Mike Benke

Biography:

Mike Benke holds an MBA from McGill University in Montreal (1997). He qualified in 2005 as a CPA. He is a professor in UCW's MBA program, teaching consulting, finance, business environment and strategy. He believes that business academic learning must be relevant to the contemporary business world, and his approach is to relentlessly link the classroom experience with real business situations in Canada, the USA and Western Europe.

Mike speaks English, French, Germanic Languages, Hungarian, Romanian and Russian.

Expertise and Experience

Mike is a strategy and corporate finance practitioner with over 25 years of experience in senior management and consulting to Boards of Directors in Canada and the USA.

For over 15 years, Mike worked with the board of directors, the Finance and Risk Management Board committees as well as with the executive management of Industrial Alliance Group of Companies. Industrial Alliance is one of the largest financial groups in Canada, with extensive operations in the United States. Founded in 1892, it is one of Canada's largest public companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: IAG). At IAG, Mike oversaw internal controls, audit and risk management functions of all the Industrial Alliance subsidiaries in Western Canada and the United States.

Over the years, Mike has been instrumental in a series of major mergers and acquisitions (M&A) undertaken by IAG in Canada (e.g. the acquisition of Clarington), the United States (e.g. the acquisition of Golden State Insurance, Alico of Texas, American Amicable, etc.) and the EU (e.g. Mutuelle de Mans).

After his years with IAG, Mike worked as the senior director of risk management at Aviso Wealth (part of Desjardins Financial), one of the largest asset managers in Canada, and as a lead consultant with a major management consultancy (outcome: present Central 1, present Coast Capital, present VanCity, present National Bank, etc.).

Scholarly Activity

Mike has lectured at McGill University's Dobson Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, and recently at Manchester City University, as well as in executive education seminars in Switzerland (St Gallen and Zurich).

Mike's interests are teaching, management problem solving, behavioral economics and finance to complex adaptive systems and complexity theory.

Contact him through LinkedIn.