Robert E.M. Nourse is an entrepreneur and former President and CEO of The Bombay Company.
After nine years as a professor at Ivey and after holding the position of Chairman of the MBA program, in 1976 he left academia to become a venture capitalist and an executive with Venturetek International Ltd.[citation needed] Bob Nourse purchased The Bombay Company of Canada, which was a single store at the time, in 1979.
[1] The Bombay Company grew to 450 stores with net sales of US$317 million for 1994.
[1] Nourse guided The Bombay Company to its successful listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 1993.
After a decline in sales, Nourse was fired as CEO of Bombay on September 5, 1996, with Chairman Carson Thompson attributing the change to "a culmination of a lack of performance over a period of time.