Personal Account: 25 Tales about Leadership, Learning, and Legacy from a Lifetime at Bank of Montreal

I have read Mr. Tony Comper - the Banker’s - “PERSONAL ACCOUNT” with interest (pun intended). It is a gem of a book sparkling with pearls of wisdom. The bite size chapters are reader-friendly and the format with different “voices” pitching-in, quite refreshing; it helps break an otherwise monotonously lengthy narrative. Surprisingly I found Mr. Matt Barrett’s Ciceronian ”voice” missing.This book is not just for bankers. I recommend this to all those who are looking to “do the right-thing” in business, to do the “right thing” for the communities they live in, corporate leaders, business leaders and politicians.Mr. Comper says: “first, do the things that are required by law, which is the bare minimum of doing what’s right; second, and more importantly, do things that seem to make sense from the point of view of both the business and the common good”“focus on results” he says.He touches on a gamut of subjects from the collapse of the real-estate market, the dot com bubble crash, real-estate derivatives, and to globalization; empowering women to diversification, from the environment and working with the Indigenous community to the long-term impact of COVID 19, from Chaucer to Aristotle.Fleeting references to (not) dealing with arms dealers, the blood-diamond trade, and apartheid in South Africa “their government was flagrantly flying in the face of any kind of decency or human rights” – always whetting the reader’s curiosity.Chapter 17 – comparison of compensation for Hollywood celebrities, sports superstars and CEOs – I thought the argument was quite insightful.Equally it is sagely advice to entrepreneurs - like me whose enterprise is on the cusp of a growth surge – as a sidebar: we will post a PAT of US $ 15M in 2021 the lowest in a decade and with tailwinds of a post-pandemic growth we are projected to post a PAT of US $ 300M in the 3 – 5 year time horizon.Mr. Comper repeats his mantra “Festina Lente”- it has taken me 20+ years to nurture the enterprise I founded – more a marathon than a sprint. And like Mr. Comper’s FAST program we channel part of the funds to alleviate poverty through education.Chapter 18 - “poverty is an eyeglass through which one may see his true friends” - GEOFFREY CHAUCERSo this book is timely advice.I found “Tony’s Takeaway” at the end of some chapters not as crisp as it could be. But then again this may be because English is not my mother tongue.I do not recall Mr. Comper’s slide-rule but I do recall the ubiquitous yellow IBM S370 Reference card or the S360 Reference Green card that I frequently referred, to de-bug Mr. Comper’s Assembler language programs when it crashed causing major catastrophe! I do not recall Mr. Comper’s Hudson’s Bay tri-coloured winter coat either but I do recall his chalk striped blue suits!I can afford to be critical and a tad irreverent now because Mr. Comper is no longer my former boss’s, boss’s, boss’s, boss’s, boss’s, boss. See, back in the late 1970’s, as a newly minted VP of the System’s department (O & S previously it was O R & S) Mr. Comper was 7 rungs higher up the hierarchy from me!I wish I could get my well-thumbed copy autographed by Mr. Comper but I am thousands of miles away in a little tropical island – the teardrop of the Indian Ocean - that I now call home. Mr. Comper refers to “serendipity”, the etymology of which points to this tropical island where I have lived the past almost 25 years.Continued success to you Mr. Comper. After nearly 50 years it is unlikely that you may recognise my name or my physical self but that is not important. What is important is that you are a true gentleman and a hero in my book. May the triple-gem bless and keep you.