Eighty Years On

I can’t really tell you what the founders of Newsweek and Esquire were thinking when they founded their magazines but whatever they had in mind was surely fired by considerable optimism. In fact the more I think about it the more it seems that a weak case could be made that the founders’ optimism would some years later inspire Warren Buffett to advise one and all to “Invest for the long term.” Indeed, one would undoubtedly have needed enormous reserves of optimism and a significant belief that the long term would be far better, especially if one had the audacity to start a business in 1933, the height of the Great Depression.

The founders of Esquire and Newsweek were not the only publishers undeterred by the gloom of The Great Depression in 1933. In fairness, though, it should be said that the founders of the Ivey Business Quarterly were less concerned about turning a profit than they were about improving the practice of management.

In this our eightieth year of continued publication, the Ivey Business Journal (so renamed in 2000) remains dedicated to Improving the Practice of Management. Over the years we have brought readers the very best in management ideas and practice, in articles by thought leaders around the world. You will get a sampling of those articles later this year, when we publish our Eightieth Anniversary Issue. For the time being, please continue to enjoy reading what is one of the oldest business magazine in Canada.

 

Through more than 150 columns, John McCallum has delivered some of the most astute observations and cogent analysis of economic issues and their meaning for Canadian business. A professor of finance at the University of Manitoba’s I.H. Asper School of Business, and a former Senior Economic Adviser to the Premier of Manitoba and a former policy adviser to the Federal Minister of Finance, John has written the Viewpoint column for more than 35 years. His column will no longer appear in the Business Journal, and on behalf of everyone at Ivey, and our readers, I offer my deep gratitude to John for maintaining such a high level of writing over such a long time.

The Viewpoint column will be renamed and will feature articles by a rotating mix of Ivey faculty.

 

Stephen Bernhut

Editor