History of the DCIT
Changing the face of MBA education
Crafting a vision
One night over dinner in 1999, Rotman Dean Roger Martin shared a revolutionary idea with Canadian business entrepreneur, Marcel Desautels. On this autumn evening, the conversation turned to the need for an entirely new approach to MBA education...
...Roger sketched his vision of Integrative Thinking to Marcel. That of a cross-functional approach that would teach adaptive new ways of thinking to achieve extraordinary outcomes. The seeds of Roger's dream got planted that night. In May 2000, Marcel made a gift of $10 million to establish the Desautels Centre for Integrative Thinking. With Marcel's support, Roger went on to develop Integrative Thinking with Mihnea Moldoveanu, who joined Rotman in 1999 and began heading up the DCIT at its inception in 2002. Then in 2004, Marcel pledged a further $10 million. Marcel Desautel died on January 31, 2023 at the age of 89. He will be deeply missed.
Since then, the centre - through its research, teaching and outreach - has worked to manifest Roger's dream of delivering Integrative Thinking to modern business leaders in order to craft revolutionary ideas in the face of increasingly complex business problems. Rotman is changing the way people think, and revolutionizing better business decisions—at the Rotman school and throughout the international business world.