Meet the President

The new president of the University of Toronto Alumni Association (UTAA) wants to see the organization become an even stronger force for supporting the university’s mission.  “We’re very proud of the UTAA’s recent $500,000 pledge to revitalize Convocation Hall, and this is the type of significant contribution we hope to continue to make,” says Michael Deck (MBA 1990). The UTAA directors elected Deck and their 2005-2006 officers during a Dec. 14 meeting.

Increasing awareness of the alumni association among the university’s more than 400,000 graduates is another of Deck’s priorities, a task that he says can be challenging at a large institution with a college system. “U of T is an extraordinary place, with multiple affiliations. Yet the people I meet are just so proud of the place in general.”

Deck served as a parish minister and program consultant for the Anglican Church of Canada for more than a decade before completing his MBA at the Faculty of Management (now the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management). While there, he developed an interest in business ethics. “Ethics gave me a conceptual bridge between the church and the world of business,” he says. Deck was on faculty at the school from 1990 to 1996 and helped establish the Clarkson Centre for Business Ethics & Board Effectiveness, where he served as the first executive director.

After leaving Rotman he led the ethics and integrity practice at accounting firm KPMG LLP and was a director in global risk management solutions at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. Today he is managing director of Ethidex Inc., a risk management service he founded with colleagues from PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Deck’s past volunteer involvements at U of T include serving as chair of both the Joan E. Foley Quality of Student Experience Award selection committee and the Toronto School of Theology board of trustees. He was elected to the UTAA board of directors in 2001 and is a member of the President’s International Alumni Council. “Volunteering at the university has been an out-and-out pleasure,” he says. “I’ve been continually overwhelmed by the extremely high quality of people at U of T.”