[1] Born in Grand-Mère, Quebec, he graduated from the University of Ottawa with a Bachelor of Arts in communications in 1976.
He worked with the public relations firms Burson-Marsteller (from 1981) and National Public Relations (1984-1997) in various leadership roles including president, and then served as president and CEO of TVA television network, Quebec’s largest private television broadcaster, from 1997 to 2000.
He joined Cirque du Soleil in January 2001 at the request of company founder Guy Laliberté, whom he had previously encountered while working with National Public Relations.
Daniel Lamarre supports several charities, notably the One Drop Foundation, with its mission to fight poverty by providing access to safe water, as well as Cirque du Monde, a worldwide social circus program targeting at-risk youth.
In 2019, Lamarre, on behalf of Cirque du Soleil, received the Distinguished Leadership Award for Corporate Citizenship from the Inter-American Dialogue in recognition of the organization's work with at risk youth in Latin America using an innovative methodology structured around the arts, as well as their support of the One Drop Foundation in their effort to grant access to safe water to some of the region's most vulnerable communities.