S tephen Jarislowsky is a Canadian billionaire investor and philanthropist with a long and distinguished career in finance. Born in Germany, his family fled the Nazis, and he eventually settled in Canada after being educated in the United States at Harvard and the University of Chicago. In 1955, he founded his own investment counseling firm, Jarislowsky Fraser Limited, in Montreal. He built the firm into one of Canada's largest and most respected independent investment management firms, with a reputation for its conservative, long-term, buy-and-hold investment philosophy.

For over six decades, Jarislowsky was a staunch advocate for shareholder rights and improved corporate governance in Canada, often publicly challenging the management of underperforming companies. After a career spanning more than 60 years, he sold his firm to the Canadian bank Scotiabank in 2018 for nearly C$1 billion. Now in his late 90s, he has focused on philanthropy, having established the Jarislowsky Foundation, which has endowed numerous university chairs in fields like art history, public affairs, and medicine.