Former mentee honours an investment legend

A Canadian investing legend, champion for good governance and Concordia donor, Jarislowsky felt “very touched” when van Berkom asked to name the fellowships after him.

“It was an unexpected and extremely generous gesture that really speaks to the type of person Sebastian is,” says Jarislowsky.

Concordia President Alan Shepard says the renaming of these fellowships is a fitting gesture: “Knowledge is something we inherit from previous generations, and J. Sebastian van Berkom learned some of the ins-and-outs of investing from his mentor, Stephen Jarislowsky.”

The two men have a lot in common. Both European immigrants, they came to Canada to grow roots and en route established celebrated careers for themselves in the finance world.

When they met in the early 1970s, van Berkom had just completed his bachelor’s degree in commerce from Sir George Williams University, one of Concordia’s founding institutions, and was working for the Bell Canada Pension Fund. Jarislowsky, already a seasoned investor, was brought in once a month as an independent consultant to help manage the fund.

“To get the opportunity to learn from a well-established guru like Stephen Jarislowsky was fantastic,” says van Berkom.

Today, he considers Stephen both mentor and friend. The two have known each other for over 40 years and both sit on the board of directors at the Institute for Governance of Private and Public Organizations (IGOPP), an initiative co-created by Concordia’s John Molson School of Business and spearheaded by Jarislowsky himself.

“Mentorship shouldn’t be an extraordinary gesture — it should be the norm,” Jarislowsky says. “We all have the responsibility to pass on what we know and invest in the next generation.”

Stéphane Brutus, interim dean of the John Molson School of Business (JMSB), says the school is lucky to count Jarislowsky among its supporters.

“Stephen Jarislowsky is someone with the ability to groom talent. He didn’t just build a business; he spotted, trained and developed future leaders — including Mr. van Berkom. In recognizing that mentorship, we’ve in many ways come full-circle,” says Brutus.

Established in 2015 through a generous $1-million gift from J. Sebastian van Berkom, the Van Berkom Small-Cap Investment Management Program provides a small group of select JMSB graduate students with an experience that will open the door to a career in the global capital markets.

Each year, six to eight students work under the supervision of the program director, Reena Atanasiadis, to actively manage a portfolio of small-cap stocks.

Van Berkom has high hopes for this first cohort of Jarislowsky fellows.

“I just want to see them blossom,” he says.