John McCall MacBain

Interviewee: John McCall MacBain (Québec & Wadham 1980) [hereafter ‘JMM’] 

Moderator:  Rodolfo Lara Torres [hereafter ‘RLT’]  

Date of interview: 04/09/2024 

[file begins 00:04] 

RLT: Great. Hi, John. 

JMM: Hi. 

RLT: A pleasure to be with you for our oral history project. 

JMM: Thank you. 

RLT: I just wanted to ask you, what is your full name? 

JMM: My full name is John Howard McCall MacBain. When I was a Rhodes Scholar, I was actually John Howard MacBain. But my wife, Marcy McCall, and I got married. There were three daughters in the family, so, I thought, if we could keep that name going-, So, I changed my name, actually, to McCall MacBain. So, I have Marcy’s last name and my last name together. 

RLT: That’s beautiful. Thank you. And do I have permission to record this interview? 

JMM: You have permission to record this interview. Thank you. 

RLT: Perfect. Thank you so much. So, we’ll start from the beginning, basically, and if you can, tell us a little bit about where and when you were born and where did you family and ancestors come from originally – I sense a little bit of Ireland or Scotland there – and how was your family life and community life in the place you grew up in? 

JMM: So, I was born in Niagara Falls, Canada, about three miles, say four kilometres from the Falls, and my parents-, my father was from New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, [cannot decipher 1:17. Could be ‘On the basis of’ or ‘Based in’?] Scottish heritage from near the area of Moray and Tomatin, I guess, in Scotland. My mother was Viola Rachel Kenney, and she was no relation to the famous Kennedys, but she was a Kennedy. So, some Scottish but also some Irish, maybe a little bit of English background there. And she was from St. Mary’s, Ontario. And they met, and my dad moved up to Niagara Falls. He was a small town lawyer in Niagara Falls. And I went to public school there, to Canadian public school, government school, I guess you’d call it, to A.N. Myer Secondary School. And then at the end of that and just when I went to university, my father then became a member of Parliament in Canada for one term, the last term of Pierre Trudeau. He was a member of Parliament for Niagara Falls.  

But we were a small town family, you know, just normal income, small town lawyer who interesting work in real estate. He was actually the crown prosecutor for the area, which is an appointed position. So, he ended up doing all the drug cases, so I knew all the undercover RCMP drug officers. We used to have them over for a party once a year and the neighbours would call the police, because they thought-, these people were all undercover. They looked, like, terrible. So, that is my family background. It was, you know, a good, stable family. My mom and dad were together and I had one sister who was adopted when I was five years old. And so, that’s the background in Niagara. And I was actually a wrestler at A.N. Myer School. I did that until grade 11. Then I got involved in student politics, which continued on. When I left Niagara Falls in 1977 to 1980, I went to McGill University in Montreal and studied economics and lived in Montreal, improved my French, and also, I was the president of the McGill Students’ my last year. 

RLT: May I interrupt there? Because you were president of the Students’ Society at McGill, but how was school for you in elementary, middle and high school in Canada, and what were your hobbies, your interests, like there? 

JMM: Yes, it’s interesting. Good question. So, I guess starting more in in high schools, my interests were-, I was a good student, especially in history and English, and pretty good in math, and I loved geography, and I think geography has had a big influence on my life. Two little things from my high school: one is that my grade 7 geography teacher really got me interested in travel and understanding the world. So, I’m quite good at geography and like geography and obviously important for work now in our foundation, through climate change. And secondly, in grade 12, we raised money and actually, we had Russian history in grade 12, and I actually went, when it was the USSR, to Moscow and Leningrad at the time. And at my little public high school, we went there for a ten-day trip, and it, sort of, changed my life, in that I, sort of, realised that, you know, there are nice people in every country. We got to know Russia a little bit, how beautiful some of the things were, and it sort of gave me a more open mind to the world as opposed to, you know, being in this small town and Canada. I saw there were great people around the world.  

Our Russian trip there kept in the back of my mind and when we were in business, from 1996 to 2006, we expanded our classified advertising business into Russia. Actually, we were the largest publisher in Russia from 1996 to 2006. We sold and then, as everybody knows from history, Russia had some problems, starting in 2011, I guess with Ukraine and Crimea, but we were out before, by then. But, you know, during that time, I think we were very helpful in moving Russia from a communist to a free-market society where we had classified advertising papers, which, for free, gave ads to everyone to allow them to exchange goods. So, I think that looking back, ‘So, why were you comfortable having this business in Russia?’ ‘Well, because I went there as a kid.’ So, that’s interesting.  

And so, my third interest was swimming. I was a good swimmer. My dream in life was to become a swimming instructor and work for the City of Niagara Falls. Every summer, when I came home from university, I would get this job and it would be a really good job. And so, when I was 17, I got my swimming instructor’s certificate in March and in April, I was hired as a City of Niagara Falls swimming instructor. Life was great. And unfortunately what happened was, I won the Spanish contest, actually, and had to go to Ottawa for the first week of swimming. So, I called up the City of Niagara Falls and I said, ‘Look, you know, I can’t make the first week, but there’s Harry and Sally and Jerry and two others in my class who haven’t got a job yet. Why don’t you hire them for that week and then I’ll work the other seven weeks?’ And they said, ‘No, no, you’re fired.’  

So, that, sort of, started my entrepreneurial career, and what I did was, I started a competitor in the City of Niagara Falls by going around to people’s pools who had backyard pools and I said, ‘Look, can I use your pool to teach your kids for free? And I’ll charge the other neighbours to come in,’ and I started a business called The Swim School, and that actually paid my way through-, I had a scholarship at McGill, but the other expenses I had were paid by my little swimming company, which became fairly large. I had about ten employees and we had about 20 pools and it became a big little business. This is all because I was fired from my first job, which was my dream job. So, that’s, sort of, been a bit of my history. My history is a bit-, you know, there’s been something that seems like a failure, but it turns out very well. So, it seemed like the worst day of my life when I was fired from the job I dreamed of having, but of course, it turned out very well, because it made me look into the Swim School.  

So, those were my major interests at the time. And then, I guess, student politics. So, the last one: when I was in grade 11, I won Southern Ontario wrestling and I went to the all-Ontarios. I lost to the guy who ended up winning the Commonwealth gold medal, and so, I said, ‘Look, I’m not going to be a good wrestler.’ So, I stopped wrestling. I did student politics in grade 12 and 13, was president of my high school, and that got me interested in student politics at McGill, where I ran the welcome week and then ran the winter carnival and then eventually became president of McGill, and then the principal of McGill, David Johnston, who later became Governor of Canada, said to me, ‘John, you know, should apply for this scholarship called the Rhodes Scholarship.’ I didn’t know anything about it. So, I applied and then became a Rhodes Scholar and went to Oxford. So, that’s, sort of, where it comes from.  

RLT: That’s quite a journey. Were there any subjects, both in your earlier education and then at McGill, that were most interesting to you, and any teachers or professors at that time that played a big role in your life? 

JMM: Yes. I think teachers are super important in the world and I think they’re undervalued. And I went back, actually, and decided I’d do it for myself-, and then, in some of the scholarships we’ve had students go and choose the teachers they really like and give them an award and do a presentation in front of their school to try to encourage teachers, but also to encourage other students that, you know, they can do well and get a scholarship. So, I went back to my elementary school, my senior public school and my high school. In my elementary school, I chose Mr Romanovich, who was our grade 5 teacher. And, as you heard earlier, I was a wrestler, so I was a bit of a tough guy. I got in a big fight at school. And I’ll never forget the day he turned to me and he said, ‘You know, you’ve got to clean up your act.’ And I did. From that day on, I didn’t get into a fight. And he, sort of, turned me around a bit in Grade 5. So, I remember Mr Romanovich and I actually went back to give an award at the school and say, you know, ‘Teachers I remember,’ I circled Mr Romanovich, and he wrote me back a note once, saying, you know, that ‘I’ve retired now, but every day, I look back on my career, I’m so glad I became a teacher.’  

And we need more teachers to think that way and I think we as successful students from those teachers want to encourage that. So, we encouraged Mr Romanovich. And then, as I mentioned earlier, there was the grade 7 geography teacher, Mr Weibrau [guess 9:06], you know, how he changed my life, got us to look at the world and geography and understanding different cultures, different areas, different physical characteristics. It really interested me and that was, sort of, a turning point in my life as well. So, I recognised him. And then, my grade 13 second English teacher at the time, Mrs Yao [guess 9:24] turned out to be a world-class teacher and went on to be one of the famous teachers that still helps education organisation around the world. But earlier in her career, she was our grade 13 second English teacher, and I really enjoyed that, and I wrote a work on T.S. Eliot, and I still used some of his phrases: ‘This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but with a whimper.’ Things like that. And I think that, sort of, got me a little more interested in poetry, and also interested in some of the great works of the 19th and 20th centuries.  

So, those are the three I look at. And when I look through my university, at McGill, probably the I remember more is student politics, getting involved in the [10:00] school and the administration. When I was at Oxford, I had a great professor named Professor Hackney, who taught us trust law and land law. I especially appreciated the trust law and learned a lot from that. So, he was a big influence on me. And then at Harvard Business School, it was probably my marketing teacher as well, and my finance teacher. Those two teachers, I remember, were very important in my life. Of course, in the sum, all your teachers have influence on you, but there are some you do remember and say, ‘There’s a turning point in your life,’ and those are probably the six or seven that really changed. And you know, I really believe in encouraging teaching. It’s such a noble profession, such an important profession, and it’s, sort of, the basis of who we are today. 

RLT: It is. It is. So, you were telling me about McGill and how you were the president of the students’ union. What was your major at McGill? 

JMM: My major was economics at McGill. 

RLT: So, you’re studying economics and you combine that with a very active career or trajectory in the politics of the students in McGill. First of all, how did you combine both, and how did you get interested in student politics at that time? 

JMM: You know, I got interested more from the, like, service side, as opposed to the political side. So, I got involved in welcome week and winter carnival, you know, doing activities for students. So, I was probably more of a student-oriented student leader trying to change the life of students, as opposed to a more radical student leader trying to change the outside world as much. Obviously we got involved in many things in the outside world as well at the time, but I was more involved in-, I guess I liked leading people. I liked organising things. I’m good at that. And so, I think that student politics was a, sort of, precursor to my eventual business career where I’m, you know, running things. So, I viewed the student politics more as a chance to run something, more than an ideological basis.  

RLT: Got you. That’s beautiful. And your undergrad major in economics, how was that? How did that provide the foundations for your future career? Tell us about it. 

JMM: No, you know, at the time, in our high school, we didn’t have any economics. I really didn’t know what it was. I actually started in economics and political science and took both courses the first year to have a joint honours in that, and eventually I dropped the political science to do economics. I think it gave me a good background in understanding how the economics of the firm and how the economics of society works. I thought it was a good background, and it also gave me the chance to, you know, take other subjects. I took French, I took some other classes: I took some mathematics classes, took an accounting class.  

