Nationality Canadian | ||
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Occupation businessman, entrepreneur Similar Bruce Flatt, Hal Jackman, Seymour Schulich | ||
Patrick dovigi president and ceo green for life
Patrick Dovigi is a Canadian entrepreneur, businessman and founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Canadian environmental services company, Green For Life Environmental Inc. (GFL). Under Dovigi's leadership, GFL Environmental has grown to have a total enterprise value of approximately $2.4 billion as of 2016.
Contents
- Patrick dovigi president and ceo green for life
- Early life and education
- Hockey career
- Early career
- Green For Life Environmental Inc
- Other organizational work
- References
Early life and education
Patrick Dovigi grew up in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. As a boy, Dovigi demonstrated a talent for hockey goaltending, an interest supported by his family.
Dovigi attended Ryerson University in Toronto in 2000, studying business management at the school.
Hockey career
Dovigi played minor league hockey in Canada, tending goal for the Ontario Hockey League (OHL)’s Erie Otters in parts of three seasons from 1996 to 1999. Dovigi also played as a goalie for Toronto's St. Michael’s Majors in the team’s 1998 to 1999 season.
In 1997, Dovigi followed his cousins into the National Hockey League (NHL) in Canada when he was drafted 41st as a goalie by the Edmonton Oilers in that year’s entry draft. Although passionate about playing hockey, a teammate of Dovigi’s recalls that, “We were thinking only about hockey. His [Dovigi's] mind was somewhere else”.
Early career
While playing minor league hockey, Dovigi began gaining business and entrepreneurial experience. From 1999 to 2002, Dovigi served as Vice President of Right Lease, a construction equipment and automotive leasing company. In 2002, Dovigi gained exposure in corporate finance when he joined Brovi Investments. It was while working at Brovi Investments that Dovigi gained his first experience in waste management.
In 2004, a waste transfer station in Maple, Ontario suffered a fire. Brovi Investments had a mortgage on this waste transfer station and Dovigi was assigned to take care of the station’s clean-up.
Dovigi then established a new company and worked with the municipality of Vaughan and the environment ministry for two years to return the operating license to the waste transfer station.
In 2004, Dovigi took a seat on the board of NGTV, otherwise known as “No Good TV”, which was a YouTube music and celebrity channel and an organization chaired by Kiss bassist and vocalist Gene Simmons.
Green For Life Environmental Inc.
In 2007, Dovigi founded Green For Life Environmental Inc. As Dovigi has mentioned to the media in the past, in establishing GFL, Dovigi had two goals in mind: first, to unlock the potential value hidden in small, mom-and-pop waste companies in Canada; second, to conveniently offer bundled environmental services under one company brand, an offering that was not present in the Canadian waste industry at the time.
Dovigi successfully led in merging and acquiring several local haulers, including National Waste Services. GFL would go on to successfully acquire nearly a dozen waste management companies.
Dovigi and GFL gained a significantly higher level of prominence when the company won a $186-million, nine-year contract to manage and collect the residential waste of 155,000 homes in the west end of Toronto.
In 2016, GFL gained an equity investment from Macquarie Infrastructure Partners, which raised the total value of GFL to roughly $2.4 billion.
Dovigi continues to serve as GFL’s President and Chief Executive Officer.
Other organizational work
Dovigi serves as a director on the Board of Directors for the Ontario Waste Management Association (OWMA).