Four students receive the Lieutenant-Governor's Youth Medal

May 31, 2016

Meet the four HEC Montréal students who were awarded the Lieutenant-Governor’s Youth Medal on May 28, saluting their academic excellence and exemplary community involvement. Congratulations to William Beaudry, Habiba Gerba, Laurent Levesque and Amandine B. Michaud!

BBA student William Beaudry does a brilliant job of combining social commitment with academic and athletic excellence. His outstanding grades (average of 90% or more) earned him a spot on the Dean’s List at Champlain College in Saint-Lambert three times, while he also finished as one of the top golfers in Quebec. In addition to coaching struggling students, he received the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Award for Advocacy from the United Nations Security Council, in recognition of his participation in model United Nations. He joined the student investment fund in his first year at HEC Montréal, and was chosen for the Université de Montréal Carabins golf team. With a GPA of 3.92 out of 4.3, he has shown that it is possible to successfully combine school and sports. William also proudly represented HEC Montréal at the Harvard World Model United Nations in Rome in March 2016.

While working toward her Certificate in Business Management, Habiba Gerba is also the owner of Gazelles Montréal, a Canadian line of high-end women’s clothing made here in Montreal. In 2010 she created the Fondation Gerba to facilitate access to schooling for African children from underprivileged communities. The foundation takes a transparent and efficient approach to increasing awareness among businesses and donors. Its accounting system tracks donations and clearly shows how much goes directly to children and how much to overhead. In this way donors are assured that their donations will be used for the purpose they intended. Since it was created, the foundation has formed partnerships with some large companies like Staples (Bureau en gros), to offer school supplies to over 300 elementary school children in Africa.

Laurent Levesque (MSc, specializing in Management in the Context of Social Innovations) is known for his ongoing efforts to develop original and pragmatic solutions to social and environmental issues in Quebec. Co-founder of the Unité de travail pour l’implantation de logement étudiant, working to promote student housing co-ops, and the Montréal à vélo group, a voice for cyclists, he is also Chair of the Youth Committee and a director of the Chantier de l’économie sociale, a member of the programming committee for the Global Social Economy Forum and a regular columnist on the À l’échelle humaine radio program on CIBL. He has inspired and encouraged many young people to choose social entrepreneurship as a means of making a positive impact in their community, in particular by volunteering as a consultant for social enterprise start-ups. Even with all these demanding commitments, he manages to maintain exceptional grades.

MBA student Amandine B. Michaud demonstrated great promise at a young age, winning international piano competitions while excelling at school and coming close to setting several national swimming records. She is a true polyglot, studying in six languages! She arrived in Montreal at age 18 to attend McGill University, where she won the Hugh Brock Entrance Scholarship. Amandine was President of the McGill Young Alumni association and a member of the alumni council. After graduating, she joined Kruger as Communications Co-ordinator and then as Corporate Affairs and Communications Advisor, before resuming studies at HEC Montréal. A member of the Board of Herstreet, she is also Co-President of Femmes en affaires HEC Montréal. In 2015, she received the Fondation Pierre Arbour scholarship, recognizing students with great economic and social potential.


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