It was a simple phone call that would make Canadian history. In 2005, a Toronto-based businessman and philanthropist named Marcel Desautels contacted McGill’s main switchboard. With whom, he asked, should he discuss making a gift?
“My foundation wanted to make a contribution to McGill, since it’s such an important institution,” recalls Desautels, President and CEO of the Canadian Credit Management Foundation (CCMF). This “contribution” turned out to be $22 million to McGill’s faculty of management, at the time the largest single donation to a Canadian business or management school.
Renamed the Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill’s business school has since flourished. Desautels’s extraordinary generosity has allowed the Faculty to create endowed chairs, scholars' awards, an annual symposium, a visiting scholars program, leading-edge facilities, as well as increased scholarships, fellowships and research.
In 2008, he provided a further $10 million to establish the Marcel Desautels Institute for Integrated Management at McGill. The new institute spearheads the interdisciplinary, big-picture thinking so vital to a global business world which must now keep a careful watch on both financial and social balance sheets.
A passionate proponent of well-rounded, global-minded education, Desautels states: “Universities must develop people who view a business as a whole.”
A native of St. Boniface, Desautels himself personifies the well-rounded individual. Trained as a lawyer, he supported his university studies by singing at weddings, funerals and local clubs. He launched a private legal practice in Winnipeg, and later worked in both industry and government. In 1971, he took the helm of Creditel of Canada, where he presided over 25 years of unprecedented growth. When Creditel was sold in 1996, he used the proceeds to launch CCMF, a non-profit organization which would support higher education for years to come.
Desautels received an honorary doctorate from McGill in 2007 in recognition of his outstanding service. In 2009, he was awarded membership in the Order of Canada, as well as the Friend of Education Award from the Canadian Council for the Advancement of Education.
“The most gratifying thing is the students themselves,” says Desautels. “I meet young people who are so enthusiastic and so bright. That’s why I entreat everyone to get involved. How many opportunities like this do you get in life?”