Matthew A. Ouimet became a Cedar Fair director in August 2011, served as executive director from January 2018 to December 2019. Matt was Cedar Fair’s CEO from January 2012 through December 2017 and president of the Partnership’s General Partner from June 2011 to October 2016. He is a member of both the People, Culture & Compensation Committee, and Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee.
As a successful and highly respected executive and turnaround specialist for major leisure and entertainment companies, including Disney, Matt was recruited to Cedar Fair to oversee a leadership transition and succession plan, including implementation of a rigorous board member selection process from which the company today continues to enjoy strength and stability. As executive chairman, Matt exercises in earnest his fiduciary obligation to Cedar Fair’s unitholders while ensuring that proper governance oversight exists to protect the partnership’s entire enterprise.
Before joining Cedar Fair, Matt served in a variety of senior executive positions, most notably as the president of the Hotel Group for Starwood Hotels and Resorts, the president of the Disneyland Resort and the president of the Disney Cruise Line. His seventeen years of experience with the Walt Disney Company, including initial roles in finance and strategic planning has served as a personal foundation for his commitment to delivering quality guest experiences in parallel with strong returns to Cedar Fair’s unitholders.
Matt has a B.S. in Accounting from Binghamton University, The State University of New York, where he was an All-Conference wrestler.
As a young lad, Matt’s first job was caretaker for a local cemetery in his home town. For three years he dug graves by hand as machinery was simply too big to fit between the gravesites of the age-old burial grounds. Taking great pride in his work, Matt kept the local necropolis meticulously manicured in honor of those departed and out of respect for family and friends visiting their loved one’s final resting place. To his credit Matt’s fastidious principles never changed, being every bit as particular about the upkeep of Cedar Fair’s amusement parks as he was about that graveyard.
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