So, by doing a single major – honours, they called it – it allowed me to get a good background in other areas. And then, when I won the Rhodes Scholarship-, my father had been a small town lawyer and he was the most open-minded father I can ever imagine. I can give an example of that, you know, whatever you want. But only one thing in my life he told me: he said, ‘Don’t become a lawyer. So, when I was accepted to Oxford, you know, at that time, they didn’t have an MBA at Oxford. So, you know, I decided to take a law degree, but more as a background as opposed to becoming a lawyer. So, I did the two years at Oxford as a law degree, but never took the bar, never became a member of the bar, never did become a lawyer. I actually went into business right away. I went to Harvard Business School directly after Oxford and became a business person, which I, sort of, knew was my field after my experience in the Swim School when it started out. But the law was a very good background.  

So, I think, if you look at what you learn to do, McGill taught me how to lead, Oxford taught me how to think and Harvard taught me how to manage, in some way. So, I think those three things: each of the schools provided something different. But you know, the background in law was very helpful and the things we learned in that were really helpful. I was also co-captain of the ice hockey team in Oxford. I brought back the European tour, which they hadn’t done for 20, 30 years, and brought that back. And so, I also got involved in the ice hockey club when I was at Oxford. 

RLT: That’s wonderful. You were saying that one of your professors at McGill encouraged you to apply for the Rhodes. 

JMM: He was actually the president of the university. Because I was president of the Students’ Society, my direct interlocutor was the president of the university, at that time called principal, and he’s the one that suggested I applied for the Rhodes Scholarship. I didn’t really know anything about it. And he said, ‘You should apply for this scholarship.’ I looked it up and said, ‘Okay,’ and I applied. 

RLT: And the selection process is one of the seminal parts of being a Rhodes Scholar, particularly the last round with interviews and everything.  

JMM: Right. 

RLT: So, do you remember your interviews, your final interview? 

JMM: I remember it very well. So, at that that time, the process was, your application had to be approved by your principal. So, I put the application in to the university. The university approved it. Obviously, the principal approved it, because he suggested I apply, and then it went to a group. At that time, there was a small committee. They met at the Ritz Hotel in Montreal. The chair of the committee was Madame Jeanne Sauvé, who was governor-general of Canada. I don’t know if she was governor general at the time or she was just Speaker of the House at the time, but was a very well-known Canadian, very professional, very good. And then on the committee were several academics and some other people, including somebody I still see today, Michel Vennat (Québec & Merton 1963), who is secretary of the Québec committee and was on the committee. He’s the one who actually phoned me, and I still see Michel today. I saw him, you know, eight, ten weeks ago, which was a chance [guess 15:44] and I got to know him from that day, from that interview in 1979. Now, it’s 2024, so I’ve known him for a long time. 45 years, I guess I’ve known Michel.  

So, you know, that’s the interview process, you know, got another friend. So, I went through the interview process. You know, I sort of believe that-, for us, it was great when I was interviewing, because I said, ‘Look, maybe I’m not the right person for the Scholarship, but I believe in the Super Bowl theory of life which is, on any one day, anyone can do anything. So, I said, ‘Hey, maybe I’ll get to do the lucky interview.’ You know, I think that the Rhodes Scholarship should take time to review selections to see if there should be more interviews, so they get those students better. Of course, for me, I had a good interview. It went well. So, I’m not complaining, but I think, as a process, not that they’ll miss out on the best students, but they may make a few mistakes than, you know, more interviews would have had. So, you know, we’re experts in scholarship. We’re, as you know, a Second Century Founder of the Rhodes trust, a major donation to the Rhodes Trust and others, and, you know, we bring together a group called the Global Fellowships Forum, which brings together the seven top scholarships in the world, and we work with them. And I think one area that some of the scholarships are doing more work on, and Rhodes could do more, is selection.  

RLT: Yes. Yes. 

JMM: I think there are things that the Rhodes will have to work a little bit more on introducing, spending more time, more money on selections, because selection is important, and I think the more time and money you spend on selection probably helps 30% in getting the very best people, but 70% avoiding-, not getting the people you didn’t want. So, selection is super important.  

RLT: It’s so important. You’re right. Do you remember the questions, or was there a question that you remember that was either too hard or too original, or your answer? 

JMM: Yes, there was. I didn’t get this question, but one of the questions that people said to me, you know, before the interviews is a famous question which is, you know, ‘John, it’s the end of your interview and thank you very much. But before you leave, John, you know, we’re at your funeral and you’ve got an open casket and we’re looking down on you and what would you like people around you to be saying?’ And of course, the winning answer was, ‘Look, he’s alive!’ So, I remember that question. I didn’t get that question, unfortunately, but I had the right answer for that.  

But no, I think the interview was good. It was comprehensive. My thesis was about leadership, but also about Canada, and they asked me some questions about Canada and, you know, I think I gave some okay answer on that. I think in that year, we had two Rhodes Scholars from Québec. We actually had three from McGill: a guy from New Brunswick, Matthew Jocelyn (Maritimes & Lady Margaret Hall 1980), who is a playwright. And Matthew was very successful in his career, and he won the Rhodes Scholarship from New Brunswick, but he was going to McGill. And then we had the two Québec ones who were also McGill Scholars, Marc Tessier-Lavigne (Québec & New College 1980 who became president of Stanford University was the other one, and there was myself.  

So, the two Québécois were Marc Tessier-Lavigne, president of Stanford, you know, world-famous academic, and me. So, I think that they tried to balance the, sort of, practical, rough and ready salesman, entrepreneur – me – and the more academic approach, with Mark. So, I think it was an interesting-, you know, if I look back at the committee, I think they, sort of, said, ‘Gee, we’ve got, you know, two sides of the world here, with two different people,’ and I think that’s important in some ways. You know, I hope that the Rhodes Trust doesn’t just get the person like me or doesn’t just get the person like Mark, but we’re able to have a selection process that gets the leaders in the individual fields, leaders in business and entrepreneurship, a leader in the academics like Mark, a leader in the theatre like Matthew. I think those are three totally different people. I mean, couldn’t be more different than night and day, but at the same time, three leaders in their individual fields. So, that was interesting, and I think that, you know, the selection process in Québec and also in New Brunswick and Maritimes was able to bring that out, or at least in 1980.  

RLT: That’s beautiful. The Canadians and the Americans used to have the sailing, taking the ship to the UK.  

JMM: Yes. 

RLT: Did you guys also have that? 

JMM: We sure did, yes.  

RLT: So, how was that? 

JMM: That was great, I guess. That was great. And it’s unfortunate they changed their schedule, Cunard lines. We took the Queen Elizabeth 2 over, from New York to Southampton [20:00] and it was interesting. You know, we got to meet, the Americans and the Canadians, right away, everyone. We had lunch at Rockefeller University, and it turns out my classmate Marc Tessier-Lavigne became president of Rockefeller University. Many years ago, he’d never have thought that, the day he had that lunch. And it was great, because we really got to know the group, and I think the only negative of that was we tended, as Canadians and Americans, to know each other better.  

So, we created a small group over those five days in the ocean and we kept very together. So, we were probably less involved with the other Rhodes Scholars. What’s good now about the Rhodes Trust is there are more activities at Rhodes House, so I think, if we had the QE2 today and Rhodes House and the activities, but also Rhodes House being more open, we would have, as Canadians, more links with the South African, the Australian, the New Zealand, the German-, the other Scholars. Because of the bias of that boat trip, which I really recommend, because it did give us some great friends-, I mean, my friends today are the people I met that day on the boat, so that’s great. But I think that, you know, now, it’s even better-, it would have been better, because the Americans, the Canadians, but also the Rhodes House experience and your activities before and meetings, I think it’s good that all Rhodes Scholars are active.  

You know, as a member of the Board of Trustees, I was chairman of the building committee that did the renovation of the Rhodes Trust building and, you know, I see the Rhodes Trust now, much more open and Scholars more interactive with the building, and so, we got a building that, you know, we worked on really hard to make sure there are different interests, timing-, you know, can students come in late, do everything? So, we tried to do that, and I think the new building is really open to that, and that makes the Rhodes Scholarship more valuable than it was in my day, because now, we’ve got much more interactive with Rhodes House. 

RLT: So, when you were a Rhodes Scholar in Oxford, it was a very different experience from today, of course. Tell us, how was that? How was it to be a Rhodes Scholar in Oxford? 

JMM: So, I can start when we landed in Southampton. So, we landed in Southampton and I’m, sort of, Mr practical organiser, business person. And the Warden met us. 

RLT: Who was the Warden? 

JMM: The Warden was Robin Fletcher, and the Warden met us, actually, with one of the Scholars from Canada the year before, Jacques Hurtubise (Québec & Trinity 1978), and they were standing there, and we got off the boat and we’re all standing around, sort of, wondering, ‘Okay, what’s next?’ I’m, ‘Hmm, where are our bags?’ And then, so, I asked Robin Fletcher. I said, ‘Where are our bags?’ He goes, ‘Very good question.’ ‘Okay.’ I said, ‘Where are our bags?’ ‘Excellent question.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ So, I said, ‘Seems our bags are down here. Why don’t we go down the stairs and take everybody there?’ ‘Oh, okay.’ So, I brought all the group downstairs to get our bags and then they told us, as we were getting our bags, that ‘By the way, take one little suitcase for the bus to Oxford: a) we’re going to stay overnight in Southampton and b) when you go the next morning to Oxford, three days later, your stuff will arrive. And by the way, I hope you have sheets for your bed, because you’ll need that for your room and all that.’  

So, everybody was-, it was chaos. And I just immediately saw, I guess, the, sort of, practical, Canadian, North Americans, myself, and the very theoretical English background, not thinking through all the little details. It just hit me very hard. So, that was my first experience of Oxford, which wasn’t bad or good, it was just different, right? And so, I remember a lot of people sharing sheets and trying to arrange for the first three days, until their bags arrived. You know, North Americans would have arrived and driven through the night to get to Oxford the first day, right? We wouldn’t have had any of this where we’d have a big truck follow us. So, it was just interesting, how that came.  

RLT: You went immediately to college, to Wadham? 

JMM: No, actually, we were on Holywell Street, just off there. We had a little place where I met-, Gordon Crovitz (Illinois & Wadham 1980), who was a Rhodes Scholar I met on the boat, who was from the University of Chicago. Gordon and I are still good friends today. Gordon was a roommate in Holywell Street. Gordon was writing at the time for the Wall Street Journal and his career became publishing the Wall Street Journal. So, Gordon, a very successful Rhodes Scholar, and we had three flats there and he was one of the roommates in the flat in Holywell Street at Wadham, and then, we went out to university housing the next year. 

RLT: Okay. That’s great. So, that was the arrival. And then, what else comes to mind? 

JMM: The chance to travel in the summer was great. You know, I did travel that summer, which was a great experience. The summer between the years at Oxford was a great experience. I had to work every other summer and I worked, actually, for a Rhodes Scholar who was general counsel to Canadian General Electric. I worked for them the summer before, in Toronto. But the summer between years, I was also able to travel and I took advantage of that with the Eurail pass and Interrail Euro. I think there are two of them. I can’t remember which one I used. And I went to Europe and that gave me a great opportunity. That travel was great.  

