Jim Ryan: The Game of Life

Jim Ryan graduated from Brock University’s BAdmin (Co-op Accounting) program in 1984 – yes, he’s been around a while – and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1985.

Jim has spent his career in the technology sector. At just 27 years old, he became the CFO of Epson Canada Limited. In 2001, Jim found his true passion (online gaming) when he became CFO of the world’s first publicly traded online gaming company, Cryptologic Inc. From there, it was a straight line of bigger bets.

In 2005, he became CEO of Excapsa Software (the world’s fourth largest online poker business) and took the business public in 2006, before U.S. law made online gaming illegal. Not deterred by this, he sold the business and moved to Gibraltar (online gaming is legal there). He became CEO of St Minver Inc. (yes, another online gaming company), selling it to Gtech in 2008. He then became CEO of PartyGaming plc (then the world’s largest publicly traded online gaming company). In 2010, he orchestrated a £2 billion merger with sports book giant, Bwin. 

Jim tried retirement in 2013. It didn’t take. So he co-founded Pala Interactive LLC — right as American states began regulating the online gaming industry — and in 2022 sold it to Boyd Gaming Corporation for $245 million. He remains CEO of Boyd Interactive (formerly Pala Interactive), which operates online casinos and sportsbooks across the U.S. and Canada.

Q: What led you to choose Brock and the Goodman School of Business?

All the way through high school, I was very oriented towards making money. I remember asking people, if I was going to pick a career – where I could make a lot of money – what would that be? The answer was always, become a chartered accountant. 

Brock University had a business program, as did many, but it had something that was very attractive to me. Brock offered a co-op Accounting program providing a direct pathway to becoming a chartered accountant and getting the required work experience while I was still in university.

I was looking at the University of Toronto, Waterloo, and Laurier. What stood out about Brock’s was its co-op program. The University of Toronto didn’t have one. So that was out. Laurier, you had to go to school full-time for two years before you started co-op work terms, and at Waterloo, it was a math degree, and I’d had enough of math. Brock had a business program where I could start a co-op working program right out of the gate.

Last but not least, they offered me a scholarship. That was something that didn’t happen with any of the other institutions that I applied to, and that was it.

Q: ​​Are there any moments from your time at Brock that stand out as formative experiences?

Having to be in the Co-op program for four and a half years straight (i.e. no summer breaks) and having to be so incredibly disciplined to get through the program was, in itself, formative.

When I started university, I was still coming back to Toronto to hang out with my friends every single weekend. One weekend early in my first term, I realized that I had to stay at school and work, or I was going to fall behind. My friends were going out, and I remember just being shattered that I had to study. I got through it. I did it. That therein began this new discipline, where I realized that this was different. 

While it wasn’t like that every weekend, 40-plus years later, I remember that weekend. I knew then that if I was going to get a degree from the business school, I was going to have to put my head down and work hard.

That was the foundation building, learning to apply that discipline to whatever I was dealing with.

Q: Are there any moments in your career where you felt underestimated? How did you become undeniable?

My co-op job was with Deloitte, the international accountancy firm. At the time, Deloitte principally recruited graduates from Queens, Western, and McGill University, which were perceived to be the best business schools in the country.

I got the job on the back of the fact that my brother worked there. So, I had some leverage to get myself in, but I just kind of blended into the mix and didn’t particularly stand out. I was as hardworking as everybody else, but I always felt underestimated.

I wasn’t a graduate from one of the blue chip business schools, in fact, I was a co-op student, working with graduates. 

There weren’t a lot of co-op students at that time; the concept was still pretty new. So that in itself made me feel like I wasn’t as good as the others.

Fast forward, I wrote the Chartered Accountancy exams in 1984 (just to age myself), and finished number one at Deloitte. You talk about going from underestimated to becoming undeniable. That was the moment.

All of a sudden, people were saying, “This Jim Ryan guy got the top mark in the firm.” After that, it was a different game; opportunities presented themselves. It spoke well for me, but it spoke very well for Brock University’s Co-op program, which had produced students who could deliver that type of result.

Q: Is there a specific moment that you can share, at Brock or in your career, where you overcame self-doubt, challenge, or external expectations?

