“The McGill-HEC Montreal EMBA program is an opportunity to suspend time for learning, reflection and, most importantly, to make new friends. Sometimes these encounters can be life-changing and lead us to make a 180^o turn in our career path. After 20 years in healthcare technology development, I met Marie-Josée Lamothe, president of Northex, while on our common journey at the EMBA. She made me re-think the best way for me to contribute to our society’s issues, made the connection between public health and the health of our environment, and then convinced me to join Northex!”

Axel Bergman, a McGill-HEC Montreal EMBA graduate, recently joined Northex Environment as Vice President, Regulatory and Strategic Affairs.

“It’s an opportunity to showcase all my EMBA learnings in the context of a critical SME for the future of our planet.”

Northex, a treatment centre for soils polluted by organic and inorganic pollutants, was founded in 1997 by Marie-Josée Lamothe, one of Axel’s EMBA classmates. From day 1, Northex’s mission has been to give a second life to contaminated soils – to treat them as a natural resource instead of burying them. Today, 25 years later, the company is expanding with two treatment sites and an extensive innovation program aimed at continuously enhancing the value of treated products. Northex’s impact is multifaceted : it reduces the negative environmental impact of industrial activities, produces soils rich in nutrients and participates in the energy transfer with the extraction of critical and strategic metals from contaminated soils.

Northex’s growth and her ever-increasing workload forced Marie-Josée to think about sharing responsibilities in order to make the company more effective, and led to her recruiting her EMBA colleague, Axel, to join her as vice-president.

“I joined the EMBA program to launch a strategic reflection on the future I want for the company and to expand my leadership skills. The EMBA answered many of my questions, I came out enriched, and with Axel to help me with strategic thinking and leadership, we have a clearer vision for Northex’s development.”