So, I think, you know, I look back on my Oxford years, I really learned a lot in the law area, enjoyed that. I’m glad I did it. I didn’t become a lawyer. I didn’t want to do the one thing my father asked me not to do. I didn’t break that rule. But I did learn about the law and use it every day in my philanthropic and also our business work. Secondly, I got more involved with ice hockey and my organisational skills were used there, organising this European trip. Thirdly, was able to travel and really got to know the continent, got to know Europe better, and really enjoyed that. And I think, in Oxford, you know, I was studying, being with Rhodes friends, but also being with college friends and working the hockey team. So, those were my major activities and, you know, it was a good two years, a great two years. 

RLT: That’s great. Did you have your yearly appointments with the Warden.

JMM: Yes, we had. Once a year, you’d see the Warden and you’d, sort of, come into his office and he’s sitting behind his desk and you talk for ten minutes and you leave and then there’s the Coming Up Dinner and the Going Down Dinner, and that was it. They also had a ball, though, at the Rhodes Trust, and I couldn’t afford to go to the balls everywhere else, which were £80 or £100. The Rhodes Trust one was cheaper, so I did actually go to the Rhodes one. They had a ball there, I remember, at the Rhodes Trust at that time, and they stopped it and they restarted it more recently, which was a great thing. So, I remember, because I couldn’t afford the ones for the other colleges which were, like, £80 or £100 at the time. So, I went to the Rhodes one, which was either free or very cheap, and I remember that. So, it was nice. 

RLT: That’s great. You have mentioned already several friends that you made from the Rhodes community at that time, but I guess that you also made some other Oxford friends at the time.  

JMM: Yes. You know, it’s interesting. I did make some other Oxford friends, but most of my friends at Oxford, it turned out to be, were the Rhodes Scholars and most of them whom I met, you know, in those North American and Canadian ones. So, I’m still very close. Best man at my wedding was a Rhodes Scholar, some of my best friends, sat on my board, two of the Rhodes Scholars. I keep in contact every day. You know, people I meet all the time. I think my Oxford experience was more linked, actually, to the Rhodes Scholars, although we had less activities, because I got to know them. I was not-, you know, the English students were younger, because I did an undergraduate degree in, like, a graduate degree. So, the other students were young. We were, sort of, 21, 22, 23 and they were, sort of, 17, 18, 19. So, we tended to stay more with the Rhodes Scholars whom we got to meet. A lot of Canadians, Americans. So, I’ve had, you know, good long-term friendships with many of the Canadian and American Scholars to this day and talk to them often. 

RLT: That’s great. So, we know the criteria from selection. We know fighting the world’s fight. But how would you define a Rhodes Scholar, based on your experience and your classmates at the time? What makes a Rhodes Scholar? 

JMM: So, I mean, I think they’re interesting. At least, I found that, you know, if you look at my time at McGill, when I was more involved with student politics, the, sort of, group there, or my fellow students in economics or students at the residence, and at Harvard Business School where there were more business-oriented people-, I thought-, you know, there’s a variety of subjects. What I liked is the fact that the Rhodes Scholarship brings students from every subject area, so a theoretical physicist to an economist to a global health person to a student in law. That diversity of students from all different subject areas is very important and their work is a foundation of the Scholarships. They’ve always tried to do that, with a diversity of subject areas.  

So, that’s one of the things I think is important in the Rhodes Scholarships, in my friends that are Rhodes Scholars as well, is that diversity. I think that several, but maybe less than we think, became leaders in their field, which is good. So, I think that, you know, again, it’s having more variety, maybe, in Rhodes Scholars, to have more leaders in different fields. I think we’re very strong in the academic field, some politicians as well, and a few businesspeople, a few entrepreneurs. I guess one thing I’ve noticed with the Rhodes Scholars, on average, compared to myself – and I’m obviously off the scale on this – is the ability and willingness to take risk. I’m definitely a risk-taker and, you know, if somebody has got to go forward, I’m the one that stands forward. And, given the, almost, pillow or cushion that a Rhodes Scholarship gives you in terms of success in the future, I think Rhodes Scholars take a little more risk. And, you know, I mentor a lot of Rhodes Scholars and I meet them. I do say, ‘Look, you know, take a risk. There are so many people that want to do the traditional role.’  

So, you know, if we’re looking in this project, in your oral history project, one thing I could, sort of, suggest to future Rhodes Scholars is, you know, take that risk, do that different thing. You know, the most dramatic example of that is probably this kid who is 17 or 18, and he takes lighter fluid and he puts it in his mouth in Québec City and he blows out the fire, and that’s his job. You know, that was his job. He’s a busker, you know, and he shovels things. So, where is that busker today? Well, he really liked doing that, and he, sort of, [30:00] thought about it an awful lot, and he realised that circuses around the world did this, had acrobats, but they also had these animals coming by and he just thought that he didn’t need animals and circuses. So, Guy Laliberté, this busker in Québec City, went to Montreal, which was a world-leading circus school, and he got some people in there and started Cirque du Soleil, which is a multi-billion-dollar company. 

RLT: Wow. 

JMM: From the guy that really had his passion, and he took some risk. And, you know, I don’t know Guy Laliberté, but if you look at his background, from starting as a busker, to keeping his one field to be a world leader in circuses-, you know, he invented circuses with more music but without animals. You look at that and say, ‘Wow, look at the risk he took.’ But look at the downside he has. He had nothing to lose also, but he had nothing to gain, in terms of, he didn’t have somebody at his back to fall on, you know? And so, I think that Rhodes Scholars should look at Guy Laliberté. You know, he’s a genius. You know, if you’re good at something, follow your passion, take that risk. And, you know, I look at what he did with Cirque du Soleil, it’s just amazing, you know, and you hear stories like that. So, you learn in business and also in activities in the world, that every area you can be really good at, if you’re passionate about what you’re doing, and if you’re good at it, you can do very well. 

RLT: Yes. Thank you for that, and I think we will go back to the mentorship and some of the advice that you have, because you have spoken several times at Rhodes House and I have had the pleasure to listen to you. The last time, I think, it was 60 rules. 

JMM: Right. I’ve turned 65. It’s 65 rules now. Where is that poster? I’ve got that poster somewhere here. Anyway, it’s 65 rules now. 

RLT: We’ll talk about that later. I’m very curious about that and also about your advice for Rhodes Scholars. But you finished your degree at Oxford, your undergrad law, and you mentioned you went immediately to Harvard Business School. That’s extraordinary. 

JMM: Yes, that was interesting. One of the Oxford Rhodes Scholars who was on the boat – I met him on the boat – William Altman (Texas & Pembroke 1980) from New Ulm, Texas, and I became friends we were both, sort of, interested in business. So, we sat at his manual typewriter and typed out our applications to Harvard Business School together and we both got in, and he was section G and I was section C. So, you know, the Rhodes Scholar network followed on from there, and so, to answer your question, I left Oxford to go directly into Harvard Business School. They accepted the fact that I was a little older because I had had two years at Oxford, and also the business experience, my swimming company and, you know, running student politics as my, quote, ‘business experience.’ And so, I walked into Harvard Business School in 1982, to 1984 and I was 24 to 26 and I got my MBA there. A very different experience to Oxford. Still had a few close friends there, but probably not quite the diverse, in-depth network of friends I had at Oxford. And then, from there, I went and worked for a company in Montreal for three years and then took the big step to become an entrepreneur. 

RLT: I wanted to ask you, is there a Harvard Business School case based on your business? 

JMM: There’s a small one, based on what’s called a critical fractile. When you delivered Auto Traders to the store, how many did you collect and what the cost of overage and the cost of underage. There’s a small case on that. I don’t know if they still use it. We’ve thought about. I mean, they’ve talked about doing something bigger and it’s a) time and b) confidentiality.  

RLT: Yes. 

JMM: We haven’t done that yet, it’s a great story. So, when I left the company I was working with, Power Corporation of Canada, to, you know, launch on my own to buy Auto Trader in Montreal, called Auto Hebdo, and then built that around the world from 1987 to 2006, 19 years, you know, that’s an interesting story. 

RLT: Yes. A wonderful business case. I was just wondering, because we would use it also here for Rhodes House, that business case, that HBS case, but that’s for another day. So, after business school, you said that then you went to work for a company. 

JMM: For three years. Yes.  

RLT: When did entrepreneurial work begin really pushing you? 

JMM: So, you know, I think I was always an entrepreneur, because I had that swimming company. I actually started a fruit stand as well. So, I had some small businesses when I was a kid, and when it wasn’t a small business, I was running something, I was running the McGill Students’ Society, I was running the hockey team. And so, I guess I always had that entrepreneurial spirit. I worked for this company and it was really a company owned by an entrepreneur who started from nothing, Mr Paul Desmarais Sr. So, I thought, you know, that I’d go work for them to see how he reacts and what he does. So, I worked there for three years, got a little time with him. He was, you know, older at the time, but still head of the company and I was able to watch him and his son Paul, who’s a great entrepreneur as well, and to learn from them.  

But I still realised that working for someone else wasn’t, sort of, where I wanted to be and probably where my skillset wasn’t as good. So, I’d always gone to Toronto on business and saw the Auto Trader there and just figured, ‘Jeez.’ You know, it sells for five times a daily newspaper, but if you unfold it, it’s smaller than a daily newspaper and yet it has 100% ads versus one-fifth ads. So, it’s really one-eighth the cost. I said, ‘Gee, that’s interesting business.’ So, when the one in Montreal became for sale, I went and bought that, and that started my career in Auto Trader and classified advertising in general. We became the world leader. We were in 23 countries. We were the largest publisher of any publisher in Russia from 1996 to 2006. And so, we ran that business from 1987 in Montreal, then bought a few others across Canada and then bought most of Canada, moved to France, I bought the French paper and then started growing around Europe and then moved to Geneva to be a central place where we could run the business for the long term out of there, and it became a very big business. So, we had about 7000 employees at one time, across the world, and that was great, you know. And I think it was, you know, things I learned from Oxford. I used my law degree a lot from Oxford. I used my, you know, leadership training and doing things, and also having been able to work with these great people and great teachers, I thought I was well equipped to do that, and it turned out very well.  

RLT: Did you take the company public, or did you say it remained private? 

JMM: So, actually, we were private from 1987 until 2000, and we were the last person in the world to get out before the .com bubble burst. We were the absolute last person. So, we priced our deal on the Wednesday. It was called trader.com, to get the internet multiples. We had a very high valuation. It was priced on the Wednesday night, but because we were public on the NASDAQ and the Paris Euronext Stock Exchange, it didn’t actually trade until the Friday. But we hit the peak and the mark started going down on Thursday, so by the time we hit Friday, our stock just dropped the second they went public. We got all the money at $30, but I think the first trade was at $27 and then went to, like, $19 the first day. So, we were very good at timing. Sometimes, that’s more luck than good management, but that luck we had by getting out that one day. If we were one day late, there would have been no public issues.  

So, we were public from 2000 and in 2006, I basically sold the company. We didn’t sell it all but sold by parts and the money was dividended up and dividended up to public shareholders, including myself, and the company was liberated. So, we basically sold the company in parts across the world to different people, and we sold it into five parts, and we sold all the business. And then, we decided, ‘Look, what are we going to do with our life?’ We decided to become philanthropists, and so, in 2007, we started the McCall MacBain Foundation, and so the story goes on and the philanthropic group goes from there. 