Becoming a chartered accountant was a seminal moment in my career, positioning me for the rest of my life. I knew if I got that done, I was set; I had my ticket. So as I look at it, there have been many challenges in my life and in my career but getting my CA is one that stands out. 

Once I graduated from Brock, I went into the zone of getting ready for the CA exams. I spent a year studying and actually documented the effort. I was one of these guys who was a little too focused on these things, and I used to log every hour spent studying. 

I studied for the Chartered Accountancy exams for 1,200 hours that year.

At the time, one-third of the people who started this process actually passed the exam.

There was this implicit pressure all around you, be it family, friends, or work. I got through that and, again, delivered the top result at Deloitte.

It was actually kind of cool to get through it, to give myself the ticket to move forward, and to differentiate myself among the pack.

I think people who are going through university would understand this, whether it’s the Chartered Accountancy exams or whether it’s doing your degree and getting yourself ready for the rest of your life.

Brock University was the foundation. Everything from there is just an experience.

You have to have a platform upon which to build. Whether it was taking a company public, selling it, or, more importantly, building it such that you could take a company public or sell it. They just become chapters in one’s career. We could go into some of the chapters, and some of them are pretty spicy, and some of them are incredibly lucrative, and some of them are full of drama – but it’s the foundation that’s the important bit. The other stuff is anecdotal.

Q: How do you hope your story inspires the next generation of Brock Goodman graduates?

It’s interesting, and I don’t know if anybody will get this far into this interview, or even read these responses.

You can only hope that somebody’s going to read something, remember something, and have that make an impact. That’s exactly what happened to me, and so, if you have read this far into the interview, I’m going to say this to you;

Many, many times I’ve run across people who said, “Jim, you’ve been so lucky.”

A man I used to work for at Epson told me, “There’s no such thing as luck in business.”

You buy a lottery ticket, you win. That’s luck. 

In business, luck in a traditional sense doesn’t exist. 

Luck in business is about the convergence of hard work and opportunity. 

Whether you are a Brock graduate, a student, or are about to start a program, you’ve now got the Brock opportunity. It’s over to you to combine that opportunity with hard work. I am virtually certain that if you do that and you stay disciplined and true to yourself, you’re going to have a very successful life.

When hard work meets opportunity, it equals success. Some people call it luck.

Q: Why is supporting the Goodman Legacy important to you, and what does legacy mean in the context of your journey?

For me, it’s all about paying it forward, and it all comes back to my childhood.

In my family, everybody grew up knowing that we had to go to university. My parents never went to university; they didn’t have a lot of money, but my siblings and I were going to go to university by hook or by crook. 

My parents were not actively involved in choosing which university we attended. They really relied on their children to make that choice. One could say that they appeared uninterested, but that wasn’t the case. They were interested from a distance – but when I received the Brock Scholarship, it was a seminal moment. 

Not only was it incredibly helpful financially, but I was the first in my family to receive a scholarship. The pride – and it was not my pride, but my parents’ extraordinary pride that has significantly impacted me.

My involvement with the Goodman Legacy is driven by this experience and my desire to help fund scholarships for Goodman students.

Pay it forward.

Q: What motivated you to get involved with the Goodman Legacy Council? 

Over the years, I’ve donated to Brock. I have worked with a couple of Deans and created the Jim and Carol scholarship program (named after my parents). 

As I say, paying it forward. 

But I always felt like I was acting alone, and I was not making a sustainable impact.

A lot of energy went into thinking about how to deploy that money and who should get it. But it just felt like writing a cheque. It was great for the university. I always felt good about that, but the impact ended when the donations stopped. 

Through the years, I’ve had many discussions with various Deans of the Business School as to how they could change this. 

The thought was that the Goodman School of Business should leverage its efforts to create a lasting endowment that will deliver immediate and long-term, sustainable impact on the business program and its students. The concept discussed was putting a group of successful Brock business school alumni together who felt the same way I did, and see what we could make happen for the business program. That’s the Goodman Legacy Council. 

The vision is to take the alumni network of the Goodman School of Business and leverage their efforts. So it’s not just about Jim Ryan or any one individual donation, it’s about all of the alumni.