“There Are Always Opportunities.”
Richard Zakaib is a seasoned senior executive, board director, investor, and strategic advisor whose career has been defined by identifying opportunities where others see complexity. With more than three decades of professional experience spanning mergers and acquisitions, corporate development, finance, law, international business, manufacturing, and governance, Richard brings an unusually broad perspective to business transformation and value creation. His leadership experience extends across public and private enterprises, entrepreneurial ventures, and board environments, with particular depth in consumer packaging, personal care products, cosmetics, aerosol packaging, plastics, and custom manufacturing. Throughout his career, he has combined financial discipline, legal insight, operational understanding, and strategic creativity to help organizations navigate consequential periods of growth and change.
Richard’s professional foundation is rooted in both science and law. He earned a Bachelor of Science from McGill University before pursuing legal studies and becoming a Barrister and Solicitor in Ontario. This multidisciplinary background provided an early framework for the analytical, commercial, and negotiation skills that would become hallmarks of his career. Rather than remaining within a narrowly defined legal discipline, Richard applied his training to the broader challenges of corporate leadership, developing expertise in financial planning and analysis, transaction structuring, strategic partnerships, international negotiations, and multi-site manufacturing operations. His ability to examine an opportunity simultaneously through legal, financial, operational, and strategic lenses has distinguished his approach to executive decision-making.
A defining chapter of Richard’s career was his long tenure with CCL Industries and CCL Container, where his responsibilities expanded alongside the organization’s growth. As Group Vice President of Finance and Administration for CCL Container, he held senior responsibility across finance, operations, mergers and acquisitions, legal affairs, human resources, information systems, purchasing, and international operations. During this period, Richard helped guide the business from a single-plant operation generating approximately C$24 million in sales into a seven-plant multinational enterprise with more than C$240 million in sales. Strategic acquisitions, business consolidations, plant rationalizations, and the effective integration of acquired operations were central to that expansion, giving Richard extensive firsthand experience in translating corporate strategy into measurable operating performance.
Richard subsequently advanced to Executive Vice President of CCL Container and later Senior Vice President of Corporate Development for CCL Industries. In these senior leadership positions, his focus increasingly centered on mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, deal flow, strategic planning, and international expansion across CCL Industries and its operating divisions. He became deeply involved in complex transactions spanning multiple jurisdictions and business environments, including the acquisition of ITW’s Auto Sleeve operations across four countries and international expansion initiatives in markets such as Brazil and Central and Eastern Europe. Across his career, Richard has participated in transactions collectively valued at more than $2 billion, developing a reputation for finding creative structures capable of balancing strategic objectives, financial returns, operating realities, and stakeholder interests.
His transaction experience extends well beyond conventional acquisitions. Richard has structured joint ventures, strategic partnerships, corporate divestitures, restructurings, and other creative transaction solutions designed to unlock value from businesses and assets. His work has included a European joint venture divestiture strategy that more than doubled CCL’s investment and generated a 27% compound annual growth rate over approximately three and a half years. He has also applied techniques such as asset bundling, platform consolidation, and strategic repositioning to strengthen transaction outcomes and enhance exit values. This combination of strategic imagination and financial rigor has allowed Richard to approach M&A not simply as a deal-making function, but as an instrument for long-term business transformation.
Richard has also experienced business ownership and transformation from the perspective of an entrepreneur and investor. As a Director and Owner of CSR Cosmetic Solutions, he led the acquisition of an underperforming custom cosmetics manufacturer and was active in its turnaround. Within three years, the company reached approximately 15% EBIT before its successful sale, demonstrating Richard’s ability to connect acquisition strategy with post-transaction execution. The experience reinforced a principle that has remained central throughout his career: the ultimate value of a transaction depends not only on negotiating the deal, but also on strengthening the business after ownership changes hands.
His entrepreneurial activities have continued through ventures including Zakaib Holdings Limited, Survivor Filter, and Science Option Laboratories. Through Zakaib Holdings, Richard has provided mergers and acquisitions consulting and strategic guidance, while his involvement with Survivor Filter and Science Option Laboratories has given him continued exposure to entrepreneurial growth, product commercialization, international markets, and evolving consumer needs. These roles complement his large-company executive background by keeping him closely connected to the practical realities facing founders, privately held businesses, and growth-oriented enterprises. As an advisor to private businesses, he brings experience that spans both institutional corporate environments and entrepreneurial organizations.