RLT: That’s great. So, first of all, you grew a company, you scaled it up, you went public, you remained there and you sold it. How did your leadership style evolve from the entrepreneur leader to the president and CEO of a larger company and a public company that was active in places like Russia and around the world? How has your leadership style evolved? 

JMM: So, it’s interesting. I don’t think it evolved as much as maybe it should have. So, we were obviously very respectful of-, we’re big on, you know, proper accounting and proper documentation, etc. So, we were, you know, a good public company in that way. But I was a controlling shareholder when it was public and when it was private, so I always viewed it as, you know, we’ll do what’s best for the business.’ We weren’t there to have short-term profits. We invested for the long term.  

So, I always ran it as an entrepreneur private company, and I had help. I hired  a really good number two president, chief operating officer, Didi Berton [guess 39:05], who did a great job. I hired, you know, good financial staff to have a good CFO who could help me also on the earnings calls etc. So, we still ran it as more entrepreneurial organisation, but you know, I think more companies should run like that. So, we ran it as an owner-managed company and, you know, I think great businesses are owner-managed and we’ve seen that in the past. I think we’ll see it in the future. So, you know, I ran it day to day and we built it up and I had help with that and we had some great people. We tried to create, [cannot decipher 39:35] a management style. We tried to create a loyal team around it.  

So, a lot of people are with me today. I’m 66 today and, you know, the head of my investment committee, I met at Harvard Business School, the people who are head of my family office, I met at Oxford in 1980. So, you know, there are a lot of people who have been around me a long time and [40:00] I think we make decisions quicker and better because we know each other, know our culture, have a cultural honesty and directness and an understanding of where we want to go. So, that was really good. So, we’re probably different than other businesspeople: more loyalty base, we want to have a great team that works together for a long time. People make mistakes. We’re, sort of, open to that and, you know, ‘Let’s move on together.’ They’ve done great things and so, we’ve had a team that’s been with us a long time and that continues today. 

RLT: That’s one of the main lessons of leadership, right? The teams that you build and you keep around you. 

JMM: Right, right. Exactly, and I think, you know, what we want is a good team who’s there for us in the long term and hence, we make good long-term decisions. You know, they might not be the world expert in one thing at that time, and we can hire someone from the outside as a consultant if we need to. But, you know, we want those people to think long term and have the same culture and values as we do. So, that was really important. I think that, you know, back to my grade 7 geography class, Mr Weibrau [guess 40:58], you know, we always joked when we were living in Paris, we said, ‘Gee, I have more chance of knowing the real value of the classified advertising paper in Santiago, Chile than I do of the value of the apartment right next to me,’ you know?  

So, I think we learn very much as a businessman to focus on our area and then, since we’re only in one area, we can actually go international, as opposed to, you’re in many areas and hence, you know, it’s just too complicated to go international. So, we were able to have a business in 23 countries. We were the leader in classified advertising in France, in Mexico, in Venezuela, in Colombia, in Argentina, in Spain, in Belarus, in Ukraine, in Russia and China, through real estate, in Taiwan, all of those. So, I think we created a unique-, one of these leadership styles was decentralisation. 

RLT: Yes. 

JMM: So, we were very good at creating profit centres and having people who, you know, ran those profit centres. So, we had a very small headquarters at that time. Of the 7000 employees, we had only, you know 50 people at headquarters. So, we tried to have a very decentralised organisation close to the actual businesses in each country. So, those are the sort of management styles I, sort of, developed or learned, given the business and given our background. 

RLT: During that time in business, in that phase of your life, what is the toughest decision you’ve faced? 

JMM: Yes, well, we faced a lot. I guess one of the tough decisions was, you know, leaving Canada to go global. So, that was a big decision we had. My son had just been born a little while before. I had two kids at the time. My daughter was entering kindergarten. And, you now, I said, you know, ‘We’ve got a big business in France. We should probably move to France.’ But that was a big decision, moving to France with two young children, but I also realising that I had to get to France now, because you want your kids to go to kindergarten in France to do grade 1, because CP or grade 1 – Cours Préparatoire in France – is the most important year of your life. So, you don’t want to go into France, say, ‘Oh, just walk into CP.’ You want to have the experience of kindergarten.  

So, I was able to move to France so my oldest went to kindergarten in Paris, and that was a big change. We moved from Montreal to Paris, started a new life in Paris. And then, that allowed us to develop our business, not only in France, but throughout Europe. And so, from 1992 to 1998, I lived in Paris and was able to, you know, with the family, grow there. I had another child born, actually, just during the time when we owned a business in France – we didn’t live there – and then moved and, you know, had the kids educated in French from that point on.  

RLT: Wonderful. How were those years in Paris for you and your family? 

JMM: I mean, I love Paris. It was a great time in Paris. We built the business into Sweden and other countries. Paris is great: great connections, everything. It’s a big city. We’re big skiers. So, it’s a little far from the ski hills. So, one of the reasons in 1998 we decided to move to Geneva because it’s closer to the ski hills. We could ski every weekend, and that was an important thing. So, we moved to Geneva in 1998 and continued the business until 2006, when we sold the parts. 

RLT: When you sold the business, how was the day after? 

JMM: You know, we sold the business in parts, so the day after came when the last part was sold. So, you know, we had some reflection: what did we want to do? And we sold for cash, so we had cash and we decided that we’d basically give most of our money away, and that was a decision made in 2006. So, in 2007, we started the McCall MacBain Foundation, a Swiss-based foundation. We worked in many areas. First, we worked in maternal mortality issues and then we transferred. We didn’t think we were having as much effect as we should there and we work in three areas now.  

Our main area, as you know well, is scholarships. So, we’re world leader in the donation of scholarships. We’re leading donor at the Rhodes Trust, leader donor at the Mandela Rhodes Trust. We created scholarships around the world, including the Kupe Scholarship in New Zealand. We created the McCall MacBain Scholars at McGill in Canada, The Loran Scholars Foundation, these scholarships all over the world. So, we sold the business and with that cash, we developed a foundation that works in three areas. So, about two thirds is scholarships around the world and, as we said earlier, leadership scholarships, wide subject areas, not just one subject area.  

Secondly, 20% on climate change, which I think is a major issue in the world, and we work in several areas in that: nature-based climate solutions in Canada, work on the Global Methane Hub worldwide, and I was founding chair of the European Climate Fund issue. And then thirdly, work on youth mental health, which has become a major issue – about 5%, 10% of our funding – and that’s linked a bit to our scholarships, but getting our links with universities. So, we do a lot of that work. Universities we know around the world, but especially universities in Canada. So, got our customer proposals from a university in Canada as a second round of major donations in mental health.  

So, we’re trying to help youth mental health in Canada. Tough issue. Youth mental health around the world is tough. So, that’s our third area of work. So, I guess, to answer your question directly, the transition was tough. I was used to running one business I knew very well, and now, I have two things to do. Philanthropy, I don’t know very well, and looking at investments or businesses we’re going to buy. But we’ve had some interesting things, since we left, on the philanthropic side. We’ve created, I think, a great organisation of people in our foundation who help us work on scholarships, on climate change, youth mental health, and also, we have a general area for things that come up, with disasters, etc. We try to help them. So, they have that part of my time.  

And then the second part is really the business side. We kept in business. We still own operating businesses. Some we own-control, some we don’t. But during the COVID pandemic of 2021 to 2023, or whatever it is-, yes, around there, we thought, you know, did we want to buy some businesses that are pretty solid? And they’re good, and some are involved with individual support. So, we bought Wilier, a Tour de France bike company. So, we’re making bikes in the north of Italy. The biker Mark Cavendish won the most stages of the Tour de France with our bike, the Wilier Filante, and then we won silver medal at the Olympics in the Filante as well. So, we’re happy about that. We also invested in MAAP: it’s a bike clothing company. And then, in the middle of COVID, I said, ‘Gee, you know, although our foundation, we’ve given money to perpetual scholarships,’ because I was always worried that the investment-, what if you make some bad decisions?  

So, I said, ‘What can I invest in that would last forever?’ So, I told one of my guys, I said, you know, ‘Go and buy the Eiffel Tower.’ And sure enough, he couldn’t buy the Eiffel Tower. I said, ‘That was a good thing. It will last forever. Well, let’s go buy the CN Tower in Toronto.’ So, true story: I had this Harvard MBA who was Nigerian Harvard MBA student, and I hired him for the summer, and I said, ‘Look, go and find out who the CEO of the CN Tower is and who owns it.’ And he came back, he said, ‘John, you won’t believe this.’ I said, ‘What is it?’ He said, ‘Well, it’s owned by Canada Lands,’ which is a 100% subsidiary of the Canadian government. I said, ‘Yes, and who’s the president?’ He said, ‘The president’s name is John McBain’ the same name as me, it turns out. True story. This only happens to me.  

So, of course, John MacBain sends an email to John McBain, the guy responds right away. No relation, but it turns out he was born 20 kilometres from my hometown, in Port Colborne. I was born in Niagara Falls. And, you know, we talked a little bit about it. He thought maybe we could take a management contract, etc. And then it turns out, he retired, and someone else took over, and they weren’t interested in that. So, I’m still thinking, you know, ‘We need something to last forever.’ So, we ended up buying into, and now we’re a partner with three cousins in, Bondinho, which is the Sugarloaf mountain tram in Rio de Janeiro. So, that was one of the investments. So, I’m heading to Rio, actually, in ten days, for the wedding of one of the cousins. And, you know, that was a great investment. It’s really something that is going to last forever, and they actually have rights to the land, so it’s not as if it’s a concession. So, I think that’s a great investment we’ve got. So, we’re looking around the world for gondolas and other things like that. We think they’re really good investments if they’re unique properties in the world.  

RLT: Yes. 

JMM: So, that’s what we’ve done since then. So, it’s a little more difficult, in that I don’t know the business as well as I do, but I get more variety in my life in terms of that. 

RLT: Yes. 

JMM: We’re used to running things. Now, we have, sometimes, minority positions. In both the biking company, the bike clothing company and the Bondinho, the Sugarloaf, we have a minority position, but we work well with the partners and I think we’re seen as a valued customer. We have a very long-term time horizon. We don’t need to sell anything. So, I think that’s been important for them. So, we’ve been a fairly good partner, hopefully, for these people and we hope to continue that in the future. So, we’re still looking around for interesting businesses to buy. We’re growing, and then, of course, we have an investment portfolio as well. All those things. You know, in the end, beneficial ownership is the foundation for all our future profits, and sets up money and gives more away. 

RLT: Thank you. And now, I would like to introduce this segue. You mentioned at the beginning when you were talking about your foundation [50:00] that scholarships is almost two thirds of that and one of the most important aspects of your life, and you are so important to the Rhodes Scholarship, being the Second Century Founder. You came at a time when we know the Rhodes Trust was in dire straits and basically, thanks to your generosity, the Rhodes Trust exists again in its form today. But can you tell us about that time/ How did you learn about the situation in the Rhodes Trust? How did you know what had happened, and what was the story about you jumping in and playing that role? 

