Theodore P. Loblaw has been described as “a merchant prince, a prominent and revered citizen, and a philanthropist”. He was the founder of Loblaw Groceterias Ltd., the precursor to the Loblaws grocery chain.

Born on a farm in southern Ontario in 1872, Theodore was orphaned at the age of 15 and raised by his grandfather. By age 17, he had moved to Toronto, where he worked for three dollars per week as a grocery clerk, where he discovered his love of the grocery business, and met his future partner, J. Milton Cork.

By 1910, Loblaw had acquired enough money and experience to open his own grocery business, and by the end of the decade had established a chain of 19 stores in Toronto and Southern Ontario. However, he still sought out greater challenges.

In 1919 Loblaw sold off his original chain, and in that same year established Loblaw Grocetrias Ltd., in partnership with Cork. With this venture, Loblaw pioneered the concept of self-serve grocery merchandising in Canada.

Then in 1924 he incorporated an American company in New York State under the name of Loblaw Groceterias Inc., which he expanded into the Chicago market four years later.

At the time of his death in 1933, Loblaw headed companies operating 107 supermarkets in Ontario, and 90 in the United States.

Loblaw was also instrumental in the establishment of the Toronto Western Hospital, as well as the Stevenson Memorial Hospital in Alliston, Ontario (as a tribute to the grandparents who raised him).

In his later years, Loblaw devoted substantial amounts of his time and financial resources to charity.  In particular, he never forgot his own experience as an underprivileged youngster, and left a large portion of his estate to the Kiwanis Club of Toronto to help in its efforts to provide young people with a better start to life.

Colonel John Bayne Maclean, was the founder, president and chairman of the Maclean-Hunter Publishing Corporation. Born in Guelph, Ontario, he attended Queen’s University and got his start as a $7.00 a week cub reporter for the Toronto Mail. He received a promotion from reporter to editor when he was 25 years old.

Throughout this time, he invested his savings in the stock market and was soon able to publish his own magazine, The Canadian Grocer. He built his business slowly by re-investing the profits in publications, machinery and buildings. He started the Canadian Press clipping service in 1902, published the first issue of Macleans Magazine in 1905, and the first issue of the Financial Post in 1907. By 1927, Maclean had set up a commercial printing department and entered the US marketplace.

Through the Great Depression, Maclean was able to claim that he had not had to lay off anyone. At his death in 1950, his company was helping to define Canada’s vision of itself through the 34 different periodical titles it published and through the writers and editors who contributed to it.

George A. Cohon is Founder of McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada Limited and Founder of McDonald’s in Russia. In addition, Mr. Cohon is the Founder of Ronald McDonald Children’s Charities here in Canada and in Russia.

He graduated from Northwestern University School of Law in 1961, and in 1967 as the licensee of McDonald’s Corporation for most of Eastern Canada, he immigrated to Toronto with his wife and two sons. He was responsible for the rapid expansion of McDonald’s Canadian operations and in 1971, after McDonald’s Corporation reacquired his license, Mr. Cohon became Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada Limited – positions he held until July 1992.

In 1976, Mr. Cohon embarked on a 14 year long odyssey to bring McDonald’s to what was then the Soviet Union. This difficult process finally culminated in the opening of the first McDonald’s in Moscow in 1990. Today, Mr. Cohon continues to actively support the Russian operations.

Mr. Cohon is actively involved in a variety of charities, and has received numerous awards for public service. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1992. He has received the Order of Ontario for his charitable endeavors. He was awarded Russia’s Order of Friendship (one of Russia’s highest public service award) from Russian President Boris Yeltsin. He has received the Israel Prime Minister’s Medal (Israel’s highest public service award).

Mr. Cohon’s autobiography, To Russia With Fries, was published in 1997. All royalties from the sale of the book are being donated to Ronald McDonald Children’s Charities of Canada – which he founded in 1982.

Isadore Sharp, Q.C. founder, chairman and chief executive officer is the driving force behind Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts’ international success.

The Canadian businessman and entrepreneur began with one property in 1961 and developed the company into the world’s leading operator of luxury resorts and hotels. Sharp received the Ruth Harman Frankel Humanitarian Award for his work on behalf of the Canadian Cancer Society. He initiated the corporate sponsorship program to support the Terry Fox Marathon of Hope, and founded the annual Terry Fox Run which has raised over $200 million to date for cancer research worldwide.

In 1992, he was selected CEO of the Year by the Financial Post Magazine and appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in the following year. Sharp and his wife, Rosalie Wise who is an accomplished interior designer, live in Toronto.

JR Shaw, is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Shaw Communications Inc. The cable and communications company he founded in 1966 now serves an estimated 20% of the Canadian cable television market.

The company also specializes in children’s programming, including YTV, radio and satellite, and in providing internet access and telecommunications.