Board service represents another significant dimension of Richard’s professional career. He has served in director and leadership capacities with organizations including Cosmetica Laboratories, Colep, CSR Cosmetic Solutions, Greencastle Resources, Survivor Filter, Science Option Laboratories, and Blue Hills Centre for Children. His board experience has encompassed strategic planning, global mergers and acquisitions, governance, operational oversight, and organizational stewardship. As Chairman of the Board of Greencastle Resources for more than 15 years, and through lengthy board involvement with international organizations such as Colep, Richard developed a deep appreciation for the responsibility directors carry in challenging assumptions, evaluating risk, supporting management, and maintaining a disciplined focus on sustainable enterprise value.
International business has been woven throughout Richard’s executive and board career. His professional exposure includes Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Poland, France, Portugal, Brazil, Argentina, and other markets across Europe and the Americas. He has negotiated transactions, evaluated strategic opportunities, supported international expansion, and worked across differing legal, financial, operational, and cultural environments. Fluent in English and able to work across French- and Spanish-speaking environments, Richard understands that successful international partnerships require more than financial analysis. They depend upon cultural awareness, thoughtful communication, credibility, patience, and an ability to establish alignment among stakeholders whose expectations and perspectives may differ considerably.
Richard’s primary areas of expertise include mergers, acquisitions and divestitures; joint ventures and strategic partnering; financial planning and analysis; international business negotiations; creative transaction structures; cross-cultural business development; strategic partnerships; and multi-site manufacturing operations. He is particularly interested in contributing to organizations within manufacturing, consumer packaging, personal care, cosmetics, aerosol and plastics packaging, and custom manufacturing. These industries align naturally with the operating knowledge and transaction experience developed throughout his career. His background enables him to engage with both high-level strategic questions and the underlying financial and operational realities that determine whether a strategy can succeed.
Today, Richard is focused on selective board, advisory, investment, and M&A opportunities where his experience can create meaningful value. After decades of senior executive leadership, he remains motivated by the opportunity to stay engaged with ambitious organizations and the people building them. He is especially well positioned to support companies confronting acquisition-led growth, succession planning, restructuring, international expansion, strategic partnerships, operational transformation, or potential divestitures. His objective is not simply to draw upon past accomplishments, but to apply the lessons accumulated across transactions, operating businesses, entrepreneurial ventures, and boardrooms to the next generation of business opportunities.
Underlying Richard’s career is a straightforward philosophy: “There are always opportunities.” The statement reflects more than optimism; it captures an approach to leadership built around examining circumstances from multiple perspectives and searching for possibilities that may not initially be apparent. Whether restructuring a transaction, integrating an acquisition, entering a new market, improving an underperforming operation, or advising a leadership team at an inflection point, Richard looks for practical ways to transform complexity into opportunity. His combination of seasoned judgment, international perspective, financial discipline, legal knowledge, operating experience, and board-level leadership allows him to contribute as a thoughtful partner to executives, owners, investors, and fellow directors.
Character:
Richard approaches leadership with integrity, accountability, resilience, and a strong commitment to creating enduring value for the organizations and stakeholders he serves. His willingness to remain engaged with businesses as an executive, investor, entrepreneur, director, and advisor reflects a career-long commitment to responsible stewardship and meaningful contribution.
Knowledge:
He brings multidisciplinary knowledge developed across more than three decades of M&A, law, finance, manufacturing, international business, operations, corporate development, and governance. His experience across public companies, privately held businesses, entrepreneurial ventures, and international markets enables him to understand business challenges from multiple perspectives rather than through a single functional lens.
Strategic:
Richard has repeatedly translated strategic vision into tangible business outcomes through acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures, restructurings, international expansion, operational rationalization, and creative transaction structures. He is skilled at identifying hidden value, connecting strategic objectives with financial and operating realities, and helping organizations evaluate opportunities with a disciplined long-term perspective.
Communication:
Extensive experience negotiating transactions and developing partnerships across countries and cultures has strengthened his ability to communicate complex issues clearly and constructively. His public speaking experience in mergers and acquisitions, combined with decades of board and executive interaction, enables him to engage effectively with directors, executives, investors, owners, advisors, and other stakeholders.
