Reza Satchu is an East African-born Canadian entrepreneur who has founded a number of high-profile businesses and charities. Satchu is the co-founder and managing partner of Alignvest Management Corporation, the founding chairman of NEXT Canada and a senior lecturer at the Harvard Business School.
Born in Mombasa, Kenya, to Rustom and Zarina Satchu, Reza Satchu was seven years old when his family emigrated to Toronto in 1976 as part of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's policy to accept Ismaili immigrants from East Africa. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Satchu's family soon settled in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough, where his father Rustom worked as a real estate agent and his mother Zarina as a secretary. [2] [3] [4]
Following high school, Satchu attended Montreal's McGill University. Initially intending to become a physician, which he described as a "typical Indian family [thing to do]," he switched majors and received a bachelor's degree in economics in 1991. [1] [2] [3] [5] Upon graduation, Satchu moved to New York City and worked as a financial analyst for Merrill Lynch, but found the post limiting, saying "I wanted to be someone who was actually creating something." [2] Satchu then entered Harvard Business School, graduating in 1996 with an MBA. [2] [6]
After receiving his MBA in 1996, Satchu joined Fenway Partners, a New York-based private equity firm specializing in acquisitions of underperforming companies, as managing director. [2]
In 2000, CEO and co-founder Jonathan Burgstone, [7] aided by the 30 year old Reza Satchu, and his brother Asif Satchu sold SupplierMarket.com, a B2B supply chain software company to SAP Ariba for $925 million . [1] [2] [3] [8] Satchu and his wife Marion Annau then left New York, moving back to Toronto to start a family. [2] In 2003, Satchu co-founded StorageNow, a consumer storage facility chain, which they built into Canada's second largest storage company before selling it in 2007 for $110 million. [2] [3] In 2007, Satchu received Canada's “Top 40 Under 40” award. In 2010, Satchu co-founded fixed income broker-dealer KGS-Alpha Capital Markets, specializing in U.S. mortgage-backed and asset-backed securities, which with 135 employees was sold to Bank of Montreal for over $400 million. [9] [10] [11]
In 2014, Satchu founded Alignvest Management Corporation, a private investment firm. [8] He currently serves as the Managing Partner of Alignvest Management Corporation. [11] In 2018, Alignvest launched Alignvest Student Housing Real Estate Investment Trust. [12] By mid-2023 Alignvest Student Housing owned more than 5,200 student housing beds across several markets in Canada, including Waterloo, Ottawa, Hamilton, Oshawa, and Halifax. [13]
In October 2024, Satchu and his partner Sanjil Shah, after negotiating with Forum Asset Management for several months, oversaw the sale of Alignvest Student Housing REIT's properties to Forum in a $1.686 billion deal. The transaction included 17 properties with 7,159 beds, creating Canada’s largest student housing platform with nearly 10,000 beds. [14]
Beginning in 2004, Satchu taught a popular undergraduate course at the University of Toronto titled The Economics of Entrepreneurship. Drawing no salary as an adjunct professor, he awarded the top students in each class $5,000 scholarships with his own money. [1] [2] [3] [15] In 2011, McGill University selected Satchu as one of three recipients of its Management Achievement Award, meant to highlight alumni who serve as role models for McGill's students. [16] He is currently a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School where he teaches entrepreneurship courses including The Founder Mindset, Launching Technology Ventures and The Entrepreneurial Manager. [15]
Inspired by teaching his economics of entrepreneurship class at the University of Toronto, [17] in 2011, [18] Satchu co-founded the Next 36, an organization which annually offers entrepreneurial students [19] an eight-month program at the University of Toronto in which they learn from guest lecturers and mentors how to develop their ideas to successfully launch new businesses. [8] [20] [21]
Next 36 was founded with a long-term objective to improve the startup ecosystem in Canada, in part by providing aspiring and promising entrepreneurs the skills to recognize and take advantage of business opportunities. [22] The organization was formed from a concern by its co-founders, and others, that not enough was being done to support Canadian entrepreneurs as compared to venture ecosystems found in the United States. [23]
In 2016, the Next 36 was renamed Next Canada and two more programs were added, Next Founders for more advanced startups and Next AI for entrepreneurs in the field of artificial intelligence. [20]
Next AI provides an annual six month founder and venture development program, with AI-based startups receiving both product development and market commercialization support. [24] Meanwhile, Next Founders specifically helps founders of high-growth ventures with entrepreneurial education, direction and access to investors who are affiliated with Next Canada. [24] Next Founders admits up to 20 founders of ventures each year. [24] In 2023, Next 36, a program focused on students and recent graduates, admitted into its program 43 founders who are leading 22 different ventures. [24]
