By 2030, 92 per cent of the baby boomers in Canada will have reached the age of 65. They are eyeing retirement, socking away RRSPs, enjoying empty nests… and thinking about what’s next.

Some of these people will be senior executives, successful entrepreneurs or CEOs. Used to fast-paced roles with significant authority and accountability, this cohort’s path into retirement is distinct. Some will choose to keep working. Others may transition into boards, consultancies or other roles that complement their wisdom, experience and expertise. The common thread is continuity — the continuation of one’s professional profile into their post-employment years.

This is a group with large, robust networks, decades of relationships to draw on and a wealth of people to call for new opportunities. Most of them have been so engaged in their professional pursuits they may not have even stopped to wonder what was next, assuming any or all of the above. But is the automatic path the best one? Or is there something entirely new this cohort might consider?

James Orbinski, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine and principal at Massey College, thinks that this highly talented group should be “expansive and curious about this phase of their life journey.”

After an acclaimed career — including an Order of Canada for a career in humanitarian practice in war, famine, epidemic disease and genocide, and for ongoing academic research supporting global health — his role at Massey College is part of his own commitment to expansive curiosity in this phase of his own life journey.

Together with Rotman professor of strategic management, Anita McGahan, it has brought him into discussion at Rotman on the creation of a new joint program between it and Massey College, called Distinguished Leaders. Led by McGahan, the program will merge the specialties of the two institutions in pursuit of exposing senior leaders to new communities and ways of thinking. He thinks this is a group predisposed to finding value in communities. 

“Most people who are recognized as distinguished leaders know inherently how important community is,” he says. “They’ve learned this either because it was self‑evident early in their lives, or because they came to understand that meaningful leadership only takes place in community.”

One of the goals of the program is to help this high-performing group understand that the networks they’ve built over decades don’t necessarily have to be the communities of their future, says Maja Djikic, an associate professor of organizational behaviour and HR management at the Rotman School of Management, who is also co-developing the program.

Networks, she says, are fundamentally transactional in nature, answering the questions “What can I offer” and “What can I get?” A community, on the other hand, is relational. “It doesn't ask those specific questions,” she says. “You can be part of our community and not be able to give anything. Or you could be part of a community and only be offering something.”

Retirement is one of life’s rare moments where you can transform into someone new and it’s a moment that should be seized, she says, likening it to a gap year after school. When asked when people should start considering their next chapter, she says it’s simple: “Always.”

“Rather than thinking of how to turn your [existing] network into a community, I think the first question [people should ask themselves] is: What are some of the things that I find meaningful in the circles in which I'm embedded? How would I want to be supporting these communities?”

It can be a local theatre. It could be political. It could be a cause. What matters, she says, is that you ask yourself the question: What have I always wanted to do and never could? What do I care about, but have never been able to dedicate time to? 

The benefits are not only to the individual. Canada is a relatively small country and there are only so many people with experience at the highest levels of business and institutions. Retirement offers the opportunity for these individuals to gain access to new areas of society, generating new ideas and inspiration for themselves and those around them.

“Imagine the wisdom and the skills that these people have accumulated, and they now come back and participate in these communities in this way, in a way in which they can grow and flourish,” she says. “It's an enormous amount of skill and wisdom that can now break through into our social sphere.”

Like Djikic, Orbinski says it starts with asking the right questions. “It’s really about a deep curiosity about their next phase, and a willingness to explore that.”

For leaders looking to plan their legacy, learn more about Rotman's Distinguished Leadership Initiative.