45 MBA students from the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University, Canada, have engaged in a partnership with the Iron Ore Company of Canada (IOC), where they will play the role of consultants to eight on-going projects. The students were recently taken on a field trip to visit Labrador City and the mines, located in Canada’s Far North. During their trip they met with President and CEO of IOC, Zoe Yujnovich, who is co-teaching their CEO Insights Class with Professor Karl Moore on the Desautels MBA program.

The students also met with the Mayor of Labrador City and employees of the company, and they will now work on their consulting projects which will be presented to Yujnovich, members of her executive team and Moore in late November.

Moore who co-teaches the CEO Insights course and attended the recent trip to Labrador City, believes the experience could prove to be priceless for students. “The mining industry is experiencing an increasing demand for MBA students. Environmental issues and regulatory pressure is requiring greater management skills, and so exposing our business school students to this will offer them an insight and contact base that could impact massively on their career.”

He went on to say that “many of our students will want to go on and fill roles as senior executives and CEOs in companies such as IOC, and having them visit a variety of industries such as the mining one will expand their outlook and network base. Also seeing first-hand the mining process gives the students a better appreciation of business from top to bottom.”

Yujnovich said that “supporting educational partnerships has always been important to IOC and I am thrilled to be able to further those partnerships to include McGill University. We were honoured to have the Desautels Faculty of Management spend some time with us in Labrador City to see first-hand what we do.”