A well-designed pension system brings enormous social and economic values to its members and to society as a whole. Unfortunately, Canada’s doesn’t stand out. A 2024 report from Mercer ranks it just 18 out of 48 countries. In thefutureeconomy.ca, Prof. Sebastien Betermier proposes three measures that could help improve it by:
· Ensuring there are stronger guardrails to keep pension funds operationally independent
Cryptocurrencies are volatile, risky and lack transparency. For banks and investors alike, that’s risky. “Some like to think ‘this time it’s different’,” Prof Patrick Augustin told PaperJam.lu. But for Augustin, crypto today recalls Lehman Brothers, the financial services firm whose collapse set the global financial crisis in motion in 2008. The similarities are striking. Like today’s crypto markets, Lehman Brothers complicated investment products that many buyers and sellers didn’t fully understand.
Being happy doesn’t just make life more enjoyable, it can help you get things done. In 2024, McGill Desautels Adjunct Lecturer Anita Nowak co-designed a course on the power of positive psychology called Happiness means business, and it is gaining traction beyond the university’s walls. The global public relations and marketing consultancy Edelman brought in Prof. Anita Nowak to teach staff course materials. The intensive 12-week ‘boot camp’ teaches concepts like altruism and forgiveness to give employees new tools to use in client relationships.
Tariffs drive up prices for businesses, but some companies are finding a creative loophole to avoid some US tariffs. When a company imports a tariffed good, it pays a tariff. But it doesn’t pay a tariff if the goods are only passing through on the way to a final destination. This creates an incentive for US companies to store inventory in Canada. They can park products here until they sell them, and only pay tariffs on goods that are actually bound for the US market.
McGill MBA alumna Stephanie Shaw (MBA’10) is vice-president of human resources at Eldorado Gold, where she leads a global team supporting 5,000 employees. Based in Vancouver, Shaw is driving a new people strategy focused on inclusive leadership, employee experience and digital transformation.
Thanks to a generous donation from Montreal finance leader J. Sebastian Van Berkom, students in the Honours in Investment Management (HIM) program at McGill’s Desautels Faculty of Management will now manage a newly launched small-cap fund through Desautels Capital Management (DCM)—Canada’s first university-owned registered investment firm.
The McGill Master of Management in Finance (MMF) has placed on the 2025 Financial Times (FT) (pre-experience) Masters in Finance rankings list, coming in 38th out of 70 schools globally.
Even the most successful family businesses often don’t withstand the march of time. Just because one generation had what the right skills and temperament to run a business doesn’t mean their grandchildren will. But the Vancouver-based chocolate maker Purdys Chocolate bucks the trend, with a third-generation leader poised to take the helm.
Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence have the power to boost business’ efficiency, but they can also make an organizations more resilient.
Predictive analytics are one way that companies can help ensure they’re prepared for whatever comes next. Predictive analytics can turn raw data into, writes Karl Moore in Forbes.com.
For Renaud Thomassin, being a francophone at McGill unlocked a new way of being Quebecois--one in which you can navigate easily between cultures.
“Beyond the knowledge and skills that I gained, I also discovered the art of networking--and it’s already opened doors for me,” says Thomassin, a MBA graduate. He encourages others who have only studied at francophone schools to consider McGill. “The university offered me an incredible experience and unique opportunities.”
After the federal government’s speech from the throne in May 2025, Bloc Québecois leader Yves-Francois Blanchet accused Prime Minister Mark Carney of seeking to centralize power and act as Canada’s CEO. But running a country like a CEO may not be possible. After all, a country is simply not the same as a company.
Hamid Etemad has been named a 2024 Top Scholar by Scholar GPS. Over a long and distinguished career, the Associate Professor of Marketing has been recognized for his excellence in teaching and research, Scholar GPS recognized Etemad as being in the top 0.5% of scholars in his field. Etemad’s research has probed the role of technology in business and its impact in emerging market economies.
Egypt’s Nile River Valley has some of the most fertile land in the world. But most of the country is a barren desert where few plants can grow. Hassan Elrakhawy (BCom’24) wants to change that. The Egyptian-born entrepreneur founded Leedana, a startup that uses a technique called sandponics, which can reduce the amount of water needed to cultivate crops by up to 90%. The company already has farms in Egypt that grow cherry tomatoes, peppers, kale, lettuce and more. And other farms are under construction elsewhere.
This year, ten valedictorians from across the university shared their reflections and insights with McGill’s Class of 2025--with an eye cast toward the future. Desautels Grace Singer will be among them. The graduating Bachelor of Commerce student hopes to make a difference by advocating for decarbonization from within the business world. “In the long-term I hope to work directly with the adoption and acceleration of sustainable solutions, such as what I did within the cleantech company I interned at during my degree,” Singer says.
This winter, three of the ten McGill offices awarded new Sustainability Workplace Certifications for their sustainable practices were from the Desautels Faculty of Management. Notably, a collaborative Desautels office, formed by the Laidley Centre for Business Ethics and Equity, EDI, the Lewtas Office of Experiential Learning, and TLS Management teams, earned a Platinum certification, the highest possible rating. The Sustainable Growth Initiative (SGI) advanced to a Gold certification, and Desautels IT achieved Silver.
