Heather Reisman

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Heather Reisman

OC
Heather Reisman.jpg
Reisman in 2007
Born (1948-08-28) August 28, 1948 (age 73)
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
NationalityCanadian
Alma materMcGill University (BSW)
OccupationCEO of Indigo Books and Music
Co-founder and past Chair of Kobo
Spouse(s)Gerald Schwartz
Children4

Heather Maxine Reisman OC (born August 28, 1948) is a Canadian businesswoman and philanthropist. Reisman is the founder and chief executive of the Canadian retail chain Indigo Books and Music. She is the co-founder and past Chair of Kobo, and was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2019.

Early life and education[]

Reisman was born in 1948 to a Jewish family in Montreal, Quebec and educated at McGill University where she received a Bachelor of Social Work degree.[1][2]

Career[]

Reisman was first employed in social work as a caseworker.[2] After her first marriage ended in divorce, she switched careers and joined her brother Howard’s company. In 1979, she co-founded Paradigm Consulting and served as the managing director of this strategic change consultancy until 1995.[3][2]

In 1995, she was invited to become a "front-line investor" for Borders Group, which was planning to enter the Canadian market. When Borders was unable to obtain the necessary federal regulatory approval in Canada, Reisman founded a company called Indigo Books and Music.[3] She raised $25m from a group of investors based on the original concept document for Indigo. In 2001, Indigo Books and Music acquired its main rival, Chapters, to form the largest book retailer in Canada, obtaining a clear leadership position in the book retailing industry. Reisman co-founded Kobo Inc. in 2009 and two years later, sold Indigo’s majority stake in Kobo to the Japanese company Rakuten for $315 million.[4]

Since 1998, Reisman has also chosen more than 262 "Heather's Picks" for Indigo, which are books specifically recommended by her and come with a money-back guarantee.[5]

Although Indigo has increasingly stocked giftware in its stores, Reisman said this in a 2018 interview about the company's core product: "Books were, are, and always will be the heart and soul of our business".[4] She began expanding Indigo into the US in 2018, starting with the first store at Short Hills in New Jersey.[6]

In 2009, she co-founded Kobo to participate in the exploding e-reading market. In 2012 Kobo was sold to Rakuten, and it remains a leader in the field.

Reisman has also served as a governor of the Toronto Stock Exchange and of McGill University.[1] She has been a board member of several companies, including Williams Sonoma and J. Crew. She is currently a Director of Onex Corporation and Mt. Sinai Hospital.[3]

Advocacy and politics[]

In August 2006, due to differing reactions by the two main Canadian political parties to the 2006 Lebanon War, Reisman withdrew her longtime support for the Liberal Party of Canada and chose to support the Conservative Party of Canada under Stephen Harper.[7]

Mein Kampf[]

She drew praise and criticism in October 2001, after announcing that Indigo would not sell Hitler's Mein Kampf in its bookstores.[8][9]

Death penalty for Sakineh Ashtiani[]

On July 5, 2010, Reisman launched an online petition to save an Iranian woman, Sakineh Ashtiani, from the death penalty by stoning. Her initiative found support around the world. Sakineh was not subjected to the stoning.[10]

Bilderberg Group[]

Reisman is a member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group,[11] and has participated in all its conferences since 2002.

Philanthropy[]

In 2006, Reisman founded the Indigo Love of Reading Foundation, whose mission is to enrich the libraries in under-resourced public schools. Since its inception, the group has donated millions of books to over 3,000 Canadian public elementary school libraries.[12]

In 2005, she and her husband Gerald Schwartz founded the HESEG Foundation, which provides scholarships to "lone soldiers", individuals who have served their time in the Israeli military and who do not have immediate family in Israel.

Mount Sinai Hospital announced in December 2013 that a transformational $15 million gift from Reisman and Schwartz would be used to "reshape emergency medicine" at the facility.[13][14]

The Gerald Schwartz and Heather Reisman Foundation donated $5.3 million to St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia in late 2018 to create scholarships, bursaries and increased recruitment of business students.[15]

In March 2019, University of Toronto announced that Schwartz and Reisman were giving the university $100 million to build a 750,000-square foot innovation centre, through The Gerald Schwartz & Heather Reisman Foundation. According to Reisman, the Schwartz Reisman Innovation Centre will be used to improve technology, particularly Artificial intelligence, and how the public can relate to it. One of the two towers will house the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society and the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence while the other will include labs for research in regenerative medicine, genetics and precision medicine.[16][17]

Awards[]

