Stephen Bronfman

Stephen Bronfman (born 23 January 1964) is a Canadian businessperson, philanthropist, environmental activist and scion of the Bronfman family. He is the Chief Revenue Officer of the Liberal Party of Canada and a senior advisor to Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. He is also the last male Bronfman to have stayed in the family's ancestral city of Montreal. Early life He was born at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal to Barbara Baerwald, a New York native and Charles Bronfman, a Canadian billionaire. He is from a Jewish family and his parents married two years earlier at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan in 1962. He is the grandson of Samuel Bronfman and Saidye Rosner Bronfman. He was raised in Westmount, an affluent Montreal enclave. The Canadian senator and Bronfman employee, Leo Kolber was his godparent. Growing up, he was not interested in joining the family business: "I'd see my dad come home in a suit and tie every night, and I didn't want to be like that."He credits his second trip to Israel, where he was a ranger's aide in the Negev desert as a formative experience: "I think that that trip to Israel when I was 19 really had a lot do with my involvement in environmental issues worldwide, the kind of work that I do in Canada" and that “I realized I love this. This is exciting, to be immersed in nature, to preserve it, to teach others about it.” Bronfman completed his undergraduate studies at Williams College and returned to Montreal in 1986. He briefly worked in the marketing department of the Montreal Expos, then owned by his father. In 1990, he studied geology at Concordia University. In 1991, he joined private equity firm Claridge, which was founded by his father in 1987. He shifted his viewpoint about working in business, "I began to realize that the stuff done before me was pretty important and interesting." Career Bronfman took the head of the private equity firm Claridge and has served as its CEO since 1997. The firm has invested in artist tours by the Rolling Stones, Madonna, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Bronfman was responsible for increased investment positions in the high-end organic food and beverage industry, mainly through the creation of the Claridge Food Group.