Rémi Marcoux

Born in July 1940, Rémi Marcoux received technical training specializing in electronics in Quebec. From 1961 to 1964, he was a high-frequency communication technician for the Department of National Defence in Montréal while pursuing his studies at night at the École des hautes études commerciales (HEC Montréal). He became a chartered accountant in 1969. In May 1985, Rémi Marcoux completed the Owner/President Management Program at the Harvard Business School and, in 1988, he was made a Fellow of the Ordre des comptables agréés du Québec.

In 1967, he joined Québecor as an auditor intern. He would remain there for eight years. After his internship, he was appointed controller of a subsidiary, Messageries Dynamiques, for a few months and then chief executive officer until 1973. From 1973 to 1975, he was vice-president of operations of Québecor and Pierre Péladeau’s right-hand man.

At the beginning of 1976, with two partners, he acquired a small print shop in Ville Saint-Laurent and began specializing in producing flyers, a growing niche at the time. He innovated by equipping the shop with a new generation of presses that met the highest expectations of its retail clients. That small print shop with some 30 employees, which at the time had annual revenues of $3 million, is now a major North American company, with over 14,000 employees in Canada, the United States and Mexico, generating revenue of CAD$2.2 billion in 2005. The largest printer in Canada and the seventh largest in North America, Transcontinental is also the largest publisher of consumer magazines and French-language textbooks in the country, and the second-largest publisher of local and regional newspapers. Transcontinental is also one of the largest direct marketing product and service companies in the United States and the largest printer in Mexico.

From 1976 to 2004, Rémi Marcoux was chairman of the board and president and CEO of Transcontinental. In March 2004, he handed over the company’s day-to-day management to Luc Desjardins and became its executive chairman of the board.

Rémi Marcoux has been personally involved in fundraising campaigns for numerous social and community organizations. These include the International Centre for Conflict Resolution and Mediation (CIRCM), where he was chair of the fundraising campaign for the first four years; the Sainte-Justine UHC Foundation; the Montreal Children’s Hospital Foundation; the Ballets Jazz du Québec; and the CHUM Chair in Prostate Cancer. Active in a number of fundraising capacities for Centraide since he started out in business, he became honorary co-chair of the 2006 fundraising campaign for Centraide of Greater Montréal with Michael J. Sabia, at the time president and CEO of Bell Canada Enterprises.

Rémi Marcoux was inducted into the Academy of Great Montrealers in the Economic category in 2008 and was named a Commander of the Ordre de Montréal in 2016.