In May 2015, Reisman was inducted into the Canadian Business Hall of Fame.[3]

Reisman is the recipient of honorary doctorates from Ryerson University (2006), Wilfrid Laurier University (2009), Mount Allison University (2010), St. Francis Xavier University (2013), and University of Manitoba (2016) and McGill (2017).[12]

She was named Retail Council of Canada's Distinguished Retailer of the Year (2011), and received the International Distinguished Entrepreneur Award (2003) from the University of Manitoba, Asper Business School.[citation needed]

She is an Officer of the Order of Canada.[18][19]

In 2009, the Financial Times listed Reisman as one of the top 50 businesswomen in the world.[20]

Reisman was also included in the Women's Executive Network's Top 100 Most Powerful Women.[21]

Personal life[]

Her father, Mark, was a real estate developer; her mother, Rose, owned a clothing store; and her brother, Howard, founded computer company Time Systems.[1] She is the niece of Simon Reisman.

Reisman was married earlier in her life but divorced her first husband. In 1982, she married Gerald Schwartz, the founder and CEO of Onex Corporation. Reisman has four children and nine grandchildren.[22] Two of the children are from her first marriage and two are step-children from her marriage to Schwartz. The couple are members of the Reform synagogue, Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto.[1]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Brown, Michael (March 1, 2009). "Heather Reisman". Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. Jewish Women's Archive.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c https://cfc-swc.gc.ca/commemoration/woi-fic/heather-reisman-en.html
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b c d "Heather Reisman - International Board 2017". www.weizmann.ac.il.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b "The Woman Behind the Indigo Heather's Picks". MONTECRISTO. November 8, 2018.
  5. ^ Porter, Ryan (March 19, 2016). "How Indigo's Heather Reisman chooses her Heather's Picks". The Star. Retrieved April 15, 2017.
  6. ^ "Indigo third-quarter revenue and earnings down due to delayed renovations and Canada Post strike". February 7, 2019.
  7. ^ Clark, Campbell (August 4, 2006). "Liberal power couple back Harper on Mideast". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved June 11, 2021.
  8. ^ Adams, James. The Globe and Mail. "Reisman bans Mein Kampf from Chapters and Indigo."
  9. ^ "Remember Mein Kampf". Vancouver: The Jewish Independent. December 21, 2001. Archived from the original on September 28, 2011. Retrieved August 13, 2011.
  10. ^ "Heather Reisman spearheads 11th-hour bid to save Iranian woman from stoning" – via The Globe and Mail.
  11. ^ Steering Committee Archived 2014-03-11 at the Wayback Machine Bilderberg Meetings. Retrieved on 2013-09-19
  12. ^ Jump up to: a b Phone: 514-298-8202, Contact Information Contact: Justin Dupuis Organization: Media Relations Office Email: justin dupuismcgill ca Office. "McGill to honour two trailblazing Canadian leaders". Newsroom.
  13. ^ "Behind a bittersweet industry". Mount Sinai. December 5, 2013. Retrieved March 27, 2019.
  14. ^ Ballingall, Alex; LePage, Michelle (December 5, 2013). "Toronto couple's gift will expand the hospital's patient volume". The Toronto Star. ISSN 0319-0781. Retrieved March 26, 2019.
  15. ^ "Schwartz, Reisman donate $5.3 million to St. F.X." Chronicle Herald. November 21, 2018. Retrieved March 26, 2019. Some scholarships will be worth up to $80,000 each, according to the news release.
  16. ^ "U of T gets $100M donation for innovation centre studying AI". CBC. March 25, 2019. Retrieved March 27, 2019. University president Meric Gertler said the donation "will enable a deeper examination of how technology shapes our daily lives."
  17. ^ "Landmark $100-million gift to the University of Toronto from Gerald Schwartz and Heather Reisman will power Canadian innovation and help researchers explore the intersection of technology and society". University of Toronto. Retrieved March 25, 2019.
  18. ^ "U of T faculty, alumni and other members of university community named to Order of Canada". University of Toronto News. Retrieved January 1, 2020.
  19. ^ General, Office of the Secretary to the Governor (December 20, 2019). "Governor General Announces 120 New Appointments to the Order of Canada". The Governor General of Canada. Retrieved January 1, 2020.
  20. ^ Women at the Top: Women's advancement, fairness and equality in the business arena - FT.com Archived 2010-11-26 at the Wayback Machine. Womenatthetop.ft.com. Retrieved on 2013-09-19
  21. ^ "Heather M. Reisman".
  22. ^ "Heather Reisman - CBHF". www.cbhf.ca.
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