has bolstered the corporate affairs division in so many ways  – from M&A to technology innovation and from process to culture  –  and has been a cutting-edge achievement in the world of corporate functions.  

5. What and who inspires, and has inspired, you to achieve your professional success? 

I can’t say for sure where inspiration originally came from, but I was fortunate to grow up in an environment that encouraged me to go for things, ignoring any preconceived notions of gender and where women "belonged" versus men. As my career evolved, my sources of inspiration expanded. A lot came from mentors who showed me what was possible and what I could aim for.  At this point in my career, one of my strongest sources of inspiration are the people on the teams I lead. I am constantly blown away by their intellect and innovativeness, and the teamwork and respect they show up with day in and out, consistently and when under pressure. 

As I reflect on the people-focused part of my role and my relationships with colleagues, the beauty of working alongside these talented individuals is that I learn something new every day, about  work, technology, our industry or the broader world. Their unwavering commitment to what’s ultimately best for the overall business is inspiring and grounding. It is a privilege to be able to give back to them in some way, which I try to do through providing development opportunities and helping them feel engaged and challenged.  

6. How have you overcome setbacks, and what advice would you give to others dealing with setbacks? 

Redefining setbacks as simply just another type of challenge has been the most powerful tool for me. Challenges inspire me to think, engage and solve. They can be complex and difficult, but a setback doesn’t have to feel like defeat. So even in the toughest setbacks, I start by focusing on the key questions. What are the gaps? Who do we need to help? How can we solve this creatively? What alternatives do we need to consider? 

Setbacks lead to learnings that make us better and stronger. Even if we can’t fix the problem, we’ll now have the experience to do things differently in the future. It’s also important not to personalise things or fixate on attributing blame, either to yourself or others. In this industry you have to expect the unexpected and not obsess over what is going wrong because things absolutely will. Fixating on fault is wasted energy and often distracts from the solution and takes us backwards. 

7. What advice do you have for other women who aspire to be in leadership positions? What is the biggest takeaway you want to leave with the reader?  

My advice is to rise above all the noise around the many "shoulds" on what women should or should not be doing. It’s not only ok to be you – that is, in fact, the source of your power. Your authentic personality and uniqueness is your strength. Some of the advice we hear given to women who aspire to lead can be rooted in the assumption that women are coming from a position of disempowerment or suggests we need to do as men do. 

I believe it is more empowering to focus on operating from a place of possibility and confidence. Use your traits and your unique personality in your leadership of others. This requires knowing who you are, your style and viewing your own authenticity and uniqueness as your superpower, rather than conforming to the latest leadership stereotypes.