JMM: So, we started working in what we thought was the greatest need in the world: some maternal mortality issues in Africa. We worked on that, found that was hard to do, wasn’t as successful as we thought. We learned, really, two things, I guess. One is that a good philanthropic gift is one taking a problem, hopefully a large problem, that you have a decent chance of success on and that your cost for success is reasonable. And with the scholarships, we found that it was, you know, a trusted institution. So, we knew that if we gave our money on these institutions, or if we started the scholarship on our own, we knew where the money was going. After doing some things in Africa, we were always concerned about, you know, corruption, etc.  

So, that was something that, you know, made us look more to education scholarships. I guess secondly, I was a Rhodes Scholar. I was a scholar at McGill. I was a Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation scholar at Harvard. So, I was the result of scholarships, so I wanted to, sort of, give back in that way to scholarships. So, it’s more like, you know, you want to teach a person how to fish, not cook them the fish. So, I think that was important to us, and we, sort of, knew and understood scholarships. So, at that time, we were, sort of, thinking what we should do at our foundation, and Don Markwell (Queensland & Trinity 1981), who was the Warden of the Rhodes Trust at the time, called me and said, ‘Hey, John, would you like to join the board? We’re revamping the board.’ So, I did and I started learning, you know, some of the mistakes that were made by the Trust and why they got into some problems. And so, I saw that, and I saw that, you know, somebody has got to stand up and do something otherwise this scholarship is going to go down, and I just said, ‘Gee, well, they need a lot, they don’t need a little.’  

So, we made our largest gift at the time, £75,000,000, to the Rhodes Trust, and I think with that hope to a) help in itself and b) encourage others, and I think it did both. Obviously, the money itself, we gave help, but we were able to raise, you know, tens and tens of millions of pounds from other people as well, given that donation, and now, the Rhodes Trust is, you know, on a much better financial footing. You know, I’m always concerned about governance. So, governance will be important to make sure we don’t get into trouble like that again. When we started the McCall MacBain scholars at McGill, for example, in Canada, we wanted to make sure that we funded it properly, that we had also, you know, an arrangement with the university on fees, to make sure that we didn’t get caught by some arbitrary movement of fees. And we know the British government increased the international student fees with the universities and, you know, the Rhodes Trust didn’t get any extra funding for that. So, that really was tough on them. That plus some other investments, etc., you know, probably led to us having to get money. You know, and we gave it a positive sense too. Yes, we had to help, but this thing-, we also said, you know, ‘This will help grow the Scholarship.’ So, you know, we look back-, how many years has it been since then? Over a decade now. 

RLT: Yes. 

JMM: So, ten, fifteen years. You look back, so, yes, you know, it’s not just, ‘We saved it and now we’re back where we were.’ You know, we’re not only back where we were, we’re 20, 30 Scholars more. We offer Scholarships globally now. We have a Scholarship student from UAE. We’ve had students from all over the world. We’ve had students from China. We’ve had students from Russia, you know, and I think that’s great. So, I’m very happy with that twofold vision I had: one, to put the Trust on a sound financial basis, and two, to have the Trust as a global scholarship. I think those have been successful and obviously, you know, it can be more successful and over time, we hope it will grow, but I think we’ve kept our core values in that. You know, I believe in the Scholarship, the growth of the Scholarship itself. I’m happy with where we are today, thankful that our money was able to help a) stabilise the Scholarship, as you mentioned, but also b) grow it to the future, and a successful future.  

RLT: And was you were mentioning, it was energising the community. 

JMM: Our class leader programme, right. 

RLT: Exactly, and I think that was equally important. John, you were instrumental in leading the 110th anniversary reunion where the campaign was launched, so, tell us a little bit about that reunion and your role, and how it was. 

JMM: Sure. It was interesting, Rodolfo. What I said is, what we were doing the first time is getting money from Rhodes Scholars and some big donations. We’ve done that part. How do we get Rhodes Scholars interested, to make big donations or small? And one of the things big donors want to see is that the community itself has given. So, that was important to me. And, you know, I thought back and said, ‘Gee, what is the number one place in the world, in universities at least?’ I guess there are two great fundraisers in the world. There is Princeton University with the example of, you know, how well they raise funds, and probably the second is Ducks Unlimited, believe it or not, who has these dinners where-, you don’t want to go. They’re unbelievable fundraisers! I think Ducks Unlimited is, like, the second largest conservation organisation in the world. But those two are, you know, the penultimate. And I think, you know, given the Rhodes Trust, I think Ducks Unlimited maybe isn’t our best bet.  

So, I looked at Princeton, what they were doing, and I said, you know, ‘Each one has a leader for the class.’ And, you know, we didn’t know how it would go: you know, the Rhodes Scholars might all join. So, we said, ‘Let’s make it a class leaders plural programme,’ so we could have more than one leader in each class. So, it’s much more participatory. So, Erica Mirick and I, you know, me in Geneva and her in London, split up the calls and we called everybody we thought-, from every class back to, I think it was-, we had some before 1950 and up to, I think it was just before-, this was just before New Year’s Eve. We were calling people, trying to get-, because I wanted one for every class, and I think we succeeded, with two or three in the 1940s, but we had 1950 class on, at least one class leader for each year. And I think that was important because it brings-, as you know, you’re a Rhodes Scholar, but you only know people plus or minus one or two years from where you were, especially your year.  

So, by bringing the whole Rhodes community together, that’s great, but they don’t have any affinity. The affinity is within their classes. So, we had to make a touch point with Rhodes House more top-down, but also a top-up approach, which is the class leaders. So, you know, I still encourage the class leaders. I’m involved in the calls still. We’ve had, you know, great luck with them. And it’s threefold, really: bring news of Oxford Rhodes Scholars to the community and the leaders to pass that on; number two is the leaders to bring together their class, do activities, keep them informed, communicating; and number three is to have them say, ‘Hey, can you give back to the Trust, in small or big ways, in continuous small ways or in big gifts as well.’  

And I think that the class leader programme is super important, because the Rhodes Trust, for somebody three years ahead of me or three years behind, I don’t know anybody, but I know my class and I’m still seeing them today 40-something years after, right? So, 44 years after, I’m still, you know, talking to my Rhodes Scholar friends tomorrow. You know, I talked to them last week. So, that was linked to my class, and so, that’s class needs leadership, and so, we developed leaders in each class. I’m in the class of 1980. I think we had three or four or five leaders in our class, and that was great, and I was one of them. Yes, I think it’s five leaders in our class. Some of the classes had three, you know, when we get in the 1960s, 1950s. We were so happy to get one, but, you know, that was great. You know, as this oral history project goes on, I encourage the Rhodes Trust and Scholars to make sure that keeps up, make sure we keep up the class leaders, make sure they’re seen as their dual role: not just fundraising or not just communications. That we keep them there. And, you know, some are more interested in communications work, some are interested in fundraising. That’s great. Have two or three for the class and one person does one thing, one person does the other. I think that’s the way to succeed. And also, it culminated in bringing together all the Rhodes Scholars. So, the class leaders were able to go down to their class and say, ‘Hey, come to this 110th anniversary.’ So, the 110th anniversary, we had it in 2013, was it? 

RLT: Yes. 

JMM: So, the 110th anniversary of the Rhodes Trust, it was twofold. The 100th was in South Africa, which I went to, and the one in Oxford. I was involved in was the 110th, which was in 2013. And so, we looked back at the 100th anniversary and we saw, you know, some great formal activities: Nelson Mandela was there, Bill Clinton, etc. And the 110th anniversary, we wanted to bring all the classes together, to show the rejuvenated Rhodes Trust, right? The rejuvenation of the Rhodes Trust started a little bit with the 100th anniversary with, you know, giving money to the Mandela Rhodes, but the Scholarship was more of the same. I think that with the 100th anniversary, bringing Scholars in 2013 to Oxford, class leaders helped that and we really had a community sense of back and forth among the Scholars, and that really launched, I think, the next generation of the Rhodes Scholarships.  

So, from 2013, the 110th anniversary, to today, 2024, 11 years later, you know, we can see the Rhodes Scholarship has changed. We’ve got much more involvement of the current Scholars, in Rhodes House and with themselves, with all the other Scholars. We’ve got more Alumni, inter-Alumni and Alumni Scholar work. I do mentoring of Scholars. We have activities and programming. I speak at them. We’ve got, you know, things I listen and go to. We have anniversaries every so years. We have, you know, more people saying, ‘Hey, we’ll just do an anniversary for our class.’ So, in the 120th anniversary, I guess 2023 [1:00:00], you know, we brought our class together first, the class leaders got together, and we brought the class of 1980 together at a small outside Oxford for three days, and then we came and joined the 120th anniversary in Oxford, and I think we weren’t alone in that. So you know going back to a circle of the 110th anniversary I mentioned that I ran in 2013, I think that shows, you know, there are two things that work there. It’s bringing all the Scholars together and having the class leaders, and the 2023 one, the 120th, was the result of having a reunion for our own class and also having a renovated Rhodes House. And, you know, as chairman of the building committee for the Rhodes Trust, we’re very proud of what we did there. The building is in great shape. Now, it’s more open to the world and open to the Scholars – I think that’s important – and open to Alumni and our community. 

RLT: So, was that your vision, with chairing the building committee, to make Rhodes House a much more open and inclusive place? 

JMM: Yes, much more open and inclusive. I think it was almost like a mausoleum, you know? And even the entrance. Remember that entrance we had: you’d walk through it and there was the echo and you’d hear your heels come by and there was, sort of, nobody. It was just-, so, we said, ‘How do we open it up? How do we make more meeting rooms?’ And I was very concerned with entrances. So, ‘How do we make it such that people can be in the building after hours, etc?’ And having different interests, separating the office function from the, sort of, event function, which could be a third party paying money, which is a great help to us, and still allowing the Scholars to have their side of it, and to have accommodation.  

So, I think, with the new building, we’re able to do all of that and in way that’s consistent with the architecture. I’m, as you know, an economics major and a law major and an MBA and I’m a businessperson, entrepreneur, 100%, or maybe now a little bit of a philanthropist. I’m not an architect, I’m not good at it, but I love architecture and I do understand spaces and my wife and I together have made several homes and office renovations and we’ve always started from first principles. And so, I took on this project and actually, the Rhodes Trust had a committee, and I was the chair of the committee, so, I said, ‘We’ve got to choose an architect,’ but, you know, I had this fantastic architect in Vancouver, and I said, ‘Look, you know, we’re going to interview all these architects. Why don’t you come over to Oxford a few days earlier and interview them all?’ And he interviewed them all and said, ‘This is the one you’re going to choose.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ I just kept it in mind. I said nothing. And sure enough, the whole committee got together and sure enough, said, ‘We chose that one.’ So, I said, ‘Okay.’ So, I trusted the committee’s choice, but I also knew that a real world-class professional architect who I knew also had the same choice, and that choice, the architect is very good. We’re very happy with the architects.  

