I grew up in small-town Ontario, just outside Toronto. As a kid, I delivered the Toronto Telegraph and subsequently the Toronto Star when that paper purchased the Telegraph. I earned five cents per paper delivered, and quickly learned the importance of volume, low overhead and customer service-enough to warrant a Christmas bonus.
My introduction to investing was at the University of Toronto in a college course in modern finance theory. I studied commerce and economics and was fortunate to have Myron Gordon, the developer of the Gordon Dividend Discount Growth Model-one of the foundations of modern finance theory-as a professor.
After graduating in 1982, I worked in the Toronto office of Arthur Andersen for two years. I also became a chartered accountant during that time, the equivalent of a certified public accountant in the United States.
Later, while working on an MBA at Harvard, I learned about capital markets from the late Stephen Fenster. A former partner at what was then Shearson Lehman, he had a special interest in mentoring younger colleagues. In 1985 he helped me get a summer job at Lehman in the risk arbitrage department.
When I graduated from Harvard in 1986, I was recruited by Dominion Securities and returned to Canada for a position in the company's corporate finance and mergers and acquisition division. Dominion was subsequently purchased by RBC for its investment banking and wealth management business.
In 2007, we established our wealth management division as a global segment and now operate in 30 countries and 42 states in the U.S. To complement our Canadian universal bank-RBC's largest core business-and RBC Capital Markets-a top-ten global investment bank-our wealth management platform has established itself as the seventh largest wealth manager in the world.
Our asset management business is also growing rapidly. We acquired further global capability with our recent acquisition of BlueBay Asset Management in the United Kingdom and aspire to be a global leader in wealth management and asset management over the coming years. It's an exciting time for us.
I've been fortunate to have held a number of positions with RBC over the years. I've worked in investment banking, as a research analyst for our research equity business, and led our banking product businesses.
It's quite rare today to be able to have such a varied career with one institution.
