What would happen if you melded Mick Jagger with Warren Buffett? What would you get? It would probably be Michael Wekerle – the so-called rock star of Canadian finance who’s as famous for his wild lifestyle as he is for his business winnings.
Wekerle’s entrepreneurial spirit, lavish lifestyle, celebrity friends and joie de vivre have placed him uniquely at the top of both the society pages and the list of Canada’s top power players. And this fall, he will take the stage at OTA’s annual executive conference at the Ritz in Toronto to share his story with the Ontario trucking industry.
Wekerle, who is also the most recent addition on CBC’s popular Dragon’s Den program, will undoubtedly take OTA’s truckers out for a ride – from describing how he dropped out of school at 18 to hone his instincts on the Toronto Stock Exchange trading room floor; to overseeing a vast investment portfolio that includes video games, media, merchant banking (most recently, he founded and was appointed CEO of the merchant banking firm Difference Capital), and burger joints – and all the tattoos and wild celebrity parties in between.
Wekerle, dubbed as the Oracle of Bay Street, is a legendary risk-taker (He was an early believer and investor in Research in Motion, eventually taking the Blackberry maker public). But his reputation is not just based on playing the markets. Here’s how Toronto Life describes him:
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He’s one of a handful of business personalities who transcend the gleaming towers and become known for their extraordinary market sense, their ability to make themselves and others extremely rich, and their high-flying lifestyles. Wekerle, however, is in a class by himself—an eccentric outsider with … a preternatural talent for making money.
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So don’t miss this heavily tattooed, single dad of six, who loves fast cars, loud rock music and donates millions of dollars to a wide variety of philanthropic interests, all the while making mega money for himself and investors.