The upcoming HBA1 Family Weekend is a chance for HBA students’ family members to experience a case class and life at Ivey, but one family attending has already been taking an Ivey journey together.
Zoë Milne, an HBA1 student, joined Ivey in September while her father, Ken Milne, an EMBA ’25 candidate; and brother, Ethan Milne, HBA ’20 and PhD ’25 candidate; were already deeply immersed in their own programs. In fact, their Ivey experiences piqued her interest in the School. She recalls being intrigued by Ivey’s Case-Method Learning after participating in a sibling case class at Ethan’s HBA1 Family Weekend (then called Parents’ Day), and witnessing his and Ken’s experience since then has only cemented the deal for her.
“Having my family here has 100 per cent added to the experience,” she said.
“Talking to my dad about what the professors are like has helped me feel more comfortable so on day one I was already speaking up. And my brother helped me to understand the expectations at Ivey and whether this was the place I want to be."
"Hearing from someone I know and trust helped me to understand this is a good place.”
First there was Ethan
While Ethan was the first of the trio at Ivey, he’s not the first Ivey graduate in the family. His great uncle, Michael Lubell, is HBA ’61. Ethan transferred into the HBA program after two years at the University of Waterloo and had great success at Ivey. In addition to being a research assistant, writer and editor for Ivey Business Review, and co-founder of medical device startup Marlow while in the HBA program, he received the gold medal for academic excellence in the program. Interested in business-related research after doing some medical-related research with his dad, Ethan went on to do his PhD in Marketing, working with Miranda Goode and Kirk Kristofferson, and is expected to complete the program in 2025. If so, both father and son will graduate together at Western University’s Spring 2025 Convocation. Ethan will then have the title “Dr. Milne,” just like his father.
“There will be extra, extra confusion,” he said. “My parents told me when I went to university that I should be a doctor, lawyer, or accountant. I chose doctor, but a different kind of doctor than my dad.”
Then came Ken
After working as a physician for 30 years, doing medical research for 40 years, and also teaching at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Ken was contemplating the next act of his career. Hearing about Ethan’s research pursuits inspired him to do an Executive MBA (EMBA) so he can apply his experience as a clinician and medical researcher to another area and learn how business areas, such as Operations, can apply to emergency medicine. He jokes that he also has another motive for studying business – he wants to move beyond just nodding politely when his wife, Barb Lubell, President of Vintage Investment Properties Ltd., talks shop at the dinner table.
“Barb is very involved in the business world and has done well and I want to share that with her and understand it just like she tries to understand what I do as a physician,” he said.
“I also want to explore things that are outside of my comfort zone and will provide me with a lot of growth and networking – to individuals and ideas – that I’m not exposed to in the silo of medicine.”
He’s now in his last EMBA term and will complete the program in January 2025.
And now Zoë is following suit
With her interest in finance, Zoë is following in her mother’s footsteps as well as her father’s and brother’s. She recently completed Ivey’s Women in Asset Management (WAM) program and a summer internship at RBC Global Asset Management before beginning the HBA. But when she was at the interview stage of the WAM application process, she recalls hiding family photos so the interviewer, Professor Steve Foerster, HBA ’81, wouldn’t see pictures of Ken, who Foerster was teaching in the EMBA at that time.
“I did disown him (Ken) at the time and then afterwards (once accepted), I had a nice conversation with Steve (Foerster) about it and learned we are his first-ever father-daughter teaching combination,” she said.
After being exposed to capital markets through WAM, Zoë is now interested in gaining more finance knowledge through the HBA and pursuing a career in that area.
The ties that bind
There has been no shortage of overlap for Ken, Ethan, and Zoë during their journeys at Ivey. They’ve had the same professors, Ethan has tutored Ken, and, when applying to Ivey, Ethan and Ken both highlighted on their applications their joint work on a pediatric resuscitation device. Ethan has also shared his research papers with both his father and sister and Ken recalls citing one of Ethan’s papers for contribution in class. As a research assistant with the Ivey Behavioural Lab, which Kirk Kristofferson directs, Zoë often executes research studies that Ethan designed.
“We have all these weird interconnections between the faculty and the three of us,” said Ethan.
Zoë said she’s even hoping Ethan will get a chance to teach one of her classes before he embarks on a career as a marketing professor.
“I’d love to have him as a guest lecturer because I know he’d do a fantastic job,” she said. “But I draw the line at calling him ‘Professor,’ or ‘Sir,’ or ‘Dr. Milne.’ He’ll always be ‘Chicken’ (family nickname) to me.”
Ken adds that the only missing sibling is his other daughter, Sage Milne, who is doing an MSc at Guelph University.
“We will need to recruit Sage to join the Ivey ‘family’ Business School,” he said.
So much Ivey swag
The Milne family jokes that together they’ve built up a library of business books and so much Ivey clothing that they have matching wardrobes.
“When we’re doing the laundry, it’s like, ‘Whose shirt is this? It just says Ivey on it,'” Ken said with a laugh.
Investing in the future
Although it’s a huge investment to have three family members at Ivey at once, Ken said he’s confident it will pay off long term.
“You can look at it as a cost, or you can look at it as an investment. Certainly, the dollar figure may be high but the reward or return on investment is even higher,” he said.
And although their paths are crossing at Ivey, they each have different destinations.
“We’re all doing very different things. I’m sure Zoë will have a successful business career, he (Ken) will still be a doctor, and I’m going to be a professor,” said Ethan. “But Ivey has been able to help us with each of those things.”
Related Articles
