About Roy

Mailroom Boy

For Roy Ratnavel, "started in the mailroom" is more than just a figure of speech. It's the lead line on his résumé. His first office job was at a Bay Street investment firm, literally, sorting mail at the age of nineteen. He was employee number twenty-five. The lowest man in the hierarchy. Roy previously held a job at a packaging factory in Toronto. "My job was to stand with a glue gun for eight hours a day to apply spray foam," he stated. "A board would come by on the belt, and I would spray it. It was 1988. I was making $3.50 an hour. I'm not even sure if they were paying me the legal minimum."

Investment Executive

The mailroom job was over a quarter-century and a half-dozen promotions ago. Then he rose from mailroom to boardroom in the same firm where he served as the Executive Vice President of Cl Financial and the head of distribution of Cl Global Asset Management— quite a journey for someone who arrived alone in Canada with almost nothing in his pocket. He is now a retired Bay Street executive who was the Vice Chairman of Canada's largest independent asset management company. Roy is also the recipient of Report on Business, Canada's 50 Best Executives 2020 award.

Bestselling Author

Roy Ratnavel's gripping memoir, Prisoner #1056, became an immediate #1 national bestseller in Canada and earned a bronze medal for best business memoir at the Axiom Book Awards in the United States. He is now a business consultant, keynote speaker and mentor to many emerging young business leaders. Roy is also involved in many philanthropic causes—including the 2019 successful summit of Mount Kilimanjaro to bring awareness and shatter the stigma surrounding mental illness and to raise money for the fight against this debilitating health issue.