Cleveland S. Patterson
Professor Emeritus
Professor Patterson earned an Honours BA and an MA from the University of Cambridge, and an MBA and PhD (Management) from McGill University. He is also an alumnus of the International Program for Executives at Carnegie-Mellon University.
He began his academic career at Concordia in 1980 following a 25-years business career as an executive and consultant, holding several senior management and board-level positions in the telecommunications and financial services industries. A year later he was elected Finance Department Chair. During his four years in that position he concentrated on revitalizing the Department by hiring and mentoring a cohort of talented new graduates who have proceeded to successful academic careers at Concordia and elsewhere. He also supported the founding students in their launch of the MBA Case Competition in 1982 and acted as the Faculty Advisor to the organizers during its initial four years. In later years he held the positions of Director of the EMBA and MBA programs and continued his involvement with the MBA Case Competition as it evolved internationally.
Professor Patterson loved teaching, particularly at the MBA and Exec MBA level, and was winner of the Distinguished Teaching Award in1994-95.
His research focussed on the economics of regulated industries, and on corporate financing decisions and market efficiency. In addition to numerous published papers in these areas, he was the author of The Cost of Capital; Theory and Estimation. He was widely recognized in Canada and the US as an authority on utility regulation and acted as a consultant to major corporations in the telecommunications , electric, cable TV, energy, and transportation industries. He advised several government agencies, including the CRTC, the NEB and the Federal Dept. of Communications, and appeared as an expert witness in numerous regulatory hearings. He was also a member of the advisory boards of the Institute for the Study of Regulation and the Council on Economic Regulation based in Washington DC.
He was a frequent visitor to New Zealand, where he held an endowed Chair at the University of Otago in Dunedin.
Professor Patterson retired in 1995. He maintains his interest in the International MBA Case Competition and, in 2016, funded the Cleveland Patterson 35th Anniversary Award which is given annually to the student Competition Organizers.
