Serge Godin
Chairman, President and CEO, CGI Group Inc.

Inductee, C.I.P.A. Hall of Fame, 2000

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As a builder of Canadian strengths in information technology, Serge Godin has few peers. He founded one of Canada's first IT consulting firms and has been its leader through 25 years of growth and innovation. CGI has helped many companies to effectively manage information technology, and is itself a model for management of people in the industry.

Godin, born in the village of Shipshaw, Quebec, was only 26 when he founded CGI (Conseillers en Gestion et Informatique) in Quebec City. He started out alone on June 25, 1976, with one client, the Quebec department of health and social affairs. But he could see opportunities far beyond that.

Godin had worked for two computer consulting firms in Quebec for six years following his studies at Laval University. From this experience he recognized that there was a significant gap in the technology market.

"Companies needed to get objective advice from people to select technologies, and to assist with project management and implementation," Godin recalls. When we established the company's mission and values, one of the first values was objectivity."

In a short while Godin was joined by another consultant, André Imbeau, who is CGI's chief financial officer. At the end of its first year, CGI had six employees. After three years it had 25, and an office in Montreal, which became the head office. Another office opened in Ottawa in 1979, followed by Toronto the next year (although, when they started, neither Godin nor Imbeau could speak English). Today CGI has 40 offices in 23 countries, with almost 10,000 employees serving 2,500 client organizations and annual revenue approaching $1.5 billion.

"It's a powerful example of what an entrepreneur can do in Canada if he is determined and prepared to put risk on the table," says Mike Roach, CGI's executive vice-president and general manager of Canadian operations.

Ten years after its founding, CGI became a publicly listed company. In the years since, it has made 25 acquisitions (including Gellman Hayward of Toronto and the two firms, known as BST and IST, who were Godin's first employers). In 1998, Bell Canada's IT systems development and maintenance group was folded into CGI as part of a 10-year outsourcing contract and equity investment by BCE Inc.

"We were one of the first to introduce the full IT outsourcing concept," Godin says. We started to develop the concept in 1992, to manage all IT functions on behalf of our clients."

In 1994 CGI became the first IT services company in North America to receive ISO 9001 certification for its project management framework. As of 2000, CGI ranks as the largest independent end-to-end IT services company in Canada and the fifth largest in North America.

"We have always been a leader in bringing efficiency to the management of technology with very high quality standards," Godin says. The quality of services has to be above and beyond the expectations of clients. If there is something that is a constant in the history of CGI, it is this value. It is quite entrenched.

"It is built around certified business processes, having the right controls at the right time and place. Every time we manage an IT function for a client, we always apply those processes. It means that when we sign a full-services contract, our clients become ISO certified for their IT functions."

There have been other innovations. In 1991, CGI launched its CRC Connectivity Research Centre. This was at a time when computing devices did not readily talk to each other. Corporations came to the research centre, the first of its kind in Canada, to test technologies that would create information networks, the foundation of today's knowledge economy.

A third principle of CGI is that all employees have an opportunity to share in the company's success. Employees are called "members," and each one is offered financial incentives to own shares in CGI. All members participate in profit sharing, and senior management makes a point of keeping communications open. CGI's annual turnover rate is much lower than the industry norm.

Mike Roach says: "Serge has built a model that is very fair and appreciative of the contributions of the people in the company. It's a model that motivates, and in an era when we are talking about brain drain, CGI shows Canadians how they can build a professional career in their own country."

Godin received an honorary doctorate of laws from Concordia University in June 2000. He and his wife Ginette have two grown children. He swims, walks and bicycles for relaxation, and is a director of several charities.

He is a member of the Business Council on National Issues and the Cercle des chefs mailleurs du Québec. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Certified Management Consultants.

Godin is a past member of the Conference Board of Canada, the Board of Governors of the Montreal Exchange and the Young Presidents' Organization. He is a former president of the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal.