Take all the risks you can. Try lots of things. Get involved, join organizations. You will find things that you like or not, that you are good at or not. You will develop this ability to take risks. This ability is super important. It will allow you to accomplish yourself, to reach your limits, to develop resilience. There’s time to do this at 20, when you’re young.
I am not a person with regrets in life. I am constantly looking to improve, I give my all, and once I do, I have no regrets. I was in politics for seven years, I was an MP, a minister, deputy prime minister, party leader and I had three children… After seven years, perhaps it was time to retire and do something else. I’m happy with what I did.
It’s not in my plans today, but the future is long and I can’t predict the future. I have teenagers, I have great pleasure spending time with my family during an important period for them. And I really like HEC Montreal.
People who told me not to push the machine too much, in the business world. I like it to push. Sometimes people ask to slow down, but I didn’t listen to that advice. And I never regretted it.
Jacques Ménard (Bank of Montreal), deceased, and Madeleine Féquière (consul general of Canada to the United States). These are two people who fundamentally love (or loved) the generation that follows. Who have this ability to give wings to the next generation. Another person: former president of Home Depot in Canada, Annette Verschuren. She is a remarkable leader, very inclusive, entrepreneurial.
Fundamentally, a good boss is someone who is able to push you to go beyond yourself, to surpass yourself, who sees things in you that you yourself are not capable of seeing. This doesn’t mean pushing yourself to work 90 hours a week. It’s more about seeing your potential and giving yourself the tools to reach that potential.
I have lots of ideas, so I don’t need something to get ideas. When I go on a trip, people say: oh no, she’ll come back with a bunch of ideas (laughs)…
Not movies, but books. The writer Amin Maalouf, whom I had the chance to meet. Novels by Marie Laberge. And an essential book: Memoirs of Hadrian, by Marguerite Yourcenar [the book focuses on the art of governing through moderation and pacifism, among others].
If it’s investment in the sense of money, I started putting money aside with my very first paycheck. I always maximized my RRSPs and four years after starting to work, at age 26, I bought my first condo. And four years later, I remortgaged the condo to buy a house, which I never sold. And four years later, I remortgaged everything to buy another house…
This is a personal error. 25 years ago, I went to Vancouver to see a friend who was doing her Ph.D. I met a super interesting guy at a Halloween party, but I hadn’t seen his face because he was in costume. We just talked. He wrote to me again shortly after by email to tell me that he wanted to see me again, that we were going to get married and have children. I said to myself: he’s a madman, I didn’t know what he looked like! Three weeks later, I still went back to see him and I said to myself as I got off the plane: what a mistake, maybe he’s a serial killer! I saw him, I kissed him and we’re still together 25 years later!
Dominique Anglade is associate professor and co-leader, sustainable transition department, at HEC Montréal.
She was leader of the Quebec Liberal Party from May 2020 to November 2022, and Deputy Prime Minister of Quebec from October 2017 to August 2018, under the Liberal government of Philippe Couillard. She became especially known during this last period as Minister of the Economy, Science and Innovation.
Dominique Anglade was born in 1974 in Montreal and graduated from Polytechnique Montréal. She notably worked as CEO of Montréal International and on behalf of the consulting firm McKinsey.
