“I suffered as a child,” David Chalk says. That is why his work is all about helping others get through life, specifically related to education and learning. He is very blunt – being told that he is “stupid” throughout his life is what drives him to come up with new ways to improve and help others improve as well. He doesn’t believe in writing people off; after all, he was written off by others during his youth and committed to prove people wrong.

Brian Scudamore is a serial entrepreneur. He is best known for being the brains behind 1-800-GOT-JUNK, a national trash collection company in Canada. But he sees his role as more than a CEO; he grows the business culture of his companies. To him, business is always fun – as long as he pays attention to work-life balance, which allows him to be more present at work.

For Christy Smith’s role in indigenous engagement in environmental consulting, fieldwork is what makes her thrive. She loves going out into the community to build relationships and understanding the nuances of each community. This is a far cry from her dreams of being an artist, which were put on hold after she became a mother; she realized that she wanted to produce a work of value for her child’s future. This led her down a path of self-discovery, both personally and professionally.

What happens when a bunch of side gigs become a career? For Ernest Lang, he points to himself as the answer. As head of Promerita, he invests and advises on financial matters around corporate assets, wealth planning, real estate, and more. His interest in money was rooted in necessity – coming from a family with one parent and with limited means, he had to figure out how money worked and that has led him to a “survive at all costs” approach to business.

David Williams does everything. Or at least, it seems like he does. In his role at the Business Council of British Columbia, he has to talk and listen to all groups of people, depending on the issues of the day. To know what is going on, he has to read all the time – what experts are saying, what business leaders are saying, and what data is out there. It’s his job to find out what makes the economy tick.

Have you ever felt confused about your career or company and not sure where it is going? Ron Bremner’s job is to help you navigate through that. He finds joy in working with his clients to look at work with a new perspective. Over time, he finds that those clients become friends – because seeing their growth gives Ron immense pride.

As the president of Neptune Terminals, there are no typical days for Megan Owen-Evans, but some days can get long – but it is an element of the job that she loves. This is a job she never considered when she was going to school. In fact, she thought she would be a doctor but didn’t end up finishing that journey. Instead, she worked in various jobs and realized that her dreams lay elsewhere. Finally returning to school, she had a fresh plan and different direction.

As a lecturer at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business, Adam Pankratz’s job is to communicate the challenges of business to his students, which range from undergraduates to masters-level students – and make it interesting. This was nowhere near what he envisioned for his career when he graduated with a linguistics degree and worked in the hotel industry. As with all careers, it is never a straight line. But his difficulties with finding a job that matched his skills led him to the world of business and an entirely new path.

As CEO of the Vancouver Board of Trade, Bridgitte Anderson needs to be diverse – after all, that is what her members are.

How do you create economic opportunities and attract the right investments? That is a question that Jacquie Griffiths tries to answer every day, as the President of Invest Vancouver. The key to this is developing talent and seeking investors from abroad, helping to create a well-rounded industry. This is a lot of responsibility – and it all depends on the sense of relationship-building that she developed very early in her career in workforce development.

When Gidi Grinstein saw the Oslo Accords after his military service in Israel, he was fascinated. He knew he was witnessing an incident of great statesmanship in history – and realized that he wanted to be part of groups that shaped public policy. Leveraging that passion, he started the Reut Group, a public policy think tank. At first, he did everything. Over time, he realized that he couldn’t do everything alone – he had to work with people around him.

For Sasha Luchkov, music is not just a career – it is something that is always with him. He hears it all the time subconsciously and it became clear very early that this is his calling. To reach his goal, he has learned that music is not just notes on a page, but also the feelings and intentions of the piece to make it come alive.

John Stackhouse graduated during the 1981 recession; seeing its impact, he decided to study something more practical – commerce. However, he had a creative itch to scratch. Joining the school newspaper gave him a desire to break out of the financial world after graduating and landed at the Globe and Mail as a business reporter, which led him to both the creative and practical sides of finance.

Public policy in Canada is a complicated topic. For Renaud Brossard, his job is to make the topic less complicated and more accessible to the public through media outlets. As a business major, he developed his policy analysis background over the years and by working with other high-end academics in the field.

Cathy Peters is an advocate for those who cannot advocate for themselves. But she would describe her role as being in prevention education, cultivating her passion for the vulnerable. Her work in preventing child trafficking taps into that passion. This is a path that is almost custom-made for her, as an avid storyteller and absorbing others’ stories by learning and listening. “If I sound a little bit passionate,” she says, “I am.”

Being an expert on China is a difficult job in today’s political climate – Paul Evans has to constantly explain that he is “not defending China, [but rather] how to live with China.” As a primary expert on Canada-China relations at the University of British Columbia, there is a demand for his insights nowadays, from the media and beyond. This is a career that he has aimed for right from the start. What makes his journey unique from other professors is that his entire education was in Canada, during a time when this was a difficult path to an academic career.

No matter how much Mike Rowlands checks off his to-do list, the list keeps growing. That’s just the nature of being the founder and CEO of Junxion Strategy, an international social impact consultancy. This is a long way from his younger days, when he didn’t know what he wanted to do. He studied business in university and surprisingly didn’t like it. Over time, he experimented in various other businesses, including a bike shop, which gave him a first career where he learned about customer service, business, logistics, and everything in between – a valuable insight on what makes people tick

How do you get First Nations, government, and the energy industry together? That is something that Chris Sankey knows the answer to, because it is what he does. He loves solving problems that nobody else wants to touch and that drives his mission – aiming for a Canada with economic opportunities without racism.

Robert Barnard is the co-founder of Youthful Cities, which seeks to make our cities more youthful and dynamic. His path started as a human geography student, which fascinated him. As a self-described “serial entrepreneur,” his studies kept combining with his passion. Every step of the way, people kept asking, “What’s with all these young people?” Seeing a demand for governments and companies to market to young people led him to pivot his focus towards creating communities focused around youth and young adults.

Jess Ketchum sees himself as an advisor to corporations, which sounds easier than it actually is. His top quality is confidentiality – CEOs invest a certain level of trust in him and expect quality feedback in return. His consistent work and quick turnaround have led to word-of-mouth clients through building relationships and trust.