Shaw has received many awards including the “Business Leadership Award” from the University of Alberta, “The Business Hall of Fame Award” from Junior Achievement of Northern Alberta, and the “Friend of the Industry” Award from the Alberta Motion Picture Industry Association.

A resident of Calgary, Shaw is also the Director and President of the Shaw Foundation, a philanthropic organization.

Israel Harold “Izzy” Asper was the founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive of CanWest Global Communications, Canada’s private sector broadcaster. Born in Minnedosa, Manitoba in 1932, Izzy was the son of musicians who had emigrated from Ukraine. Receiving his Bachelor of law from the University of Manitoba in 1957, he founded Asper, Freedman & Co. in 1959.

In addition to being a prominent tax lawyer, Asper was also a recognized journalist and author. During his five-year political career, he served twice as the leader of the Manitoba Liberal party. Izzy’s entrepreneurial drive flourished as a founding partner of Manitoba-based financial conglomerate, CanWest Capital Corporation. CanWest’s billion dollar holdings included the 1974 acquisition of KNCD, an American television outlet. KNCD was relocated to an abandoned supermarket in Winnipeg, becoming CKND-TV. It was Izzy’s first foray into Canadian television.

Under Asper’s guidance, CanWest flourished beyond all reasonable expectations to consist of the Global Television Network, the National Post daily newspaper, and over 60 other Canadian newspapers. When CanWest board members voted to liquidate in 1983, Izzy persuaded his partners to keep the broadcast assets. Izzy managed the outlets into revenue producers and expanded into the Maritimes and Saskatchewan, becoming Canada’s most successful private broadcaster.

For several years he concentrated on the broadcast assets, until 1983 when CanWest board members voted to liquidate. Izzy, the one dissenting vote, persuaded his partners to keep the broadcast assets which included 45 percent of Ontario’s Global System and a financial interest in Vancouver’s CKVU. Izzy managed the outlets into revenue producers and expanded into the Maritimes and Saskatchewan, becoming Canada’s most successful private broadcaster.

Izzy emerged as the sole owner of the company in 1989, when CanWest Global Communications was formed. The consistent growth that forged CanWest into an international empire is due largely to the unique and determined entrepreneurial spirit of Izzy Asper. In recognition of this feat, Asper became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1995. He was inducted into the Order of Manitoba in 2000.

Izzy passed away in 2003 at the age of 71. In addition to his career success, he is remembered as a strong supporter of Israel as well as a respected philanthropist, donating generously to education and the arts. Izzy used to say, “You have to matter; you have to count for something; you can’t just take up space.” It was a philosophy he lived by.

Laurent Beaudoin was born in Laurier Station, Quebec in 1938. He graduated from the Université de Sherbrooke with a Master of Commerce, where he met his future wife, Claire, daughter of Joseph-Armand Bombardier. Beaudoin joined his father-in-law in the family snowmobile business in 1963, and became President at the age of 27 upon Bombardier’s death.

After just five years of Laurent’s unique leadership, Bombardier annual revenues increased from 8 million to 74 million dollars. Beaudoin eventually became Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Bombardier Inc. For three decades, his diversification strategy developed a rural Quebec snowmobiling company into an international business empire. Employing 40,000 people worldwide, Bombardier became a leader in mass transit, aerospace, and motorized consumer products.

Beaudoin’s vision of diversification resulted from a period of hard times experienced by the company. The turnaround came in 1970, with the acquisition of the Austrian Tramway company and its railway expertise. After building Montreal’s subway cars, Bombardier entered the world market with its billion dollar contract to supply New York City with revolutionary graffiti-proof subway cars, the monorail cars for Disney World, and the railcars for the Chunnel, the tunnel that runs under the English Channel.

Beaudoin personally steered Bombardier into aviation through the acquisition of financially ailing companies such as Canadair, Short Brothers PLC of Belfast, Learjet, and de Havilland Aircraft. This expansion established the Bombardier aerospace division as a global leader, and within a decade sales grew from 350 million to 4 billion dollars.

Laurent Beaudoin was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1973, and was promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada in 1989. He was also declared an officier de l’Ordre du Québec in 1990.

A disciplined entrepreneur and strategist, Beaudoin is known for his motto: “Never be stagnant – if you stop to think about the plateau you’ve reached, someone will move ahead of you.”

Peter Munk is the founder, chairman and CEO of Barrick Gold Corporation, a leading North American gold producing company. Born in Budapest, Hungary in 1927, Munk’s family escaped death when Hungary was invaded by Nazi Germany in March 1944. Munk went on to graduate from the University of Toronto in 1952 with a degree in electric engineering.

