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Being in the room to shape public policy

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.

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Professional and Corporate Stuart McNish Professional and Corporate Stuart McNish

Providing informed and cautious advice on crypto and technology

Alex de Vries’ role as a “digiconomist” started as a hobby, combining her history with economics with a passion for digital economy. In his role, he provides warnings and cautious advice on those getting into cryptocurrency. This was a far cry from his younger days, when he had no idea what he wanted to do – but keeping his options open paid off.

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Professional and Corporate Stuart McNish Professional and Corporate Stuart McNish

Combining a passion for finance and creativity

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.

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Demystifying Canadian public policy to the public

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.

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Professional and Corporate, Social change Stuart McNish Professional and Corporate, Social change Stuart McNish

A career of knowing what makes people tick

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

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Building relationships between government and infrastructure projects

Mark Liedemann is great at relationship management – his job as CEO of Infrastructure BC calls for it, helping to cultivate the relationships between government and builders of infrastructure around British Columbia. To get to where he is today, it was a journey through a biochemistry degree, teaching in Germany, the banking industry, a business degree, and more.

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Growing a clean-tech accelerator and leading a team

When Jeanette Jackson took over a clean-tech accelerator called Foresight, it was a team of two. Today, that number has grown to 50. To get there, she had to start with a hands-on strategy, doing everything from ideas to pitching them. Over the years, she transitioned into the leadership role that she serves today. Her biggest advice to others is to get a handle on fine details such as numbers for financials and keeping track of projects’ progress.

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Social change, Professional and Corporate Stuart McNish Social change, Professional and Corporate Stuart McNish

Enabling the funding the make communities better

As far as Dara Parker is concerned, she has her dream job. As the vice-president of grants and community initiatives at the Vancouver Foundation, her mission is to distribute the funding to make communities better. Throughout her career, she has worked with people and found that understanding people is fundamental to growing as a person and her current role.

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Professional and Corporate Stuart McNish Professional and Corporate Stuart McNish

Diving into a career in film and broadcast television

Rudy Bottignol’s career has taken many turns. He started as a self-taught filmmaker and found success, which sparked an interest in doing it for a career. Going to university, he majored in film and entered the then-new field of independent productions by starting his own company – he was one of the rare breed of instant entrepreneurs after university.

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Guiding organizations and companies towards young populations

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.

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Professional and Corporate Stuart McNish Professional and Corporate Stuart McNish

Advising corporations and gaining trust through confidentiality

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.

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Professional and Corporate Stuart McNish Professional and Corporate Stuart McNish

Providing data to businesses to make informed decisions

Businesses need information to make informed decisions – and that is what Ken Peacock is here for. In his role at the Business Council of British Columbia, he takes information from the provincial government and connects it with business leaders for feedback and development. He didn’t start out wanting to be an economist – but he had a curiosity to understand how the world worked. At the advice of a professor, he went into economics. This changed his life and career path.

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Professional and Corporate Stuart McNish Professional and Corporate Stuart McNish

Feeding the desire to learn how things work

Drew Collier is the CEO of LGM Financial Services, which handles extended warranties for various car brands in Canada. Being based on the west coast, he has an early start each day to accommodate those out east. And his work is never done – evenings are prep work for the next day. His path started in electronics, which fed his interest in knowing how things work. This desire to learn about the inner workings of everything eventually led him into business, where he is today.

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Keeping an open mind: Succeeding in the pharmaceutical industry

Rory Mullen, as the head of BioPharma and IDA Ireland, meets a lot of people, to say the least. He started studying in business and working in advertising, but wanted to expand his horizons internationally, outside his native Ireland.

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The passion for paramedics to be treated fairly

Troy Clifford identifies as a paramedic, but his mission is much more. He is the president of a union for ambulance and paramedics union, which is also the profession’s de-facto organization in British Columbia. His role is to support its workers and be the face of BC’s ambulance service.

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