I am very curious, which I consider to be a quality that I seek to enhance every day. I like people who have good general knowledge. I am constantly trying to find out about everything, especially when I travel. My fault however, which can become a bad habit, is that when I feel like I have understood the essentials, I tend to quickly move on to something else…
Without rushing onto a plane, it’s often during flights that last seven or eight hours that I find my best ideas. You sit next to strangers and you don’t have to talk. I don’t connect to WiFi and there I can think and work for hours on the next moves I want to make or even find gift or holiday ideas for my children.
This rarely happens to me, but I do it during summer vacation with the kids and on December 25th. Even though Christmas isn’t celebrated all over the world in our company, it’s a quiet time where I think: wow, no calls, emails, texts. Every year, I can’t believe it.
In my early 20s, I had a great career at Deloitte, but decided to go work overseas in Bermuda for a hedge fund, and then in private investing in New York. People told me not to leave, not to ruin my career. I left Quebec for 12 years and it allowed me to learn to work with other cultures, it was the best decision of my life.
I always have my passport with me. But I also carry around in my wallet a list of seven-eight goals that I give myself and that I review every three or four years. Personal and professional goals. I am achieving these goals at least 90%. I believe in positive visualization.
My favorite sport is tennis, and I would like to play more often, but since I travel a lot, running is the easiest thing to do. I always lug my running shoes around the world, considering my schedule, it really helps me stay in shape.
It’s not something I’m planning. If we have just made a good move, I will say it spontaneously on the spot. I believe in spontaneity and sincerity.
When I’m in Montreal, it’s very little, I take 30 minutes at the office and I share dinner with a colleague, someone different every day. It’s a great opportunity to talk informally about current projects and to take the pulse of the company. I order something at the office and we spend some private time. Aside from summer and the holiday season, I spend over 50% of my time abroad.
The best deals are often the ones you don’t make. In our case, we have made more than 100 acquisitions, but there are transactions that we have not been able to close. There was one in particular that we missed and it disappointed me immensely, it took me a while to get over it. Today, I look at where the company is and I am happy not to have succeeded in this transaction, it would not have brought anything significant to WSP compared to what we have become. Life is a play with several acts.
No mentor in particular, but I have always had a lot of respect for my elders. When I was 10, 11, 12 years old, I had great respect for my grandparents and my parents. I was a waiter at the Manoir Rouville-Campbell and the maître d’ was an old man who had emigrated from France and he taught me so much about good manners and how to serve customers. I have never hesitated to be a sponge to absorb the teaching of elders and their positive criticism. I find that the Japanese have a lot to teach us about how to learn from the experience of elders.
