Speaking of Business with Goldy Hyder

The man who oversees the $650-billion pension portfolio of millions of Canadians started out his career in the relative safety of a chemistry lab. 

Back then, John Graham was a research scientist with a PhD in physical chemistry. He spent nine years working in a lab before he jumped from the world of science to the world of finance, joining CPP Investments.

Now, as president and CEO of one of the world’s largest pension funds, he recognizes that investing in financial markets is more art than science.

“One of the few things I definitively know today is I don't do science anymore,” he tells Goldy Hyder on the Speaking of Business podcast. “Finance is about investing in the real world, in a system that is constantly in flux, constantly changing. At times it can be irrational, requires quantitative, qualitative methods, art … and some science.”

Speaking in front of an audience at the Toronto Global Forum in October, Graham discusses how CPP Investments has adapted and grown in its 25-year history, navigating through changing circumstances. 

Taking the long view, he says, means avoiding getting swept up in FOMO (fear of missing out) but instead building a stable, long-term portfolio. “Canadians should be proud that CPP investments is either the number one or two best-performing pension plans in the world.”

Revealing conversations with influential innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders. Listen to more episodes here: thebusinesscouncil.ca/podcasts/

After 100 Speaking of Business interviews with Canada’s leading CEOs, we decided to mark the milestone by putting a few of them together in a room. We brought together a former CEO from one of Canada’s most established companies, an executive from a Canadian success story that started small and became big, and a company founder from a brand-new sector. They had more in common than you’d think. 

Host Goldy Hyder wanted to know: how do you maintain a startup mindset, even in organizations that are decades old and employ thousands of people?

“If you want people to be innovative and risk-takers, you can't punish failure,” said Linda Hasenfratz, executive chair of the board of Linamar. 

She joined former CEO of Air Canada Calin Rovinescu and chairman of Aspire Mohammed Ashour to talk about the ingredients companies need to succeed over the long-term.

“Many of the characteristics and drivers for a startup business are absolutely exportable to mature businesses,” said Rovinescu, pointing to the need to communicate widely and to empower frontline workers.

As the co-founder of a new startup, Ashour also discussed the challenges of launching a new business that is unlike any that have come before – Aspire grows insects as a protein source. “You are inventing the plane and flying it at the same time, which is a very thrilling but also terrifying reality.”

Hosted by the Ivey Business School’s Ian O. Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership at the school’s Toronto campus and recorded in front of a live audience, the three guests discussed their own career journeys, their hopes for Canada, and offered advice for the students in the audience.

Revealing conversations with influential innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders. Listen to more episodes here: thebusinesscouncil.ca/podcasts/

As the fourth generation leader of a family business, Galen Weston recognizes the responsibility he shoulders – to his employees, his country, and his great-grandfather’s legacy. Weston’s Real Home-made Bread began in Toronto in 1882. Today, George Weston Limited is one of Canada’s largest private sector companies, with more than 200,000 employees.

“It makes you think in decades, not in quarters,” he says. “You think about what is this company going to be not just a year from now, but 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now.”

In a frank and revealing conversation with Goldy Hyder on the Speaking of Business podcast, Weston discusses what he calls “patient capital” – his long-view approach to ensuring the company remains strong and vibrant for generations to come. 

It’s a mindset he says Canada needs to adopt as a country, calling on public policymakers to think about how to create long-term prosperity. And he urges business leaders to be part of the discourse. “That unguarded dialogue about what's in the national interest could pay some meaningful dividends,” he says.

Listen to the full interview, including his reflections on inflation, food prices and the challenges of leadership in the face of public scrutiny, on the Speaking of Business podcast.

Revealing conversations with influential innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders. Listen to more episodes here: thebusinesscouncil.ca/podcasts/

When Elio Luongo started working for KPMG in Canada in the 1980s, artificial intelligence was the stuff of science fiction movies. Remember when The Terminator hit the big screen? Now, as Luongo prepares to retire as CEO, AI is no longer the purview of sci-fi imagination. It’s increasingly the day-to-day reality in a modern workplace.