And by developing the space and understanding the space and using the space below, digging out that space-, and there are some options I left there. So, in other words, you know, I was at Wadham College, Oxford, which is the next property, and I’ve always dreamed that-, you know, when we made the underground thing, we had the big lecture hall, a big hall that holds maybe 100, 200 people, you know, it’s near the border with Wadham. And so, you know, I’ve always thought, if you ever want to expand, you know, we’ll get together with my friends at Wadham and we’ll push that underground and we could have another set of, you know, buildings or accommodation under there, or a bigger meeting room. And we looked at everything. So, you’ll notice we have entrances both from the front and the side. The side is nice, because it brings people down, you know, through our gardens, but also opens it up a bit to Wadham if we ever did anything that way. But the second thing of the opening was – back to that mausoleum – we were able to open up – and it’s the architect’s doing – by having that cylindrical staircase, the circular staircase going down from that. So, it made the rotunda, which used to be some place you walk through and you see mail around to a place, an entrance. You have a choice: you can go around and go to the other room, or you can go down this big, beautiful opening.  

So, it was a great and majestic entrance. I think the entrance is important. And it also centralised the entrance for events. So, we had one place people go in and it allowed us to use on the side. We were able to build underground too and put some light from the top, which I learned from our house in Vancouver. We did the same, and worked on that. So, we saw they were able to bring light down, how you bring modern together with traditional, able to decide on how we’ll put the new accommodation, and then renovating the existing accommodation, trying to get all the offices in one spot where the students go in, and another where the event is. So, the dream was that they could have a large, you know, Italian or Indian wedding in Rhodes House on a Saturday night, and then the same Saturday, there are students studying somewhere and somebody’s been, you know, able to access their office and separate entrance, separate utilisation and still, the control of the system, but, you know, a fairly modern building, and all of it wheelchair accessible. It’s very important. We had the elevators everywhere. We had the short elevators, smaller elevators, to help people down into the conference room there. So, it’s fully accessible. 95% of the building is still fully accessible, any useful rooms are fully accessible, and I think it made Rhodes House more of an accessible building, keeping its old traditional and beautiful architectural structure, but adding to it some modernity and some good, thoughtful space utilisation, space connecting. That is really important.  

RLT: There is one space you haven’t mentioned yet, the garden pavilion, which was also one of the things that you were really envisioning. Tell us a little bit about that.  

JMM: So, the idea was, how do we get Rhodes House, which is closed in on itself, but has beautiful gardens and not, you know, big picture windows – it’s the old windows – how do we open up the Rhodes building and utilisation through the garden, except for people walking through the garden for the purpose of walking through the garden? So, one way was to open up, you know, the side entrance, where we can go into our theatre, which would open the two entrances there, which is nice. But, you know, where can the Scholars go? What can be open-air? So, the idea, obviously, our architects took it from I.M. Pei, who did the Louvre. We had the pyramid in the Louvre. And so, the idea was, you take modern glass and mix it with traditional fairly similar coloured stone, by the way, at the Louvre, and he did that very successfully. He used it as a centralising of the entrance. We didn’t. We said this would be a pavilion which would be, sort of, for medium-sized seminars, for Scholars to use, but it’s open to the gardens. We didn’t take the second idea of the Louvre, which was an open entrance. We decided to make that through the main entrance, through the circular staircase. But I think it adds a touch of modernity to it. It opened up the gardens and it’s, you know, ‘Let there be light.’ There’s light. And, you know, on the few days when it is sunny in Oxford, it’s a beautiful spot.  

So, you know, the quality of the material and the quality of the construction, that was very important to us. And then, you know, linking to that is, obviously, and we didn’t foresee it, but when COVID hit, you know, we wanted to make sure-, we said, ‘Gee, we should make sure we’ve got very high-quality AV.’ And so, you know, we worked into that, both that pavilion, but also into all the work downstairs, that very modern communications, so we could have conferences where somebody, you know, calls in on a video conference. And then, at the time, video conference was, sort of, unusual, but of course, today and now in the future, we’re hoping it’s always very ubiquitous. So, having set it up that way, we can do that, especially in a lot of the rooms downstairs. We can make it dark, which is really important. So, I think that, in answer to your question, the garden pavilion is there to open up the gardens. It’s providing more light to an area that doesn’t have [cannot decipher 1:07:22] more light, and to provide an architectural piece that centres the gardens and makes them more part of the community. 

RLT: That’s beautiful. And, you know, I had a visitor today from the WEF and they were just really blown away by the beauty of it. It’s a beautiful piece. Your involvement with the Rhodes community: you mentor, every year, at least all of the Canadians, for several years now. You’ll tell me how long you have done that. Tell us a bit about that experience and how mentoring is important to you. How many Rhodes Scholars do you think you have mentored? 

JMM: So, I still meet them. I get some Rhodes Scholars who say, ‘Hey, remember you told me to do this? Well, that’s where I am today.’ I’ve had a few Scholars meet me, you know, at a Rhodes event or whatever. So, I’ve probably mentored several hundred Rhodes Scholars and I still enjoy doing that. I’ve got to set up for this year. I haven’t set up my times yet for this year, which I have to do, and remind me of that, Rodolfo, for the 2024-2025 school year. But no, it’s been good. I think it’s-, you know, obviously, I’m listening. It’s obviously very confidential. I don’t ever mention to anybody, including the Warden, or anybody, anything the Scholars say, of course, unless it’s criminal or affecting somebody’s life, you know, or illegal things, which never happened.  

So, totally confidential, but to try to get them to think a little bit outside the box, realising that, you know, their downside is fairly low. They’re Rhodes Scholars. They’re not going to starve to death in the streets, you know, and most of them live in a country where there is a social safety net. So, you know, they’re taking risks. We want people like them to take risks, because they’ve got the talent and they have low downside, so they’ve got a) the lowest cost of risk and b) the highest chance of succeeding and changing the world. So, I think one my themes I try to bring up in that is taking the risk. I’m also trying to bring my social capital in terms of people I know, etc, to the Scholars.  

So, as a Scholar, one of the things I’ve learned, which is unfortunate about society in some ways, and I learned it, and, you know, I had to build it up, was that there is a social capital, who knows who and all that. People call it a network. I don’t like calling it a network because that sounds so closed. But what I try to do is whatever my network or social capital, I try to bring it directly to those students. So, I’ll say, ‘Hey, you should talk to so-and-so,’ and then, you know, after the meeting, I send an email to that person, to the Scholar, and they meet and they move forward. I also try to challenge them a little bit and where they’re looking. There’s a lot of discussion on careers or what’s next, you know, ‘Should I do this? Should I do that?’ And I try to, you know, question their more set ideas of, you know, ‘I want to work at this company because everybody is working at this company. My friends work at this company,’ you know. So, I try to-, ‘I’m not saying you shouldn’t work at that company. Some should, but not everybody.’ So, [1:10:00] I try to get them to look at that.  

You know, I try not to have a bias. I try to listen to what their interests are and see what they could do that’s interesting and different in their field, as opposed to what they’ve already figured out, ‘What’s the traditional path in my field?’ you know? And so, I told a few times the story of this kid, Guy Laliberté, you know, throwing lighter fluid in his mouth and blowing out flames and juggling bowling pins and yet, you know, starting Cirque du Soleil because he had an insight into that. So, I want them to think a little bit like that and realise that, ‘Hey, he had a lot of downside. He had no cushion, Guy Laliberté, but look what he did. I’ve got lots of cushion, so hey, this crazy idea I had, why don’t I try that?’  

So, I’m trying to push them towards that. You know, I also make them realise, ‘Look, life is in two parts. You do have many parts in tension, but you have to focus.’ You know, there is a part of focusing and, you know, in my life, I was focussing on business and then made a good amount of money to be stable now to focus on community, to give that money away better. That’s one way. You can also do both together. But I’m always telling the students, ‘Look, I want you to choose-,’ you know, ‘Let’s get a graph. What do you like? What are you good at?’ And I give them the example we talked about earlier. I said, ‘Look, I’m really good at physics, believe it or not.’ I’ve never written a physics exam I didn’t get a perfect mark on, but I don’t like physics. So, I’m not a physicist, right? But certainly, you know, I love architecture, but-, you’ve probably seen my writing. I can hardly write, let alone draw, right? So, I can’t be an architect, right? But business has brought those things where I’m, sort of, good at it and I liked it. So, I tell the Rhodes guys, and it’s a very important point, ‘Don’t worry about what you’re good at. People will tell you. They’ll fire you, they’ll hire you, they’ll do something. They’ll give you a good mark. They’ll give you a bad mark. Don’t worry about what you’re good at. You’ll figure that out. I can’t help you with that. But take the time to figure out what you like, because nobody is going to tell you what you like.’ So, XYZ company wants to hire this Rhodes Scholar. They know what that Rhodes Scholar is good at and they know what they can get out of that, but they don’t ask you the question, ‘Do you really like this job at XYZ company?’ They don’t ask them that. That’s the obligation of the Rhodes Scholar to ask themselves, ‘What do I like?’ And if you like what they’re offering, that’s great, but you should make sure first of all you like it, and if you like what they’re offering, you should have probably gone to them first and they shouldn’t have to offer it to you.  

So, I’m very big on Rhodes Scholars taking more time on what they like. And you know, we laugh-, Rodolfo, if you and I were on a trip to Québec City and we we’re walking down the streets and we see this guy on the side and the guy came to you and said, ‘You know, there shouldn’t be animals in circuses and I’m going to create the world’s biggest circus,’ you’d think, ‘This guy is a nut,’ right? But no, dreams are started from that area, because he loved the thing. He liked circuses. He did not like the animal part. He saw that Montreal is a good place-, the big city, moved to Québec City, saw the circus school there and, you know, brought all those together and, you know, Cirque du Soleil is famous now, and everybody forgets that story. So, I try to give that story to some students: you know, any field, no matter what field you’re in. You know, we had famous French chefs. You know, Paul Bocuse, he was sitting there just outside Lyon – he’s passed away now – in France, one of the world’s greatest chefs. But, you know, he saw Disney was opening. They were bringing EPCOT. So, you know, Paul Bocuse went to Disney and brought some French food to the Americans, through EPCOT. So, you know, there are all these different things. You can see there’s a place you can make a difference in life, because he loved his cooking and he wanted to bring it to the world. So, you know, by looking at things, a) what you like and b) what you’re good at.  

And then, I guess my second way is looking at it globally. You know, even it’s a small thing where you’re from or where you are, you can make it a big thing that’s, you know, put together globally. And the other thing is also taking the time to know, what position do I want? You know, do I want to be the person that’s alone starting something in my garage? Do I want to be the person that’s alone, leading? Do I want to be a person that’s a leader among a few? Do I want to be a person that’s a partner with many? You know, where do you want to be and where do you feel comfortable being? And so, that’s very important. That’s the third part is, sort of, you know, what position you want to enter into. And the fourth one is just, you know, a) do no evil when you’re working and fifth, how can you do, over your lifetime, something good for your community? And those are my five, sort of, points when I’m talking to Rhodes Scholars. So, a) what do you like? And then, spend much more time on that, b) what are you good at? You know, let’s take two seconds, and we can figure that out in 30 seconds. c) is, you know, what position do you want to be in, now or eventually? And d) is, you know, don’t do any harm in what you’re doing. And e) is, you know, make sure in your life you’ll bring that to help your community, you know, over the lifetime of your work. 

