Martin Lavigne
While Martin Lavigne was playing professional baseball, he learned a few things about being a successful banker and made a couple of important decisions that would cement his eventual career.
At 19, he signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers's farm team and, like all minor league players, set his sights on the majors.
Thanks to some advice given to him by his father, he got the baseball organization to fund his university studies in the event he would not make it to the big leagues.
Pitching for three years, the then-22-year-old came up against an important statistic: only 6-8 per cent of players in the farm teams make it to the major leagues.
"I knew I was no Dwight Gooden or Dennis Martinez. I didn't throw 90 miles an hour," he said, and he imagined a scenario where he would be hammering in vain at this for several years, only to have to start looking for a new career in his thirties.
"I had to turn the page," he said. So, while nursing a rotator cuff injury, he left baseball, took up the consolation prize he had negotiated and, with his lifelong love for numbers and finance, enrolled in a business degree at Laval University in Quebec City.
In the 15 years since he graduated, he has steadily risen in banking circles.
In 2008, the National Bank of Canada unveiled a division that would be dedicated to supplying third parties with banking products. He's been running the 300-employee division and it's been a money maker for the bank, having generated $40-million in revenue and 260,000 new indirect clients, according to the bank.
He credits baseball for his work ethic and his ability to adjust to change. He's been able to build the division despite an economic crisis and a bank restructuring taking place at the same time.
Married, with two children, he coaches little league in Boucherville, Que., where he lives, and teaches his players not just about participating, and not just about winning, but about playing to win.
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