Munk entered mining in 1983 when he purchased a stake in an Alaskan placer mine and half the Renabie mine in Ontario. He purchased several smaller mines before the acquisition of the Goldstrike Mine in Nevada – a property most experts believed had limited potential. However, Munk’s gamble paid off and today Goldstrike is the largest producing pit mine in the world, producing over two million ounces of gold a year.

In less than two decades, Munk had developed one of the world’s largest and most respected mining companies. He also implemented an innovative hedging program, and its success surprised skeptics: Barrick’s Premium Gold Sales Program generated almost US$2 billion in additional revenue over a 13-year period.

Munk also founded Horsham Corporation in 1987, and became Chairman and CEO of TrizecHahn when Horsham and Trizec Corporation merged in 1996. Today, TrizecHahn is one of the largest real estate companies in North America.

Munk is also a philanthropist; the Peter Munk Charitable Foundation was created in 1992, and has since donated over $50 million to a variety of organizations dedicated to improving the health, learning and international reputation of Canadians. Munk also donated $6 million to the Toronto General Hospital in 1997, which went toward creating the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre.

Peter Munk has been called “Canada’s Goldfinger” as well as “the most influential mining executive in the world.” He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1993, has received many honorary degrees, and is in the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame. Barrick Gold’s continued success is due in large part to the astute, pioneering and highly focused business strategies of its founder.

Alfred Powis. As Chairman and CEO of Noranda Inc., his leadership and vision transformed the company into one of the world’s premier diversified natural resources companies.

Born in Montreal in 1930, Alfred obtained his Bachelor of Commerce degree from McGill University in 1951, and after graduation he went to work as an investment analyst at Sun Life Assurance.

He joined Noranda, a 700 million dollar Canadian mining leader, in 1955, and during his four decades with the company, his extraordinary character and perseverance would steer its growth through acquisitions and diversification into aluminum, forest products, and oil and gas.

He explained his strategy this way: “In the mining business, it’s difficult to make rational, coherent, long-range plans. Your direction shifts depending on what’s found.”

Powis was able to establish Noranda as one of the world’s leading natural resources companies, employing more than 32,000 people, and with a worth in excess of 11 billion dollars.

His energy was similarly applied to community activities. A co-founder of the Business Council on National Issues, Powis became a tireless fundraiser for, and served on the boards of, a number of community-based organizations.

Powis had a vision that led Noranda to the forefront of its industry, as he recognized the need to pioneer, to re-invest, and to diversify.

Alfred Powis was inducted into the Order of Canada in 1984, and the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame in 1996.

Edson Loy Pease, a pioneer banker, was vigorous in modernizing and moving Canadian banking out of its 19^th century roots.

Edson Pease was a merchant’s son from Coteau Landing, Quebec. At age 14 he began working as a telegraph operator, where he learned the value of fast and timely information. From this early perspective came his lifelong instinct for seizing national business opportunities.

In the early 1880’s he turned to banking, mastered its pen and ledger rudiments, and then aggressively pursued the possibilities of modern national banking. By age 27, he was working as the accountant at the Merchants’ Bank of Halifax. Four years later, Merchants’ opened its first branch in Montreal with Pease as Manager.

A visionary who guided Merchants’ out if its regional cocoon, Pease oversaw expansion at home and mergers abroad. In 1901 he was instrumental in the move that renamed Merchants’ Bank to The Royal Bank of Canada.  By the 1920’s, Royal Bank had become Canada’s largest bank at home and abroad.

Pease rose from bank clerk to Managing Director in a career that paralleled Canada’s emergence as a financial power. While President of the Canadian Bankers Association during WWI, he became the first champion for a central bank for Canada.

His discipline and knowledge of banking set Royal Bank, and all Canadian banking, on the road to exceptional success.

Frank Stronach, Chairman, Magna International Inc., a worldwide automotive parts manufacturer.

In postwar Austria, Frank left school at 14 to work as a tool and die maker. With savings of two hundred dollars, he immigrated to Canada in 1954. Three years later he opened a one-man tool shop in a rented garage. Following an initial order to supply parts to General Motors, the small firm expanded into the production of automotive components and began growing rapidly.

By the 1990’s, Magna had become one of the largest automotive parts suppliers in the world with revenue in the billions. A generous financial contributor to the community, Frank established The Magna For Canada Scholarship Fund, a national forum where students can express their beliefs and ideas for a more prosperous and united Canada.

One of Canada’s best known executives, Frank believes employees should share in their company’s profits and ownership. His Fair Enterprise philosophy of profit and equity participation is contained in a unique Corporate Constitution and has played a major role in Magna’s success. With close to 100 plants employing some 24,000 people in 10 countries, Magna supplies parts and systems to the leading automakers of North America, Europe and Japan.

On success, Frank Stronach believes, “people want quality service and products. If you can provide that, the opportunity for success exists.”