Stephan Crétier: The Founder Who Built a Security Empire
Born on August 8, 1963, in Montreal, Quebec, to a Swiss mother and Italian father who both immigrated to Canada in the 1950s, Crétier studied Industrial Relations at the University of Montreal before earning his MBA at California Pacific University.
His entry into the security business was anything but conventional. In 1995, he founded GardaWorld, then called Trans-Quebec Security Inc., with just C$25,000, raised by placing a second mortgage on his home and selling his car. What followed was a rollercoaster of determination. Since founding the company, he faced bankruptcy four times, nearly losing his home in the process. Yet he never surrendered.
Crétier's vision was always bigger than regional security services. Identifying an opportunity to consolidate a fragmented private security industry, he built GardaWorld organically and through strategic acquisitions over three decades into one of the world's largest security services companies. Today, GardaWorld operates in over 500 locations worldwide with 132,000 employees globally, and was valued at approximately $14 billion following a landmark 2024 recapitalization.
His philosophy is unapologetically competitive. "You're either on the menu or you're looking at the menu," he has said, describing a culture built around winning; one where, as he puts it, there is no silver medal.
Recognition has followed. Crétier was named Entrepreneur of the Decade by Profit Magazine in 2011 and has received both the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal and the King Charles III Coronation Medal. Most recently, he was honored with the 2025 International Horatio Alger Award, recognizing leaders who have overcome adversity through perseverance and integrity.
Beyond business, Crétier and his wife Stephany Maillery founded the Stéphan Crétier Foundation in 2006, through which he created the BOLO Program, offering financial incentives to the public for identifying Canada's top 25 most wanted fugitives.
From a second mortgage and a sold car to a $14 billion global empire, Stephan Crétier's story is a testament to what relentless entrepreneurial drive can build, even when the odds are stacked against you.