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2014 Schulich Alumni Recognition Award recipients to be honoured at annual gala

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  • October 14, 2014

    2014 Schulich Alumni Recognition Award recipients to be honoured at annual gala

    TORONTO, CANADA – Tuesday, October 14, 2014 – The Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto, Canada is pleased to announce the recipients of the School’s 2014 Alumni Recognition Awards, honouring achievements in four categories: Outstanding Executive Leadership, Outstanding Progress and Achievement, Outstanding Public Contribution and Outstanding Contribution to the School.

    Michael Cooper, MBA ’86, President and CEO of Dream Unlimited Corp., is being honoured for Outstanding Executive Leadership; John Ruffolo, BBA ’88, CEO, OMERS Ventures, is being honoured for Outstanding Progress and Achievement; J. Mark Lievonen, BBA ’79, MBA ’87, President, Sanofi Pasteur Limited, is being honoured for Outstanding Public Contribution; and Howard Lichtman, MBA ’82, President, The Lightning Group, and Co-founder, Ethnicity Multicultural Marketing and Advertising, is being honoured for his Outstanding Contribution to the Schulich School of Business.

    The awards will be presented on October 16 at an annual gala dinner in the executive dining room at Schulich’s York University campus. Paul Alofs, MBA ’83, President & CEO, The Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation, will be the Master of Ceremonies.

    Osler Hoskin and Harcourt LLP is the Executive Sponsor of the awards dinner, Brookfield Financial is the reception patron and TD is the entertainment patron. Corporate Partners include Cineplex Entertainment; Deloitte; Dream Unlimited; OMERS Ventures; PwC Canada; Sanofi Pasteur Limited; and the Schulich Undergraduate Business Council.

    “I am very proud of this year’s recipients of Schulich’s Alumni Recognition Awards and congratulate them on their tremendous achievements and contributions to the business world,” said Schulich Dean Dezsö J. Horváth. “These accomplished individuals are in good company, following in the path of a long line of Schulich alumni who have gone on to become leaders in the business world and in their communities in Canada and around the globe.”

    About Michael Cooper, 2014 Recipient
    Outstanding Executive Leadership Award

    Michael Cooper, MBA ’86, is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Dream Unlimited Corp (Dream), a real estate development, investment and management company with approximately $13 billion of assets under management. Mr. Cooper’s extensive track record in the real estate industry dates back to 1986, including an instrumental role in founding Dundee Realty Corporation, the predecessor of Dream, in 1996. Under his leadership, the business has grown to be a leader in commercial real estate, residential development and homes, and alternative energy infrastructure.

    Among his accomplishments, Michael is responsible for the formation of three TSX‐listed real estate investment trusts: Dream Office REIT (formerly Dundee REIT), Canada’s largest office REIT; Dream Global REIT (formerly Dundee International REIT), a Canadian REIT investing exclusively outside of Canada; and, most recently, Dream Industrial REIT (formerly Dundee Industrial REIT).

    About John Ruffolo, 2014 Recipient
    Outstanding Progress & Achievement Award

    John Ruffolo, BBA ’88, is the Chief Executive Officer of OMERS Ventures, the venture arm of OMERS. OMERS Ventures invests in early- to late-stage companies in the Technology, Media, and Telecommunications sectors. In addition, he is also the Executive Managing Director of OMERS Strategic Investments.

    John serves as board chair of MMM Group Ltd., and is a board member at HootSuite. He is chair of Canada’s Venture Capital and Private Equity Association’s Government Relations Committee and a member of its Executive Committee. He also serves as a board member and committee chair at numerous other organizations, including: OneEleven, Communitech, the Next Big Thing Foundation, and the Art Gallery of Ontario. In addition, he is the Vice Chair of the David Suzuki Foundation and a member of the Toronto chapter of the Young Presidents’ Organization.

    Prior to joining OMERS Ventures, John was a Partner at Deloitte, as well as the Global Thought Leader, the Global Tax Leader and the Canadian Industry Leader for Deloitte’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) practice. He was also a member of the firm’s Tax and TMT Global Leadership teams and a member of Deloitte’s Board of Directors.

    A chartered accountant, John was formerly a partner with Arthur Andersen LLP and has also served as an instructor for both the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants and the Schulich School of Business.

    About J. Mark Lievonen, 2014 Recipient
    Outstanding Public Contribution Award

    Mark Lievonen, BBA ’79, MBA ’87, is President of Sanofi Pasteur Limited, the Canadian vaccine division of Sanofi. Under his leadership, Sanofi Pasteur has become a billion- dollar enterprise in Canada, manufacturing over 50 million doses of vaccines for both domestic and international markets.

    Mark is also a Director of Oncolytics Biotech Inc.; Chairof Canada’s Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies (Rx&D); Vice-Chair of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research; and serves on the Boards of the Public Policy Forum, BIOTECanada and the Markham Stouffville Hospital Foundation.