Luongo is encouraging all KPMG employees to experiment with and learn from AI.

“Businesses need to help their people develop skills around AI,” he says. “That is probably one of the most fundamental things that we can be doing right now.”

In an interview on the Speaking of Business podcast, Luongo reflects on what he has learned and how he has adapted to technological change during his decades-long career.

Effective leaders, he says, open doors for employees to develop their skills, continually. “This is what's going to change the productivity and the prosperity for people in Canada and we all have that responsibility to help develop our people's skillset.”

Listen to the full interview – including why he describes leaders as HEPA filters – on the Speaking of Business podcast.

Revealing conversations with influential innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders. Listen to more episodes here: thebusinesscouncil.ca/podcasts/

Carolyn Wilkins is fully aware how “geeky” it is to talk about economic growth. 

But the former senior deputy governor of the Bank of Canada has made a career out of it, and she is inviting everyone else to get in on the conversation – because it’s the very lifeblood of our quality of life. 

“The economy is the foundation of peoples' financial and social well-being,” she says. “The kind of jobs people have, how much money they have at the end of the week, whether they can afford a vacation, that all depends on the state of the economy.”

In a conversation with Goldy Hyder on the Speaking of Business podcast, Wilkins takes the pulse of Canada’s economy and discusses the impact it’s having on Canadians’ standard of living. 

She brings a unique perspective that reflects both her Canadian professional history and her current work beyond Canada’s borders. She draws on her experience as an external member of the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee and senior research scholar at Princeton University’s Griswold Center for Economic Policy.

She says she sees countries around the world working hard to rebuild their economies to be more competitive in a post-COVID world. “When I look at Canada from the outside, I can see the competition better, and it worries me because I think we need to up our game.”

How? She has lots of ideas.

Listen to the full podcast to hear Carolyn Wilkins’ solutions to strengthen Canada’s economy.

Revealing conversations with influential innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders. Listen to more episodes here: thebusinesscouncil.ca/podcasts/

John Kousinioris describes 2015 as a wakeup call. 

Back then, his company, TransAlta, relied heavily on coal plants to generate electricity for Albertans. The Alberta government had other plans. It announced a phase-out of coal-fired electricity plants and gave TransAlta until 2030 to comply.

Rather than challenging the government’s decision, Kousinioris says TransAlta decided to embrace the change. Over the next six years the company converted all its Alberta coal plants to natural gas, dramatically cutting its greenhouse gas emissions – years ahead of schedule. “It’s been an incredible journey for all of us,” he says.

In an interview with Goldy Hyder on the Speaking of Business podcast, Kousinioris, president and CEO of TransAlta, discusses the company’s energy transition and speaks frankly about what it will take to meet Canada’s emissions targets.

“People are intuitively in favour of decarbonization,” he says, but “I don't think we've had honest discussions about what it costs to get there and the challenges associated with getting there.”

In the wide-ranging conversation, Kousinioris also discusses lessons learned from his immigrant parents, his love of motorcycles, and his passion for the Calgary Stampede. 

“It doesn't matter where you came from, what your background is, where you've lived. When you've got a pair of jeans on, cowboy boots, and a cowboy hat, you belong,” he says.

Revealing conversations with influential innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders. Listen to more episodes here: thebusinesscouncil.ca/podcasts/

As a child growing up in Pembroke, Ontario, Meghan Roach remembers driving more than an hour out of town to shop at a Roots store. “Roots was always something special,” she recalls, pointing to the durability of their well-worn products. “I love the Roots TUFF Boots. You would buy these things and you could not wear them out.”

Little did she know then that she would one day become CEO of the iconic Canadian company.

With humble beginnings in Toronto in 1973, Roots has grown into an international brand, sharing Canadian-inspired products around the world and outfitting the likes of athletes, celebrities and presidents.

Despite its global imprint, Roots still makes all its leather goods by hand at the Roots Leather Factory in Toronto.

