Faculty of Management benefactor Marcel Desautels receives the Order of Canada

Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada, bestowed membership in the Order of Canada on philanthropist Marcel Desautels at a ceremony in Ottawa this morning.

Mr. Desautels is honoured for his contributions as a businessman and philanthropist, and for his unfailing support of business and management education in Canadian universities. This appointment was made on the recommendation of the Advisory Council for the Order of Canada.

“Marcel Desautels has been a great friend, supporter and benefactor of the Desautels Faculty of Management,” said Peter Todd, Dean of The Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill. “His passion for supporting and pushing the boundaries of management education in Canada is inspiring and we are extremely proud to see him receive Canada’s greatest honour for his tremendous contributions.”

The former president and CEO of Creditel of Canada Ltd., Mr. Desautels used the proceeds from the sale of Creditel in 1996 to launch the non-profit Canadian Credit Management Foundation (CCMF).

The CCMF made major contributions to several Canadian universities before its landmark $22-million gift to McGill’s Faculty of Management in 2005 – at the time, the largest donation ever made to a Canadian business school. This influx of resources funded endowed chairs, scholars' awards, an annual symposium, a visiting scholars program, leading-edge facilities and new scholarships, fellowships and research, and the Faculty was renamed in honour of Mr. Desautels’ extraordinary generosity.

In 2008, he provided a further $10 million to create the Marcel Desautels Institute for Integrated Management, which aims to introduce interdisciplinary “big-picture” thinking into a global business world that must increasingly operate with both social and financial balance sheets in mind.