    He is a past Chair of the Ontario Genomics Institute, BIOTECanada, the Markham Stouffville Hospital Foundation, the Centre for the Advancement of Health Innovations and the Steering Committee for the BIO 2002 International Conference. He served on the York University Board of Governors, and is a former director of Markham Stouffville Hospital and YORKbiotech.

    A Co-Chair of the Ontario-Quebec Private Sector Advisory Committee, Mark was a member of the Ontario Investment and Trade Advisory Council, the BIOCouncil, and the Toronto Mayor’s Economic Competitiveness Advisory Committee. He served as a member of the United Way of Greater Toronto Cabinet, chairing the Health Care Division. He is a Chartered Accountant and received his designation while working with PricewaterhouseCoopers.

    In 2002, Mark was the recipient of a Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medallion, and he was named a Chevalier de l’Ordre National de Mérite by the government of France in 2007 and received the Queen’s Diamond Jubliee Medal in 2012. He was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario in 2009 and was inducted into the Canadian Healthcare Marketing Hall of Fame in 2013. In 2014, Mark received the Life Sciences Ontario Lifetime Achievement Award.

    About Howard Lichtman, 2014 Recipient
    Outstanding Contribution to the Schulich School of Business

    Howard Lichtman, MBA ’82, has served for a number of years as Co-Chair, Chair and Program Chair of CONNECT, Schulich’s annual alumni forum. He is a member of the Devil’s Advocate Panel for Schulich’s Global Management Program and a Senior Council Member on the Schulich Toronto Alumni Chapter. Howard has also served as a Mentor for a number of Schulich MBA students over the years and has hired 18 Schulich graduates as interns.

    He is President of The Lightning Group, and Co-Founder, Ethnicity Multicultural Marketing and Advertising. The Lightning Group finds “Paths to New Revenue” and provides Virtual Chief Marketing Officer services and strategic guidance to blue-chip clients ranging from the Ottawa Senators and the Royal Conservatory of Music to Holland Bloorview Rehabilitation Hospital and Taste of the Danforth. Ethnicity is a multicultural marketing and advertising firm dedicated to helping companies drive growth by engaging ethnic consumers.

    Prior to founding The Lightning Group, Howard was Executive VP of Marketing and Communications at Cineplex. His responsibilities included marketing, promotions, sponsorships, public relations, as well as investor and media relations. Howard designed a number of innovative, enduring business-building programs that have become industry standards, including on-screen advertising, in-theatre sampling, popcorn bag advertising and the American Express “Front of the Line” program. While at Cineplex, he also managed an in-house advertising agency on behalf of both Cineplex and a number of the major Hollywood studios.

    Howard has served on several non-profit Boards, including the Ontario Science Centre and the United Jewish Appeal Federation.

    To see the list of past Schulich Alumni Recognition Award recipients, go to:

    https://schulich.yorku.ca/client/schulich/Schulich_LP4W_LND_WebStation.nsf/page/Alumni+Recognition?OpenDocument

    About Schulich
    Known as Canada’s Global Business School™, the Schulich School of Business in Toronto is ranked among the world’s leading business schools by a number of global surveys. Schulich’s MBA program is ranked #1 in the world by Corporate Knights, the world’s largest circulation magazine with an explicit focus on Corporate Social Responsibility, and #2 in the world by the Aspen Institute (a Washington, DC-based leadership think tank) in global surveys that identify which schools are doing the best job of preparing future business leaders for the environmental, social and ethical complexities of modern-day business. Schulich’s MBA program is also ranked among the world’s leading schools by The Economist, Forbes, Bloomberg Businessweek and Expansión, Mexico’s leading business publication. The Kellogg-Schulich EMBA program is ranked #1 in the world by The Economist and #1 in Canada and 26th in the world by the Financial Times of London. For complete ranking details, please visit www.schulich.yorku.ca.

    Global, innovative and diverse, Schulich offers business programs year-round at its state-of-the-art complex at York University; at its Miles S. Nadal Management Centre located in the heart of the Toronto’s financial district; and at its new campus in Hyderabad, India. Schulich also operates a number of satellite centres in Beijing and Shanghai, China; Mumbai, India; Seoul, South Korea; Mexico City, Mexico; and Sao Paulo, Brazil. Schulich offers undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate business degrees that lead to rewarding careers in the private, public and nonprofit sectors, and has 27,000 alumni working in over 90 countries. The School pioneered Canada’s first International MBA (IMBA) and International BBA (iBBA) degrees, as well as North America’s first ever cross-border executive MBA degree, the Kellogg-Schulich Executive MBA. In addition to Schulich’s Master of Finance and Master of Accounting degrees, the School recently launched one of the world’s first Master of Business Analytics degrees. Schulich’s Executive Education Centre provides executive development programs annually to more than 10,000 executives in Canada and abroad.

    Contact:

    Beth Marlin
    Media Relations, Schulich School of Business
    Email: bmarlin@schulich.yorku.ca

    -30-

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