RLT: Beautiful. And I guess from there, also, you derived your 65 rules or pieces of advice that you have now. 

JMM: Yes. 

RLT: Is that the basis of that, or is it something different? 

JMM: No. So, what happened was-, you know, it’s interesting, Rodolfo, that you asked the question. I’ll just find it here, actually. But what happened was, I kept talking to students and a lot of things were repetitive. I was saying the same thing, because a lot of students had the same things, and some of the principles came up. And so, when I turned 60, I put them together, and put 60 ideas, and I’ve got, now, 65. I’ll just find that here [pause 1:15:11-1:16:05]. So, what I did was, I, sort of, saw these recurring themes and, sort of, little anecdotes that I thought were really helpful for me in my life, so I put them together as 60, and when I turned 65, I put them together. It says, ‘65 pieces of advice learned in 65 years,’ and I actually got a poster of it. I’ll show you the poster in a minute. But, you know, I started and some of them are interesting. I’ll just give you a few of them. One of them was this: a lot of people think, you know-, I said, ‘You’ll probably best succeed if you’re a big fish in a small pond and jump between the ponds.’ And what I meant by that was, you know, you need leadership training. So, if you look at my life, I was president of my high school, I was the big fish, but in a very small pond. I went to McGill. I was president of the students’ society at McGill, I was a big fish in a small pond. And then, as you move on in life, you jump from leadership positions to different ponds, as opposed to starting in General Electric at the very bottom and moving up. I say, you know, think about that idea.  

So, when people are thinking, you know, don’t necessarily think about working for the big company. Think of doing something much more important at a small group company or NGO or whatever, and moving to big ones over time. That was a thing that I, sort of, learned and I put down as-, actually, there was no order, but that was one of the ones I had, actually number one. And the other one was, you know, what I always said is-, you know, the whole ego thing I talked about. I said, you know, ‘Try to have no pride and limit your ego to below your capabilities.’ And so, some people put their ego above their capabilities and then, you know, they get fooled, etc. Then we talked, about early, you know, what do you like? What are you good at? What does good for humanity? And, you know, that doesn’t necessarily have to happen simultaneously. We talked about that.  

I guess my biggest one, which I’ve told everyone, is, ‘You never know when you had a good day,’ and that’s happened to me so many times. Earlier, we were discussing, you know, why I became a swimming instructor and had my own swimming schools, because I was fired from the City of Niagara Falls. That was a horrible day. That was the best day of my life, you know? And the saying is – and this is probably the only one that is really original – is, ‘You never know when you had a good day.’ And every time something goes bad, if you remember that, a) you don’t sink into depression about how bad it is, but b) you realise a) ‘Yes, this might be a good day.’ So, learn from it and learn how to get out of it, and learning how you get out of it, and in learning how you get out of it, you might find something better. So, I think that’s probably my one that I use a lot. 

RLT: Maybe you can share with us, for the documentation of the oral history project, the rules. 

JMM: Yes, sure. I’ll share. I’ll send it to you right now. 

RLT: Thanks [pause 1:18:48-1:18:53]. And in the meantime, I wanted to ask you, John, you have had a very long career and of course, you have also experienced failure and resilience. So, we already talked about the swimming, after that first job, but in your entrepreneurship career, as a philanthropist and investor, how have you experienced failure and what has given you resilience and drive after that? 

JMM: Well, look, that’s a great question. [discussion of technical issues 1:19:30-1:20:02]. [1:20:00] So, Rodolfo, what I’ve learned is that if I look at a success point, it seems to come fairly quickly after a failure point. So, you know, the examples in my life are amazing, when I think about it. So, I did a presentation on that. You know, you look at the failures and say, ‘Well, gee, you know, John, you won Southern Ontario, you lost the All-Ontario championships in wrestling. Terrible day.’ You know, that was a great day, because it put my into student politics. You know, I realised that day I wasn’t going to be the Olympic gold medallist in wrestling, but I got involved in politics, got more involved in leadership. That was a great day. It seemed like a horrible day. I look back and I say, ‘Well, gee, I became a swimming instructor in the City of Niagara Falls. Won the Spanish contest.’ Everything was positive. Then they fired me. It’s a terrible day, worst day. My whole plan had gone away. But, I started the swimming company.  

When I was working for this company in Montreal, I went in to my boss and said, ‘Look, I’d like to take off two weeks to look at this company to buy,’ and he said, ‘Have your resignation letter on my desk by five p.m. today.’ I was basically fired from my first job. Terrible thing. But that was the greatest day of my life, because it put so much pressure on me that actually, in 13 of those 14 days, in 13 days, I bought that company, I owned that company, and that was Alto Hebdo and started the whole Trader Classified Media business around the world. It was that day on 23 June 1987 and, well, I guess it was, what, 13 days before that. So, 10 June, walked into the boss – roughly those dates – and, you know, terrible day on 10 June, great day on 23 June. And then looking back, you know, five, ten, twenty years ago, that was the greatest day or our life, you know, buying that company and getting into that sector.  

So, you know, it seemed like a failure when we sold our business. We sold it to a company Send It, and, you know, sounded great. We sold it, actually, early. We sold it in in the year 1997 and then we sold it for shares of this company called Send It, and three months later, I was the largest individual shareholder in the company. And the CEO calls me and says, John, ‘You can’t trade any shares, but you’re going to see on the front page of the Wall Street Journal today that the company we have, because of the merger of somebody else, is a fraud.’ And so, you know, that sounds like the worst day in the world. But of course, it turned out really well, because we had a contract for arbitration and they decided they had to sell the business back to us. We bought the business back fairly inexpensively, and I remember that was a terrible day turned into a great day. We bought the business back, everything was great. We said, ‘Well, okay, that’s good,’ but then, we’re about to buy the business back, we’re finishing the documentation, then Russia goes bankrupt. Terrible day. Our biggest business is Russia, and all my partners said, ‘We don’t want to buy in Russia.’ So, my partner refused to buy Russia, my banks refused to finance it. So, we asked our investment bankers to look how much Russia is worth and they said, ‘Three million dollars.’ You now, we’ve made fifty, seventy million a year before. Because Russia is bankrupt, it’s worth nothing. So, we bought it personally and then gave the company a right to buy it back for eight times. You know, made about $500 million on that bad day in Russia, right, personally.  

So, it was a great day, you know. And there are so many other examples where something’s happened bad but a) you don’t, you know, lose your life about that and lose all your thinking and get to focus on that, but also, how you react to that, and the fact that may be redirecting you into something more important. So, you know, when my boss said, you know, ‘Have your resignation on my desk,’ it was terrible, but it forced me to actually become an entrepreneur. When the City of Niagara Falls said, you know, ‘You’re not going to do that,’ it forced me to start my first company, the Swim School, which paid my way through McGill. So, I think that whole failure thing: you never know when you had a good day. You never judge failure by the thunderstorm outside today. It’s going to stop, and actually, the greener day is tomorrow. 

RLT: And the resilience of having that belief as well, and openness to the possibilities. That’s beautiful. 

JMM: And how do you deal with your failures, you know? It’s not the failures themselves, you know? 

RLT: Yes. And another big component of your leadership journey has been standing up when nobody else does. Tell us a little bit about that. How have you experienced that? 

JMM: Yes, it’s interesting. You know, there’s a plus and minus to that. The minus is, it’s really lonely and, you know, you’re alone when you do that, right? You may be right and I think, you know, most of the time, you are right, but a) it’s lonely and b) it’s sad to see the other people aren’t standing up with you. You, sort of, stand up and say, ‘Everybody is going to stand up,’ and then, jeez, nobody stands up, because they’re worried about other things, right? So, I’ve seen it in many things in my life. I see it, actually, when-, in my life, I’ve saved five people’s lives. Like, if I wasn’t there, the person would be dead today, right? And that’s a lot, but I’m, sort of, observant, and I’m willing to, you know, act. So, we’re sitting in hiking trip, for example, in Machu Picchu. We’re having dinner with the guide, five of us around the table, and the guide starts going like this [mimes circular motion]. And you know, you realise that he’s choking, but no air can get through. So, he makes no noise, right? So, I realised that, because I was sort of, aware, willing to take a risk, make myself look stupid. I said, ‘He’s choking,’ and I ran around, gave him a Heimlich,’ and he’s breathing again, you know?  

But, sort of, that’s the extreme example that happened many times, when you say, ‘Why does everybody else stand around doing nothing?’ I was sitting with my sister and her husband and a few family friends at the end of the runway in British Columbia, where I’m a pilot, and I flew in to see my sister. And this guy comes in and says, ‘Does anybody have an Apple iPhone?’ ‘Why do you want that?’ He said, ‘Well, there’s a guy out there drowning. We want to call the police.’ So, everybody says, ‘Well, we’ll find it.’ So, I jump up and run out, and I had a knife in my pocket, which I usually keep with me if we’re flying, so if there is any seat belt that needs to be cut-, so, I cut off a buoy that was on a boat protecting a boat from hitting the dock and then threw it out to this guy. And I had done a life-saving course. I was ready to go in the water, but I always wanted to give him that, and I was going to try and put something between him and I so we didn’t both drown. But I was about to go in the water, and the guy came in and I saved his life, you know? But everybody else was sitting around thinking, ‘Well, you know.’  

It’s a combination, I guess. Standing up and no one else is, is a combination of, you now, doing the right thing but also realising there’s a time for action and things are going to be here, now, and that the downside of not doing it, I don’t care about. Okay, so, I’m ridiculous. I’m sitting there, I jump in the water, save this guy, and it turns out, whatever, it’s a joke. You know, that’s okay, because it could have been something worse.  

RLT: Yes. 

JMM: And so, a very good friend of mine, we’re on a boat, going to swim into this beach. There are a few waves, and I’m a really good swimmer. I jump in, he jumps in. All of a sudden, I see the hands, like this, out of the water, I realise he’s not going to make it. And he was actually a medical doctor. And, you know, I looked over, I’m, sort of, seven metres from the boat and ten metres from the boat and there’s just me and nothing. So, I took the risk and went and got him from behind and took him to the boat and saved his life. But it’s those-, I’m giving you some extreme examples of doing the right thing.  

But also, you can say, in an election, you want to do the right thing, you don’t do it. So, I think doing the right thing is actually a seeing intellectually, principle-wise, but then actually doing it. And sometimes, you’ll do it and somebody will say, ‘Hey, John, you fell for the joke,’ you know, or whatever. Because you have to make a judgment, and if the thing is that serious, as you seem to believe and have good reason to believe, it’s worth standing up for it now. And I’ve seen that on groupthink. You know, I’ve been on several boards, both for, you know, corporate, but mostly charities, where I’ve seen there’s a groupthink, or there are conflicts. People have conflicts: they don’t want to talk about that, because it could hurt them somewhere else, but our goal for the organisation is much higher. And so, you know, in those times, I had to stand up and say, ‘No, this is wrong. We shouldn’t do it this way,’ and that’s happened in many, many examples, and it’s very lonely. And sometimes, you say, you know, ‘It’s not worth it. These people aren’t going to listen,’ but, you know, I think it’s important.  

