Names in the News

 

Bravo to Nadia Vracotas, a psychology student, who has been awarded a Medal of Bravery by the Governor-General for saving the lives of four people. She was on holiday in Corfu, Greece, in August 2002 when she noticed a group of adult swimmers in trouble. An expert swimmer and former lifeguard in Ville St. Laurent, she saved four of them, one after another. The Gazette reported on her award last Saturday.

Lawrence Kryzanowski (Finance) was interviewed on the CBC regarding the Quebec pension fund as a possible investor in Air Canada. He said they would look at it like any other investor, but they would be cautious. “Unless they thought they would get a high enough return, they would not invest. The airline business, especially Air Canada, is high-risk.”

Bouchaib Bahli (Decision Science/MIS) was interviewed April 6 by CFCF-12 about outsourcing IT jobs. He said that costs are substantially lower in India, and there are no transport costs, because the products are sent electronically. However, some Indian companies that have American business are moving to Canada to be closer to their customers, and acting as brokers to connect with Indian suppliers.

Networking magazine’s April issue looked at the JMSB’s Ned Goodman Institute, which has installed a video conferencing system to teach MBA students in Toronto from Montreal.

During the recent week commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, Frank Chalk (History) appeared on Global News (Quebec), CBC’s The Current, with Anna Maria Tremonte, and The National, with Joe Schlesinger. Most recent arrivals from countries in conflict want to enjoy Canada’s civil peace, he said. However, “the pro-Palestinian communities are using an in-your-face strategy on campuses all over Canada and in the media, which is, I think, virtually unparalleled in the history of immigration to Canada.” Chalk added that this activism is by a small minority of Palestinian-Canadians.

Michel Magnan (Lawrence Bloomberg Chair in Accountancy) said in Finance et Investissement on April 4 that if Canadian banks offer salaries to their chairmen comparable to those offered by their American competitors, it’s because they fear American banks will hire them. He was quoted in La Presse on April 29 about the sudden departure from Nortel of CEO Frank Dunn and his top three financial executives. On the recent move by search engine Google to go public, Magnan told The Gazette last Saturday that entrepreneurs may sell shares with inferior voting rights to shift the risk to other shareholders while keeping the benefits of ownership for themselves.

Also on Google, a Globe and Mail update cited a study by Martin L. Martens (Management) and graduate student Jean-Philippe Arcand. They looked at whether a company should replace its founder with a professional CEO before the IPO (initial public offering) and how this might affect financial performance. Google, which plans to sell $2.72-billion (U.S.) worth of shares to the public in an electronic auction, will continue to be run by two Stanford University graduate students who founded it. The Martens study seemed to the Globe to confirm the wisdom of this decision.

Triant Flouris (Aviation MBA) spoke on CKMI-TV GLO (Ste. Foy)/ Global News Sunday about Jetsgo, which will operate out of Quebec City’s airport. In The Gazette on April 27, Flouris talked about rumoured changes in airline regulation that include raising limits on foreign ownership, which could save Air Canada if new investors could be found.

The poetry anthology by Montreal-born Canadian poet, editor and anti-war activist and alumnus Todd Swift, now based in Europe, is number one in the U.K. charts in its category, according to The Guardian book review section. Swift published 100 Poets Against The War as an online anthology last year. It was downloaded a quarter of a million times in a few short weeks, and then was published as a book of poems in the UK by Salt, in Cambridge.

The last concert of the season by the Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal, directed by Dean of Fine Arts Christopher Jackson, was held at St. Leon Church, Westmount. It got a rave review on May 4 from The Gazette’s Arthur Kaptainis, who said they gave Antonio Vivaldi’s choral music “a superb performance.”