When Bill Moffatt, MBA ’79, was diagnosed with ALS in December 2022, his friend and former classmate, Peter Coughlin, MBA ’79, was struck by his optimism and resilience. 

“You couldn't help but be impressed by Bill’s positive attitude, strength, and courage in the face of something that a lot of people would find extremely devastating,” says Coughlin. 

This past January, Coughlin and his wife, Elizabeth Paulette-Coughlin, were thinking of how to honour what Moffatt has been through and how bravely he’s confronted it when they had the idea to establish a scholarship in his name. Together, they called Moffatt to let him know they wanted to do this.

"I was gob smacked that this idea was in their hearts,” says Moffatt. “I just got off the phone and cried.”

Facing adversity with optimism and humour

It took what felt like forever, Coughlin says, to determine what was going on with Moffatt’s health. For more than a year, he was sick but went undiagnosed. Then he learned it was ALS, an incurable nervous system disease that causes nerve destruction and progressive loss of muscle control, and has left him immobile since last summer.

When Moffatt speaks, however, he’s sharp and engaging, with a brilliant sense of humour — especially, it seems, when a dear friend is present. Homecoming 2024 marked the 45th reunion for his MBA cohort. “We're going to get a plane and bring Billy to the 50th,” Coughlin says with a gentle smirk. Moffatt lets out a big laugh. “If you can roll me in lying down, baby, I'm in.”

Connections like this are what keeps him motivated. While many of his closest friends, who also happen to be former Ivey classmates, are geographically distant, Moffatt speaks with them almost weekly. “I know they're standing right beside me to help get me through this disease.”

A friendship that began at Ivey

Coughlin and Moffatt met at Ivey (when it was still known as Western Business School) but became closer after graduating. “The seed was planted at Western,” says Coughlin, “but it bloomed after we left.” Moffatt recalls a 10th class reunion as the point when their strongest relationship really germinated. “Elizabeth and Peter and I got talking a lot, and I was fortunate enough to have a high degree of travel in my business. So, when I hit Montreal, I saw them.”

For more than 30 years, Moffatt worked as a senior investment advisor with several major Canadian firms, managing portfolios for institutions and families. Most recently, he was a Portfolio Manager at RBC Dominion Securities in Nova Scotia. “I could not have achieved the success I had in business without the training I got in business school,” he says.

Over the years, Coughlin, Moffatt, and their two wives have become a close quartet. They travel and golf together, winter close to each other in Sarasota, Fla., and this past May, Coughlin even escorted Moffatt’s wife, Gail, back to Nova Scotia after she’d travelled to Montreal for a hip replacement. That was done out of service to Gail, but it was also an opportunity to see Moffatt.

“Peter and Elizabeth are our anchors,” says Moffatt. “We are blessed in all four corners.”

About the Bill Moffatt Award

The Bill Moffatt Award is an MBA admissions scholarship that will be awarded for the first time in the spring of 2025. 

The decision to house the scholarship at Ivey was Moffatt’s. While he also holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, and graduated from Quebec’s Stanstead College in 1972, Ivey holds special significance.

“Given that the connection for Peter, Elizabeth, and I was Western, that's where a bias was for me,” he says.

Since January, Coughlin and another friend of Moffatt’s, Stephen Greenberg, MBA ’79, have been busy reaching out to fellow graduates and some of Moffatt’s friends and business colleagues. Their goal of $500,000 has already been surpassed — and they’re not done yet.

“People give to people” says Coughlin. “Elizabeth and I were just the conduit. This award is all about Bill Moffatt. The money is there because of Bill.”

Establishing a legacy of gratitude

When asked what he hopes the future recipients of this scholarship know about him, Moffatt pauses for a moment. “Gratitude,” he says. “Not to me, per se, and not even to my dear friends, Peter and Elizabeth. The gratitude that's associated with scholarship recipients understanding they're getting to do things in life they might not otherwise be able to.”

Coughlin hopes the recipients can meet Moffatt and witness for themselves the bravery and optimism he exhibits in the face of his illness. “We would hope that person would carry that same strength and positive attitude into what they do in life,” he says.

What’s most important to Moffatt is that recipients realize their success doesn’t happen in a vacuum — that they got to where they are not only because of their own merits, but because someone else helped them along.

“That can have ripples through decades and other people's lives,” he says. “That’s what I would care about the most.”

If you’re interested in supporting the Bill Moffatt Award, or in establishing a class giving initiative of your own, please contact Rachel Hill at rhill@ivey.ca.