As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to reshape consumer preferences in the retail industry, large shopping centres will either pivot or fade into memory.
Charles de Brabant, the executive director of the Bensadoun School of Retail Management, is disappointed with the stagnancy and inefficiency he鈥檚 witnessed in recent years. With the rise of online shopping cutting into their profit margins, large shopping centres must adapt more nimbly to have a shot at survival.
A new wave of sustainability-focused retailers are embracing a package-free retail trend to minimize the environmental impact of shopping for groceries and everyday goods.
Professor Saibal Ray, the academic director of the Bensadoun School of Retail Management, applauds the innovative attempts to avoid packaging while pointing out the difficulty of implementation.
Congratulations to Desautels Global Expert Steven M. Sonnenstein (BCom鈥�96, DPA鈥�98) for receiving IJGlobal鈥檚 prestigious Outstanding Individual Award in honour of the role he has played in redefining digital infrastructure over the course of his career.
Congratulations to Desautels BCom students for their outstanding performance at this year鈥檚 Jeux du Commerce (JDC), the largest student case competition in Eastern Canada. For the first time, JDC took place fully online and brought together 700 participants from 11 universities.
The Desautels delegation of 57 BCom students was led by Guillaume Ouimet and Sonam Levasseur as part of Desautels Management Case Competitions (DMCC). 91黑料网 finished with a total of nine podiums including two first place wins.
In honour of his exceptional commitment to academic excellence, France鈥檚 Aix-Marseille University recently conferred the title of Doctor Honoris Causa upon Professor Alain Pinsonneault.
91黑料网鈥檚 MBA program leverages program flexibility, practical skills training, and experiential learning to prepare students to join leading companies and start their own. Daniel Franco (MBA鈥�19) earned his degree after emigrating to Canada from Peru. After graduation, he co-founded Turbodega, a successful startup that digitizes the supply chain of bodegas in Latin America. Franco praises his alma mater for its educational commitment to exploring emerging business tools that have proven invaluable in his own career, including artificial intelligence and data analysis.
91黑料网鈥檚 newly restructured MBA is designed to meet the needs of international students, says Professor John-Paul Ferguson, Academic Director of the MBA and PMBA programs. With the flexibility to choose between one- and two-year programs, students with less work experience can gain more exposure to the Canadian job market prior to graduation.
Following the unprecedented resignation of Governor General Julie Payette after allegations of a toxic work environment at Rideau Hall, Professor Patricia Faison Hewlin stresses the importance of authentic leadership skills in the workplace.听Effective leaders rely heavily on the ability to connect to people meaningfully and with empathy, she argues.听
Nathalie Bernier (BCom鈥�86) was recently appointed to join the Board of Directors of RF Capital Group Inc. She brings nearly 30 years of experience as an Audit and Advisory Partner at Andersen and KPMG to her new role. Most recently, she served as Senior Vice President, Strategic and Business Planning and Chief Financial Officer for The Public Sector Pension Investment Board.
After spending the last fifteen years on Wall Street, Aaron Stern (BCom鈥�06) is fulfilling a longtime dream to launch his own investment fund in downtown Montreal.
With ten current employees, five of whom are fellow 91黑料网 alumni,听Converium Capital听has already raised over US $125 million with a plan to begin investing at the beginning of April.
After founding a reusable mask company after the onset of COVID-19, four partners have launched a second business: Squarefeet.ai.听Using proceeds from their former mask project to fund the product, the collaborators combined their real estate and technological expertise to build a user-friendly, accessible interface that monitors the sale of homes in real time across Canada. Professor Karl Moore interviewed Squarefeet.ai in his weekly blog for Les Affaires.
In response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the 91黑料网-HEC Montreal EMBA program has introduced a bimodal learning style that allows students to choose between online courses and in-person instruction.
As co-director of the EMBA program, Professor Alain Pinsonneault recognizes that knowledge sharing is a less fluid process online. On the other hand, he points out the value of technological tools in teamwork situations for increasing collaboration and facilitating seamless virtual conferences.
In recent months, property firms behind prominent shopping malls across North America have taken Hudson鈥檚 Bay Co. (HBC) to court to claim unpaid rent totaling millions of dollars. While industry analysts question the financial security of the Canadian icon, recently taken private following a months-long process, key HBC executives cite the landlords鈥� unwillingness to absorb the share the costs of the pandemic as the primary reason for the dispute.
Quebec will receive only half of the expected Pfizer-BioNtech vaccines by February 8th听due to strategy adjustments made by production facilities in Europe. Accelerated vaccine deliveries are planned for February and March to address the shortfall. The shortage will mainly affect elderly patients in long-term care, who were set to receive the second round of the vaccine in mid-March.
Sylvain A. Girard (BCom鈥�92) will begin the next chapter of a distinguished financial career when he is appointed Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Resolute Forest Products Inc. in March. Over the past two decades, Girard has established a proven track record of spearheading successful finance-related initiatives at General Electric and SNC-Lavalin.