In a conversation with Goldy Hyder on the Speaking of Business podcast, Roach provides a tour of the factory and discusses the Roots legacy.

“My father said to me never forget where you came from, and this is exactly what I think of when I come to this factory every day,” she says. “This is a 50-year-old business and a 50-year-old brand and I'm a steward of it. I want to build and strengthen the foundation of this business so it's here for another 50 years.”

Revealing conversations with influential innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders. Listen to more episodes here: thebusinesscouncil.ca/podcasts/

For decades, the names John Risley and Clearwater Seafoods were practically synonymous. The story of Clearwater’s founding is the stuff of legend in Atlantic Canada.

It’s a story of how John and his business partner Colin MacDonald started selling lobsters in a store on the Bedford highway in 1976 … and how they grew Clearwater into a global seafood giant. 

As the Chairman and CEO of CFFI Ventures, Risley has been involved in many other enterprises throughout his career – including telecommunications, space technology and green hydrogen – but Clearwater is what started it all.

So it was big news when, in 2020, Clearwater was sold to a joint venture that included a coalition of Mi’kmaw First Nations. It was described as “the single largest investment in the seafood industry by any Indigenous group in Canada.”

In a candid conversation with Goldy Hyder on the Speaking of Business podcast, John Risley recounts that historic sale, reflects on the business risks he’s taken, and reveals why the world is now courting Atlantic Canada’s ocean economy.

Revealing conversations with influential innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders. Listen to more episodes here: thebusinesscouncil.ca/podcasts/

They’re taking on underground construction obstacles, tackling mining and energy quandaries, and don’t hesitate to brainstorm daily about how to address climate change.

Hatch is an engineering and professional services firm that employs 12,000 people in 150 countries around the world, all from its perch in Mississauga, ON.

But you may have never heard of them, and that’s by design.

“It's true that we're not a household name,” says Hatch Chairman and CEO John Bianchini. “We're employee-owned and we don't feel the need to advertise other than – in the good old Canadian way – based on what we do.”

Hatch may shun the spotlight, but the company loves a challenge, and has taken on some of the world’s toughest problems. 

When it comes to climate change, Bianchini says it’s an existential threat. “We're in the climate change economy,” he explains. “Pretty much everything that drives the economy today is around our battle to remove carbon from the atmosphere and making sure we don't put too much more in there.”

In a colourful and wide-ranging interview with Goldy Hyder on the Speaking of Business podcast, Bianchini also discusses ways to unleash Canada’s entrepreneurial spirit, the importance of mentoring the next generation, why he is a big supporter of arts and culture, and he weighs in on the work-from-home vs work-from-the-office debate.

Revealing conversations with influential innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders. Listen to more episodes here: thebusinesscouncil.ca/podcasts/

When Jennifer Wong was an economics student at the University of British Columbia, she walked into an Aritzia store with her resumé. The company at the time was only three years old and operated two locations. She landed a part-time job, which led to other Aritzia jobs as the company grew. 

Three decades later, she became Chief Executive Officer of the clothing retail giant that now boasts 117 stores in two countries, plus a global online presence.

“My journey has really been about figuring things out, learning new things and overcoming problems,” she tells Goldy Hyder in the Speaking of Businesspodcast. 

It helps that she knows the business from the shop floor up, an experience that gives her a unique approach to dealing with the ups and downs of the marketplace. “I like to seek to understand,” she says.

That problem-solving approach helped Aritzia weather the COVID-19 pandemic. When retail stores were closed, employees pivoted to working for the company’s online business, resulting in no layoffs.

Wong says the staff felt they were part of a bigger common goal, which was to keep Aritzia going during the pandemic. “That's another thing that I love about Aritzia,” she says, “we have a lot of heart.”

Listen to the full conversation – including how Aritzia expanded to the United States, and why it makes a point of supporting women throughout its supply chain – on the Speaking of Business podcast.

Revealing conversations with influential innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders. Listen to more episodes here: thebusinesscouncil.ca/podcasts/