And one of the things I want to teach Rhodes Scholars is, you know, that consensus isn’t necessarily always true. And of course, you know, we all go back to the 12 angry men, right? The movie 12 Angry Men. They’re in a jury and they all walk in. 11 says, ‘Let’s go get lunch. This guy is obviously guilty,’ and then one guy says, ‘No,’ and they go through and they convince 12 angry men to all choose that the person was innocent. But it’s that one person. If that one person was a 13th juror and there are only 12, then that person would have been guilty, but they didn’t. So, there are times in life when it makes a difference. And I think that’s maybe entrepreneurial thinking, because, you know, one of the things in our 65 things is, ‘When in doubt, act.’  

So, the problem with Rhodes Scholars sometimes is, we’re so intellectual that we can think of every which way to Sunday, but sometimes our assumptions are greater than reality. So, what I try to say is, ‘Look, you’re really intellectually bright. You’ve figured out you think you should do this. If you’re uncertain, do it, because you’ve thought through most of the things. The other things you’re going to think of are so irrelevant, but if you sit here and do nothing, nothing will happen. And if you make the wrong mistake, at least you’re early on and you can change it and do whatever. So, ‘When in doubt, act,’ is one of those things that happened in that list. 

RLT: Beautiful. I just have two final questions for the project. One is: you and Marcy are a formidable philanthropic couple. How do you work together in making your philanthropic decisions? How has that adventure been for you? 

JMM: So, it’s been relatively good, actually. We know, we were together, we sold the business, you know, said, ‘What shall we do?’ We decided to make a foundation. We set up the Swiss foundation in 2007, right away. We realised that we did very well in business, it’s all in cash. We said, a) ‘We don’t want to lose that money,’ so we were very careful in our investments, and we said, b) ‘We don’t need all this money to live well. We don’t need to have a, you know, yacht and big boat or, you know, all these things in life. So, we actually, [1:30:00] sort of, created a system where we set up-, unlike other people, what we decided to do was, we set up our lifestyle. We said, ‘Okay, this is how much money in real we want to live on, and we’ll stick by it,’ and we have. In the last 15 years, our real numbers are the same. We said, ‘This is how much money we want to give the kids to help them either create a business or to help them financially’ – very limited versus other wealthy people. And then, we said, ‘We’re going to give everything else away.’  

So, we decided to make the philanthropy where all of our money is going, unless it’s accepted by our lifestyle, helping the kids in a very minimal way and then helping them potentially create a career, again in a very minimal way, and most of it paid back. So, that’s what we decided to do. And so, in 2007, we started the foundation. We started by looking at, you know, what are the world’s greatest problems? And we thought that’s where you should go with philanthropy. So, we started with maternal mortality in certain countries in Africa. We worked on that, and we just realised that, really, philanthropy should be the greatest problems or big problems, times the chance of success, times the cost per success. And we did that matrix, those numbers. You know, a lot of these projects were not there, due to corruption, due to inefficiencies, due to, you know, our lack of knowledge potentially, for sure. So, that’s when we went to the three areas, which is scholarships, two-thirds. I mentioned climate change, which is a big issue for humanity and one we can’t ignore. And then, more recently, youth mental health. We’ve seen issues of mental health in all areas from Rhodes Scholars to, you know, all areas of the community, to a lot of youth. And of course, COVID exacerbated that problem.  

So, we work in those areas. So, Marcy and I, sort of, lead together. The scholarship area, I’m probably a little more involved and excited about it, because I was a Rhodes Scholar and won the Rhodes. But she’s deeply involved and recently, she became the chair of our biggest scholarship, which is the McCall MacBain Scholars at McGill. We gave $200 million Canadian there. She is the chair of that, so she’s, you know, now getting more involved in scholarships and that scholarship. I’m probably more involved in the others, but she’s more involved in that. On the climate change, that’s an area I’ve been working on. I was the founding chair of the European Climate Foundation, so I’m more involved in that, and we have, you know, professional people also in the foundation that are good at that. And thirdly, in youth mental health, is more Marcy. She’s more interested in the health area. She has a PhD, as you know, in evidence-based medicine healthcare from Oxford, and so, she’s taught as a professor there. So, she works more on the mental health area. And so, we try to do that together in general, but in the specific areas, McCall MacBain Scholars is more her now, as chair, other scholars is more me, and youth mental health is more her.  

And then, we do hometown activities, both as scholarships-, so, we’re both working hometown scholarships and then we do other community efforts. I do ones for Niagara Falls and she has ones for Huron County area. So, that’s how we divide it up. It’s important to divide things up as well and we, sort of, have the same values. And if it’s somebody else’s area, we, sort of, let them decide in certain areas where we do it. So, it’s worked very well. We have professional staff now as well. We have offices in Geneva, but also in Toronto and Montreal. So, we’ve got a good staff helping us as well. 

RLT: Beautiful. Last question, John, which is: how does John McCall MacBain want to be remembered? 

JMM: ‘Look, he’s moving!’ No, no. Look, you know, I don’t think you should do things in your life to think how people think of you when you’re dead. I want to do things in my life because, you know, I was fulfilled in my life. So, one of the nice things-, you know, poor Cecil Rhodes. He created, you know, probably the world’s greatest scholarship. He never met one Scholar, you know? It’s, sort of, sad. So, I’m saying, look, we created some scholarships, we were able to give to the Rhodes Scholarship, but I get to meet those Rhodes Scholars, and that’s exciting.  

You know, one of the nice stories I have, which Cecil Rhodes never would have had, was, it was lunchtime, it was the University of Ottawa, I was getting an honorary doctorate in the afternoon for me and somebody else named Cindy Blackstock, an Indigenous Canadian who led the fight for equal education finances for Indigenous people in Canada, and she won that. She was given the morning doctorate. So, I’m sitting at lunch and this kid comes by, young, sort of, 28-year-old or something, and says, ‘Hi, John, how are you?’ And I said, ‘Good.’ He says, ‘I’m one of your Dalhousie Law Scholars.’ I said, ‘Well, that’s great,’ you know. I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ He says, ‘I’m the lawyer.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He says, ‘I’m the lawyer behind Cindy Blackstock that helped get Indigenous Canadians equal access.’ I said, ‘Wow!’ You know, I was happy that I saw some result from our scholarship. I said, ‘Wow!’ You know, if he hadn’t got our scholarship, he might not have gone to Dalhousie, you know, didn’t get there, wasn’t interested in the area, wasn’t passionate, didn’t learn, you know, Canadian Indigenous people might today have lost that case and not have that. So, you know, that was-, whereas Cecil Rhodes never saw that, and, you know, I’ve met great Rhodes Scholars and I meet great scholars from all our scholarships, and I meet them, and that’s great, but, you know, hopefully a few more times in my life, I’ll see somebody, a scholar, that’s really, you know, gone and changed the world. So, I have actually seen one so far, and that was a Dalhousie Law Scholarship, named after my father who went to Dalhousie Law School, and we have three or four scholars there a year and, you know, that’s what happens, right? You never know.  

So, you know, if you look at the Kupe Scholarships, we started that from nothing. It was our idea. We got together with the University of Auckland, we built the programme for them and convinced them to make it a scholarship around things and, you know, all of a sudden, the first Pacifica woman ever to win a Rhodes Scholarship is a New Zealand Rhodes Scholar? She was a Kupe Scholar from our scholarship, a Rhodes Scholar. The second woman, the next year, also wins a Rhodes Scholarship. Our scholar. Third year – it’s a two-year programme, so the third year of the programme, so fourth year of the programme, third year of the graduating class – Gates Scholar, and at the Giving Pledge, I was sitting there with Melinda Gates and I said, ‘Hey, you know, there’s your front page of your magazine. That’s our scholar,’ you know? So, we’re able to see things happening. So, it’s nice. So, when you ask the question, what I want to be remembered for when I die, you know, I want to have the fulfilment, you know, when I’m alive as well. So, that was nice. You know, when saw the two Rhodes Scholars from the Kupe Scholarship come up, when I saw the Gates Scholar come up, you know, the Dalhousie Law Scholar be the key lawyer in the Indigenous case, I thought that was really, really nice.  

But to answer your question, I mean, the joke, of course, is you want to remember that the last cheque bounced, right? So, you want to make sure you spend all your money, gave away all your money at the end. So, one of the things is, you know, we went to try to figure out-, you know, as a joke, I told my CFO he should shoot me at 100, because our budget goes just to 100. So, if I die earlier, there would be too much money I didn’t get the chance to give away that I wanted to give away, that somebody else is going to give away wrongly, you know, the wrong spot they’re going to give it to, or I live to long and I have no money to give away.  

So, that’s the uncertainty of life, that you don’t know when you’re going to die or when you want to become less active. So, we’re trying to give away as much money as we can when we’re alive and also taking the view, ‘Gee, we might live a long time.’ So, we’re working on that issue all the time. But we’re trying to also – not as the hand of the dead – but when I die, we’re making sure there will be some fairly quick donations to major institutions you may know that we know are good institutions that can take the money. So, if we die early, we won’t have discretion in putting money in bad areas, or we wouldn’t have done. We call it the sudden eclipse. You know, the sudden eclipse plan.  

So, I think I want it to be remembered that we were successful in business and entrepreneurial internationally. We were leading philanthropists in the world and were a member of the Giving Pledge. And, you know, were a leader in scholarships around the world and saw the importance of scholarships in the world. I think we’d like that. You know, obviously, as a person, we want to make sure that, you know, we raised five great children and three so far – maybe many more, great grandchildren, or great comma grandchildren, and maybe some great-grandchildren. So, you know, I think those are the things.  

But you know, when you’re dead, you know, the benefit is probably for others, not for you, in some ways, right? But, you know, if we can see each day that we’re doing something, and you know, the variety of my life is interesting. So, I’m, you know, on the phone with you. You know, interesting, and we have a variety, and that’s nice. So, you know, sometimes we say, ‘Oh, no good deed goes unpunished,’ you know? You know, if you’re doing something for the right reason and somebody is hassling you, you think, ‘Oh, this is crazy. Why am I doing this?’ But I think, you know, there are other days when you say, ‘Hey!’ like the day with the Dalhousie Law Scholar, with the day we learned about the Rhodes Scholars coming from the Kupe Scholarship. You know, there are days when you say, ‘Gee, it was worth it,’ you know? So, I think you want to live day to day and enjoy life along the way, maybe do some skiing, maybe a little biking, you know? 

RLT: Thank you, John. 

JMM: And also do flying. I love flying my little floatplane. Some other pals brought it down. I flew from Sao Paulo up to Manaus, flew in the Amazon, landing in the water in Paraty, just between Rio and Sao Paulo and then going up to Manaus and landing in the Amazon. You know, landing the plane in the Amazon and going to a little dock, having lunch. That was pretty fun. So, I try do some fun things along the way and keep life interesting. I have a lot of energy, as you know, Rodolfo, so I try to do all those things. I hope I can keep up that energy for the future and, you know, I just want to thank the Rhodes Trust for believing in this crazy guy from Niagara Falls. 

RLT: Thanks to you, and thanks for this wonderful interview, John. We really, really, really appreciate it. The official part is over. I’ll pause the recording now.  

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