Erik Galas did his undergrad at McGill University in Health and Physical Education, where he was also an active member of the basketball and football team. Upon graduation, he signed a contract with the Montreal Alouettes to play in the Canadian Football League (CFL). He then moved to Germany to continue playing football for a year and eventually returned to Canada to work for the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport in the Anti-Doping Intelligence and Investigations department. He joined the McGill MBA program in 2015, where he was actively involved as the President of the DGSS (Desautels Graduate Student Society) and did a summer internship at Halogen Software as an Internal Consultant. He is now working as a Senior Business Analyst at Shopify in Ottawa. We interviewed Erik to hear more about his journey and his time with the Desautels Family.
Tell us more about your background and why you decided to do an MBA.
I completed my undergrad here at McGill, doing a bachelor’s of physical and health education and a minor in political science. During my last year, while I was on the McGill Basketball team, I signed as a free agent with the Montreal Alouettes in the Canadian Football League (CFL). Afterwards, I had the opportunity to play professionally abroad, more specifically in Germany. I loved that experience – it was amazing to live a dream of getting paid to play football, travel and discover a different culture. I have dual citizenship with Germany so it was a unique opportunity to tap into my heritage, spend time with my family there and see the global evolution of American football.
Afterwards, I moved back to Ottawa where I worked for an organization called the Canadian Center for Ethics in Sport (CCES) where the primary mandate is to administer the Canadian Anti-Doping Program. The CCES coordinates and plans the anti-doping tests for amateur, Olympian Canadian athletes and some professional athletes. CCES also has an arm of the organization focused on community engagement and ethical issues called True Sport. I spent 4 and a half years at CCES, building out a new department and its operations of which I eventually became manager. My work involved working with many different legal authorities, such as law enforcement groups and criminal intelligence services. My mandate was to help them with their cases, while building relationships with these organizations and developing our own cases, both locally and internationally.
I was fortunate to get a wide range of experiences and responsibilities which included marketing, promotions, planning, negotiations and operations. The opportunity allowed me to continue being involved with the athletic community, while developing more traditional business skills, knowledge and understanding of their intersection with international policies, regulations and politics. The role and responsibilities afforded me opportunities to travel internationally and across Canada which led to my recruitment to work on behalf of the CCES for the World Anti-Doping Agency at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. As a former athlete, this was the pinnacle of sports and although I was not competing, it was an incredible experience to meet all these athletes, understand the inner workings of the Olympic Games and visit Russia. At the same time, I was reaching a crossroads in my career and was looking to continue my professional growth and development. However the niche nature of the anti-doping business, the not-for-profit structure of the organization and the reliance on government funding were limiting the opportunities to continue fulfilling my aspirations.I started looking for other opportunities and I knew I had a unique background, with a breadth of experience but felt I needed a more formal business education to strengthen my skills while accessing a larger network to successfully transition into a new industry.
Those were the biggest motivating factors that led me back to school. Incidentally, I was visiting Montreal on a business trip and decided to pay a visit to the Desautels Faculty of Management, where I met a recruiter to discuss my interests and the program. Marie-Eve Roy, the Director of Recruitment took the time to discuss what I wanted to do and to tell me about the program which was a big part of the decision making process. After attending a few events and fairs, I decided to apply to all the top schools in Canada: Rotman, UBC, Queen’s, etc. but ultimately for my needs and aspirations, I chose McGill and I am very happy that I did!
Why did you choose McGill?
I had a non-traditional background, so I wanted to solidify my business knowledge. I already knew that I would get a quality education at McGill, since I did my undergrad here and my wife did her Bachelor of Commerce at Desautels. I knew that I wanted to do a 2-year MBA to immerse myself in the subject matter, to gain that knowledge and build the new skills while building lasting connections with my new classmates. In that sense, I think that the main reason that led me to McGill was the size of the program. I wanted to be able to have a closer connection to my classmates and to get to know them personally.I wanted to be part of a community and I knew that by joining Desautels, it would be exactly what I was signing up for.
What are some of the highlights of your MBA experience?
Summer Internship
In the summer, I did my internship in Ottawa at Halogen Software (recently acquired by Saba Software) to do consulting work for the executive team. I had a few opportunities lined up but I decided on that one because it was exactly the level of exposure that I wanted for my MBA internship and was able to work directly with their executive team on the strategies for customer success and engagement.
MBA World Summit
I was the first McGill MBA to be invited to the MBA World Summit, an annual event which changes locations each year. I attended in Miami and last year, it was held in Berlin. The committee selects the "100 most inspiring MBAs from all over the world", and I was very fortunate to be selected. The selection committee also gave me the opportunity to be a presenter. My presentation was on the “Intersection of Sports Doping and Unethical Corporate Behaviours". The conference was terrific to get exposure to new cultures, business communities, expand your network, interact with companies which attended, share ideas with others, and actually get inspired and motivated by all these talented people. Once you are invited, you are automatically invited to join every year and I am considering attending the 2018 event in Cape Town.
NDLR: Parul Chawla, another McGill Desautels MBA student went to the MBA summit last year.
Representing my class
I was elected as the 1st year MBA representative and then I was chosen as Class President of the Desautels Graduate Student Society (DGSS) during my second year. It was a great opportunity to lead a team of my peers, work with my classmates and learn from their experiences, about their career objectives and motivations. Their insight helped our Council successfully apply for additional funding, which allowed us to invest our budget into programs, conferences, social advocacy and other initiatives which the Class of 2017 deemed important to their MBA experience.
Getting a job at Shopify
MBA’s spend a good portion of their experience on the job search and my experience was no different. I was fortunate to end up getting a few offers prior to graduation in consulting, technology, healthcare and a finance role from Shopify. The offers and roles were very different from each other but all held appeal and opportunity for different reasons. Ultimately, I took some time to evaluate, and tapped into that newly developed network to get additional perspectives, and accepted the role with Shopify.
What is your advice for future MBA students?
I would say: your career is in your hands. In the MBA just like in life, nothing will be given to you. You have to earn everything, even if it is a recommendation or an introduction.You have to earn the trust of your network, colleagues, career coaches, etc. The trust comes from a demonstration of focus, passion, interest and commitment. Without it, the opportunities you seek are far from guaranteed.
The trust helps open the doors and then you have to be prepared to demonstrate you are ready to walk through them. Essentially, the tools are available to you, and you need to make the best use of them.
Desautels MBA Program
- Find out how Desautels’ small-size cohort creates unique opportunities by contacting our Student Ambassadors.
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