York Schulich’s Groundbreaking Building Opens Its Doors, and More – Toronto
Toronto‘s finest business schools have spent the new year making positive contributions to the fast-changing world of business education. We’ve laid out some of the high points.
How Business Schools Are Adapting to the Changing World of Work – CBC News
In the age of information, the business arena is changing at record pace. In order to keep up, Canadian business schools are shifting focus from concrete skills to abstract ones. Creativity and innovation, for example, are at the forefront of the curriculum for schools like Western University Canada’s Ivey Business School. In fact, Ivey recently staff conducted 250 interviews with international industry leaders in order to glean which skills are in high demand in today’s marketplace.
“Although people do need to have the technical literacy that’s probably higher than before—the skills that are really demanded are the soft skills that will allow them to adapt,” says Mark Vandenbosch, acting Ivey Dean. Among the most important skills, Vandenbosch listed “creativity, grit, teamwork … and decision-making skills.”
“We provide a lot of support post graduation for those who want to come back at a later time to start a venture two, three, or four years later.”
Learn more about the demand for soft skills in the marketplaces here.
New Schulich School Building Opens at Toronto’s York University – Canadian Architect
On January 11, York University’s Schulich School of Business opened the doors of the Rob and Cheryl McEwen Graduate Study & Research Building. The building, designed by Baird Sampson, is among the most environmentally efficient academic buildings in North America. Funding from the Canadian Government’s Post-Secondary Institutions Strategic Investment Fund, Schulich’s Leading Change fundraising campaign, and a generous donation from Rob and Cheryl McEwen made the $50 million project possible.
The all new Rob and Cheryl McEwen Graduate Study & Research Building, opened Jan. 11 at the York University School of Business.
The building will house Schulich’s Research Office, as well as the Centre of Excellence in Responsible Business, the Schulich Centre for Global Enterprise, the Brookfield Centre in Real Estate and Infrastructure, and the newly-established Centre of Excellence in Business Analytics and Artificial Intelligence.
You can read more about the new York Schulich building addition here.
New Arrival to Canada Finds What He Was Missing – The Globe and Mail
Voyt Kryzchylkiewicz moved to Canada from Johannesburg to pursue his EMBA at University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and launch a business venture. In his first blog entry for EMBA Diary, he discusses those challenges and lessons of the past year of his life.
Before his move to Canada, Kryzchylkiewicz served as a board member at several companies in Europe and Africa. However, his experience with Canadian companies was limited, and he did not meet the criteria to be considered for similar positions in his new home. Kryzchylkiewcz entered Rotman with the hope of developing a professional network in Canada.
“While building my knowledge through Rotman has indeed proved valuable, the real benefits of the EMBA are the relationships that I have made, both business and personal,” Kryzchylkiewicz says. “This has already propelled my business forward and provided me with significant opportunities that I would not have had otherwise.”
Learn more about Kryzchylkiewicz’s experience here.
Rotman Prof Talks Gender Equality and More – Toronto News
Toronto’s finest business schools have been doing their part to improve the landscapes of work environments and executive education. We’ve laid out this week’s highlights below.
Companies Find One-Stop Shopping for Executive Education – The Globe and Mail
Western University Canada’s Ivey Business School recently launched The Ivey Academy, a full-service learning and development center for executive education. This is good news for companies like Bruce Power LP, as they have been partnering with Ivey for years on leadership development education. Now, Ivey can also offer them services like corporate retreats and talent assessments.
“It would be nice to be able to [undertake executive education] with someone who knows us really well and knows a lot of our leaders really well and knows what our issues are,” says Cathy Sprague, Bruce Power LP Executive VP of Human Resources.
“We’re not the experts at everything,” Mark Vandenbosch, Dean of Ivey Business School, says in a recent interview in The Globe and Mail. “So … let’s figure out who are the people that we believe are up to the standards that we preach…so that when you put the parts together it’s more of a journey than a set of interactions.”
You can learn more about The Ivey Academy here.
Gender Equality In the Workplace: How Men Can Move the Needle – The Telegraph
Sarah Kaplan, Director of the Institute for Gender and the Economy and Strategic Management Professor at University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, interviewed two executives about the role of male executives in increasing workplace diversity (specifically, gender).
Kaplan spoke to Richard Nesbitt, President and CEO of Global Risk in Financial Services and adjunct professor at Rotman, and Kevin Lobo, Chairman and CEO of Stryker Corporation, and Director on the board of Parker Hannifin. The executives agreed that creating resources for women and determining their needs in the workplace is essential to creating an inviting environment.
“It’s important to have an official women’s network with an executive sponsor,” Lobo says. “I would advise people to put a thoughtful structure behind the initiative, give it a budget and empower people to run it effectively.”
Lobo emphasized that this course of action was a game-changer for Stryker. Stryker now has a mentorship system, so that women in the company have someone to talk to about their career path.
Sarah Kaplan, Rotman School of Management professor and Director of the Institute for Gender and the Economy.
“In academia,” Kaplan writes, “there’s a concept called ‘belonging uncertainty’: If you’re in an environment where you’re not sure that you belong—for example, if you’re a woman working in capital markets—you’re constantly looking for signals that you do belong.”
You can read more from Kaplan’s interviews on workplace gender equality here.
20-Years-Old, 20 Percent Down On A House. It’s Possible – The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail recently dug into the housing market, citing the story of a 20-year-old man who saved enough money to buy himself a house; a modern rarity. The man is an exception in the Canadian market, where the average price of a home is $475,000 CAD, and obtaining a mortgage is increasingly difficult. Moshe Milevsky, Finance Professor at York University’s Schulich School of Business, weighed in on Gen Y’s housing issues.
“People have to twist themselves into a pretzel to get themselves into houses,” Milevsky says. The article recommends utilizing options like the Home Buyers’ Plan, which lets buyers withdraw a certain amount from their registered retirement savings plan (RRSP) with 15 years to repay it.
Check out the rest of the article here.
Ivey EMBA Alum Linda Hasenfratz Named Business Leader of the Year
EMBA alum Linda Hasenfratz from the Ivey Business School at Western University Canada was recently announced as the winner of this year’s Ivey Business Leader of the Year award.
