A recent article in The Globe and Mail highlights the life changes of Joey Adler, a 2014 EMBA McGill-HEC Montréal alumna.
When Joey applied to the EMBA program, in 2012, she had already received an honorary doctorate of laws from Concordia for her business and charity work, but she still says that the program changed her life forever. “In the process of taking my EMBA, it hit me I wanted to do other things,” she explained the Globe. “I didn’t want to do business any more that didn’t have a social component.” And that is exactly what she did.
Joey retired as president and chief executive officer of Diesel Canada at the beginning of 2015, in order to work as a full-time “social entrepreneur” and philanthropist with the Foundation she founded in 2003, OneXOne. She also pursues her role as councillor of community of Estérel.
In 2013, she founded Industrial Revolution II (IRII), an environmentally friendly apparel manufacturing facility in Port-au-Prince who invests 50 per cent of its profits back into the workers, their families and local community.
In 2015, Joey participated in the Live Below the Line challenge to raise money for people living in poverty. She spent just $1.75 a day on food for nearly a week and spent some time living on the streets of Toronto.
Those are some of the changes in Joey’s life that truly have an impact on other’s lives. She does not call it work, because she loves what she does and, as she says, “If you love what you do, you’re not working.”
