News > 2011 > A New Stephen A. Jarislowsky Chair in Governance at HEC Montréal

A New Stephen A. Jarislowsky Chair in Governance at HEC Montréal

May 11, 2011

Stephen A. JarislowskyHEC Montréal is pleased to announce that its Chair in Governance and Forensic Accounting will henceforth be known as the Stephen A. Jarislowsky Chair in Governance. Michel Patry, Director of HEC Montréal, and the current holder of the Chair, Professor Réal Labelle, are delighted at this eloquent support by Mr. Jarislowsky for governance issues–a superb and concrete example of the collaboration between the School and the Canadian philanthropist going back several years now.

The Chair in Governance and Forensic Accounting was created in 2002, to take an innovative and multidisciplinary approach to studying the issues facing companies in the new economy. Under its new name, it plans to continue positioning itself as a reference for the university community, through the quality of its partnerships, collaborative work and achievements, and for the profession, through the innovative nature of its training and knowledge transfer activities. The Stephen A. Jarislowsky Chair in Governance will contribute to advancing and disseminating knowledge about governance, ethics and professional accounting practice in the local, national and international academic, professional and business communities. With Mr. Jarislowsky’s support, the Chair will be able to continue expanding on the international scene.

There are already 23 university chairs associated with Mr. Jarislowsky throughout the country. “These chairs help to support teaching and research activities in fields dear to my heart,” he emphasizes. “I hope the new Chair in Governance at HEC Montréal will become extraordinarily well known. Through its work it will reflect the expectations of its community, while taking inspiration from new practices worldwide, and thereby help to attract top students.”

Professor Labelle is President of the Association académique internationale de gouvernance and former President of the Canadian Academic Accounting Association. He is very active in research. His current interests include the impact of the legislative environment on the quality of financial information, the Canadian system for monitoring accounting irregularities, and ethics in finance. He is also interested in the effects of the structure of business ownership, for family and other businesses, on their governance and social performance. Lastly, thanks to a recent grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), he is studying diversity in governance and senior management.

 

About Stephen A. Jarislowsky

Stephen A. Jarislowsky, born in Berlin in 1925, is recognized as one of Canada’s leading investment managers. He holds an MBA from Harvard University. In 1955 he founded the Jarislowsky Fraser firm in Montreal, which now manages assets exceeding $47 billion. Over his career he has served as a director of some thirty companies, and co-founded and directs the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance. He wrote The Investment Zoo, a best seller also published in French as Dans la jungle du placement, and in Chinese.

Mr. Jarislowsky is a Grand Officier of the Ordre du Québec and a Companion of the Order of Canada, and holds honorary PhDs from the Université de Montréal, McGill University, the Université du Québec à Montréal, Concordia University, Université Laval, Assumption University (University of Windsor), the University of Ottawa, Queen's University, McMaster University, Simon Fraser University and the University of Alberta.


About Réal Labelle

Réal Labelle, CA, holds an MBA from McGill University and a PhD in management science from the Université de Grenoble. He has held many different management positions and carried out various consulting mandates, including as an expert witness. With the financial support of the SSHRC, he helped to establish a research alliance on the new economy, on the theme of "governance, forensic accounting and value creation.” Dr. Labelle has written or co-authored some ten chapters in books and many cases and articles on the Chair's research themes. He has been published in Contemporary Accounting Research, the Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences and the Journal of Business Ethics.