HEC Montréal’s Pôle D (Top Executives and Strategic Management Hub) signed a strategic partnership with EntreChefs PME (ECPME) during Small Business Month, to promote high-level research on the role of executives.

While the $2,000 billion SMB succession market faces the major challenge of preparing for the transition of 3 out of 4 business leaders in the coming decade, this partnership with ECPME is designed to serve as a catalyst for mutual aid and sharing to ensure a healthy and sustainable future. ECPME, with its community of 2,200 SMB owners and their successors in Canada, Belgium, and Switzerland, will work closely with Pôle D to make value-added knowledge available to its members, academic community, and the SMB management ecosystem.

“We must find the wherewithal to understand the human dimensions of entrepreneurship to shape, inspire and guide the entrepreneurs of tomorrow,” declared Diane Arseneau, General Manager, ECPME. “With a partner like Pôle D, we shall stop at nothing short of redefining and humanizing the image and future of SMB management by building a strong bridge between science and entrepreneurial passion, which ECPME has been nurturing for close to 50 years. In our opinion, the future of SMBs depends on this alchemy.”