Heather Reisman and Gerald Schwartz - 2006

Heather Reisman, President and CEO of Indigo Books, and Gerald Schwartz, Chairman and CEO of Onex Corporation, were the inaugural Luminary Entrepreneur Award winners in 2006.

Reisman is best known as the founder and CEO of Indigo Books & Music Inc. (1996) which merged with Chapters in 2001. The Montreal native's first entrepreneurial stint was the co-founding of strategy and change management firm, Paradigm Consulting, in 1979. Subsequently, she was President of Cott Corporation.

Schwartz co-founded CanWest Global Communications Inc. in 1977 and the investment firm, Onex Corporation, in 1983. He was awarded the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of The Year Ontario Lifetime Achievement award in 2005 and was named an Officer in the Order of Canada in 2006. That same year, he also made a donation to the University of Waterloo for $500,000 for an exchange program with the University of Haifa in Israel.

Both Reisman and Schwartz were in Waterloo to receive the award and to deliver the 2006 Luminary Entrepreneur speech to a gala audience.