Prior to joining GG+A, Royal served as the chief advancement officer of the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, the world-renowned brain research institute and hospital at McGill University. In that role, he was responsible for all private gift support, external affairs operations, including media and community relations, and all worldwide alumni relations. He also oversaw all board management issues and was engaged in strategic campaign development planning with the University and the University hospital system locally.

Earlier, Royal was founding executive officer and chief development officer at the NeuroScience Canada Foundation, a then-new national foundation to advance globally recognized neuroscience research across Canada through private philanthropy. He also worked for Centraide du Grand Montréal (United Way) as a senior management consultant in the design, implementation and administration of a new major donors program and served as a member of a United Way – Centraide Canada National Task Force on Major Donors, charged with the design of best North American professional practices for implementation in local programs across Canada.

Royal’s career includes 22 years of service in the United States. He served as the associate dean for development at The Divinity School of Harvard University, for which he was the senior administrator and chief development and public affairs officer for the school with responsibility for all institutional advancement initiatives. He also worked at Cornell University in senior development posts, both on the campus and at the Metro New York regional office in Manhattan. He has held senior fundraising and management positions at Family Service America and at local United Ways in the United States.

Royal is an honorary governor of Think First Canada/Pensez d’abord Canada, a youth brain and spinal cord injury prevention program. He has been a member of the provincial board of Pensez d’abord Québec and the corporation of Centraide du Grand Montréal (United Way) and he has served as a development advisor to the University of Waterloo, Pro-CURE Alliance (a prostate cancer foundation), and Elijah, an international interfaith group in Jerusalem.