Хизер Рейсман: Бизнес, филантропия и общественная деятельность

Canadian businesswoman

Heather Maxine Reisman (born August 28, 1948) is a Canadian businesswoman and philanthropist. Reisman is the founder and chief executive of the Canadian retail chain Indigo Books and Music. She is the co founder and past Chair of Kobo, and was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2019.

Reisman was born in 1948 to a Jewish family in Montreal, Quebec and educated at McGill University.

Reisman was first employed in social work as a caseworker. Since 1998, Reisman has also chosen more than 262 "Heather's Picks" for Indigo, which are books specifically recommended by her and come with a money back guarantee. Although Indigo has increasingly stocked giftware in its stores, Reisman said this in a 2018 interview about the company's core product: "Books were, are, and always will be the heart and soul of our business". Reisman has also served as a governor of the Toronto Stock Exchange and of McGill University. Reisman was executive producer with David on The Social Dilemma in 2020. Reisman and David also authored a book together titled Imagine It! A Handbook for a Happier Planet (2021).

In August 2006, due to differing reactions by the two main Canadian political parties to the 2006 Lebanon War, Reisman withdrew her longtime support for the Liberal Party of Canada and chose to support the Conservative Party of Canada under Stephen Harper. She drew praise and criticism in October 2001 after announcing that Indigo would not sell Hitler's Mein Kampf in its bookstores. On July 5, 2010, Reisman launched an online petition to save an Iranian woman, Sakineh Ashtiani, from the death penalty by stoning. Her initiative found support around the world. Sakineh was not subjected to the stoning. Reisman is a member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group, and participated in all its conferences between 2002 and 2017.

In 2006, Reisman founded the Indigo Love of Reading Foundation, whose mission is to enrich the libraries in under resourced public schools. Since its inception, the group has donated millions of books to over 3,000 Canadian public elementary school libraries. In 2005, she and her husband Gerald Schwartz founded the HESEG Foundation, which provides scholarships to "lone soldiers", individuals who have served their time in the Israeli military and who do not have immediate family in Israel. Mount Sinai Hospital announced in December 2013 that a $15 million gift from Reisman and Schwartz would be used to "reshape emergency medicine" at the facility. The Gerald Schwartz and Heather Reisman Foundation donated $5.3 million to St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia in late 2018 to create scholarships, bursaries and increased recruitment of business students. In March 2019, University of Toronto announced that Schwartz and Reisman were giving the university $100 million to build a 750,000 square foot innovation centre, through The Gerald Schwartz & Heather Reisman Foundation. According to Reisman, the Schwartz Reisman Innovation Centre will be used to improve technology, particularly artificial intelligence, and how the public can relate to it. One of the two towers will house the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society and the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence while the other will include labs for research in regenerative medicine, genetics and precision medicine.

In May 2015, Reisman was inducted into the Canadian Business Hall of Fame. Wilfrid Laurier University (2009), Mount Allison University (2010), St. Francis Xavier University (2013), and University of Manitoba (2016) McGill University (2017), and University of Toronto (2021). She is an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 2009, the Financial Times listed Reisman as one of the top 50 businesswomen in the world. Reisman was also included in the Women's Executive Network's Top 100 Most Powerful Women. In 2022, she was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto as "Canada’s Most Recognized Literacy Advocate".

Her father, Mark, was a real estate developer; her mother, Rose, owned a clothing store; and her brother, Howard, founded computer company Time Systems. She is the niece of Simon Reisman. Reisman was married earlier in her life but divorced her first husband. In 1982, she married Gerald Schwartz, the founder and CEO of Onex Corporation. Reisman has four children and nine grandchildren. Two of the children are from her first marriage and two are step children from her marriage to Schwartz. The couple are members of the Reform synagogue, Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto.