What CEOs Talk About

Tim Hill is CEO of iLola Teas, a title he shares with his wife, Su-Mari. Together they started their CEO journey with the opening of Nineteen02 Stores and Teahouse and now operate Pure+ Kombucha and the newly opened iLola. Tim and Su-Mari believe that tea is used as a starting point between two friends; a safe place found in the tradition of the convergence of moments.

Tim started his career as a financial auditor and worked in accounting for ten years to understand how business and finance worked. After that he set out to fulfill the entrepreneurial spirit he’d always harbored. Together with Su-Mari and their five children, they have created a world of innovation around tea. iLOLA products specifically are made locally by Canadian artisans, handcrafted and curated with premium ingredients from all over the world, and housed in a unique tea disc format.

In this episode….

Tim Hill is passionate about tea. A good cup of tea is the introduction to friendship, business, and creative space. Though Tim started his career in the world of accounting, after ten years of immersion into business and finance he decided it was time to leave and pursue his entrepreneurial dreams. From the tea shop he and his co-founder/wife Su-Mari first opened on the Sunshine Coast of BC to the most recent business they launched in 2020, iLola Teas, Tim truly understands innovation and the steady build towards success required of all entrepreneurs.

Regarding innovation, Tim says we need to “take pressure off ourselves to think you just wake up and suddenly there is this idea - it’s actually a huge amount of data collection that your brain has brought you up to this very moment in time”. He details how early failures in their tea shop led to a greater understanding of their true focus and calling in the tea business and how Su-Mari’s inspired idea in 2020 became the unique tea disc at the heart of iLola’s innovative offerings.

In this episode of What CEOs Talk About, host Martin Hunter and Tim Hill dive deep into innovation, how it’s cultivated, and why it’s so necessary. They explore not only Tim’s passion for tea but how he draws inspiration and motivation from business structures as varied as the military and architecture to considering how climate change will impact tea in the future. Tim and Martin discuss pricing for innovation and how to view redoing ideas for better potential in an episode full of insight.

This podcast is brought to you by URGEO, Operational excellence in action through the Are you Ready Program!

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William Madden has worked in the food industry for the past 20 years. He specializes in big-picture operations and supply chain management, and contract negotiation between food companies and contract manufacturers. He is currently Senior Partner in Whole Brain Consulting.

William Madden has helped everything from start-ups to multimillion-dollar businesses find perfect-match contract manufacturers, setting them up for long term success. He is also the author of ‘Separating the Con Man From the Co Man – A Guide to Contract Manufacturing’

In this episode….

William Madden has worked in the food industry for the past 20 years and is author of a book called ‘Separating the Con Man From the Co Man - A Guide to Contract Manufacturing’ but his start in the food industry came about in college because of a $20 cotton candy bet made with his roommates. From those auspicious beginnings, he became a young million-dollar business owner who made and lost his company all by the age of 21. 

After cotton candy, he moved on to Nestle and ran their alternative markets for the US. From there he gathered a wealth of operational knowledge all from various businesses where he held high-level positions but always forged relationships with the folks on the operational line. He understands how to leverage attitude and experience and apply it to hard work and smart decision making, using the knowledge of the people making the product to get things working right.

In this episode of What CEOs Talk About, host Martin Hunter and William Madden explore the “cotton candy king’s” storied resume and what valuable and practical insights William gained at every step of the way. He remained true to himself - personable and honest - and always willing to roll up his sleeves, walk the floor, and learn fast. They discuss how to treat the people in operations, the most common mistakes William encounters in industry, and the importance of always doing a line trial.

This podcast is brought to you by URGEO, Operational excellence in action through the Are you Ready Program!

https://www.urgeo.com/

Are you READY to free up your time?

Optimize your Organization?

Grow revenue and reduce costs?

Build your leadership team?

Partnering with organizations like yours, we work with you to implement our proven methodology designed to transform your operations, while providing accurate advice and support for real success.

Translating strategy into frontline operations, URGEO helps leaders and the people within their organization excel at safe, on-time, on-budget and on-spec delivery. Let’s touch base so we can learn how we can level up your business. Contact us today: https://www.urgeo.com/contact

Janice Otremba is Owner and Founder of her self-named consultancy firm. As a Certified Executive Coach and People & Performance Catalyst with over 20 years of experience, she supports leaders in mastering relationship intelligence to better their life, organization, and community by providing tools and strategies to confidently manifest desired and strategic outcomes.

Through assessments, interviews, and real conversations, she gets at the root cause that may be leading to a lack of productivity, low morale, and a sense of apathy or burnout.

In this episode….

Janice Otremba has a background in counseling, specifically in front line trauma work. When individuals she counselled started returning and asking her to speak to their front-line teams and organizations with the strategies she’d taught them, her speaking career was born. From there she transitioned into consultancy, so she brings over 20 years of experience to her work.

The title of this episode comes from a very motivational and quite funny personal story in her life but the general phrase stuck with her and became a metaphor for everything she does and works to help others achieve. Janice shares incredible insights about how to achieve the clean and balanced environment we all need in order to thrive. She and Martin discuss the ways in which communication, action, and intention must be balanced to achieve success in so many areas of life.

In this episode of What CEOs Talk About, host Martin Hunter and Janice Otremba discuss anxiety, stress, and imposter syndrome, how to differentiate and communicate action versus intention, and how to combat unmet expectations from both leadership and employee viewpoints. Janice explores how “a lack of confidence impedes growth and success”, how to find that confidence, and shares insights on the importance of cultivating intuition.

This podcast is brought to you by URGEO, Operational excellence in action through the Are you Ready Program!

https://www.urgeo.com/

Are you READY to free up your time?

Optimize your Organization?

Grow revenue and reduce costs?

Build your leadership team?

Partnering with organizations like yours, we work with you to implement our proven methodology designed to transform your operations, while providing accurate advice and support for real success.

Translating strategy into frontline operations, URGEO helps leaders and the people within their organization excel at safe, on-time, on-budget and on-spec delivery. Let’s touch base so we can learn how we can level up your business. Contact us today: https://www.urgeo.com/contact

Rev. Matthew Smedley is the Executive Director and CEO of Mission Possible. Over the past 10+ years, Matt has helped Mission Possible transition its programming from offering basic street-level care to being a leading community economic development organization in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Though his role at Mission Possible is varied and complex, his favourite part about his job has stayed consistent - the people. He loves both the Mission Possible team that works alongside him, as well as the community of amazing people who offer every-day inspiration.

Matt has served as a pastor in the inner city and has over five years of experience working in the trades. He holds a graduate certificate from SFU in Community Economic Development, has done coursework in theology and sociology, and has a B.S. from Cairn University. Outside of his work, Matt spends time walking with his wife, playing games with his daughter and three sons, and tinkering with his motorcycle.

In this episode….

Matthew Smedley came to Mission Possible after accepting a volunteer opportunity from his friend, the then-Executive Director. When he ventured back into part-time work after staying home with his sons for two years, he went back to Mission Possible and eventually stayed on full-time. Now as the Executive Director and CEO, he explains that the work greatly affected him and how he thought; it challenged assumptions he held about why people are homeless or in poverty.

Matthew has a real clarity about what a non-profit organization can do in terms of a social enterprise endeavor, which is how Mission Possible functions. He is very clear that financial profit is only a goal in terms of breaking even and that the true goal is social profit. He prides Mission Possible on running high quality and professional social enterprises which in turn elevates a sense of dignity and purpose in the work for the downtown eastside Vancouver community he serves.

In this episode of What CEOs Talk About, host Martin Hunter and Matthew Smedley explore the truths about why people experience challenges in life; the traumas, abuses, addictions, and transactional employment mentalities that drive them to homelessness and poverty. They break down exactly what Mission Possible is about and how they operate positive change in the downtown eastside. Matthew explains the difference between Executive Director and CEO, how non-profit enterprises have a different view of success than a for profit company, and how he loves his job but wishes people could be instilled with a sense of value and worth after setbacks and struggle without its intervention.

This podcast is brought to you by URGEO, Operational excellence in action through the Are you Ready Program!

https://www.urgeo.com/

Are you READY to free up your time?

Optimize your Organization?

Grow revenue and reduce costs?

Build your leadership team?

Partnering with organizations like yours, we work with you to implement our proven methodology designed to transform your operations, while providing accurate advice and support for real success.

Translating strategy into frontline operations, URGEO helps leaders and the people within their organization excel at safe, on-time, on-budget and on-spec delivery. Let’s touch base so we can learn how we can level up your business. Contact us today: https://www.urgeo.com/contact

Isabelle Mercier-Turcotte, Founder of Build To Rock by LeapZone, is a brand builder, business performance catalyst, and one of the best-selling authors of the business and marketing book titled, The Next Big Thing: Top Trends From Today's Leading Experts to Help You Dominate the New Economy. She has a relentless passion for helping entrepreneurs and small business owners raise the bar and expand their comfort zone to create outstanding brand experiences.

Throughout her career, she has had the opportunity to help hundreds of small business owners, as well as some influential brands such as A&W, Robeez Footwear, Earls Restaurants, IMAX Corporation, and HSBC Investments. With over two decades of hands-on experience in branding & business growth, as well as extensive learnings from traveling the globe, Isabelle is determined more than ever to help small business owners all over the world catapult their way to massive success.

In this episode….

Isabelle Mercier-Turcotte, a self-described “no-nonsense dynamo”, was raised in a family of entrepreneurs. Her mother was a hair stylist, her father was a radio talk show host, and she started contributing earnings towards her schooling at the tender age of nine. She founded her first business in her teens with her to-be life and business partner of 30 years.

Isabelle talks about being disruptive and she is, in the sense that she understands what it takes for a business to stand apart and be different. She explains to Martin that when an organization is being disruptive, they know what their customers really need and know how to create something that is irresistible to people. She has been teaching similar fundamentals to entrepreneurs and business leaders for years to much acclaim.

In this episode of What CEOs Talk About, host Martin Hunter and Isabelle Mercier-Turcotte discuss their shared dyslexia and how what was difficult about being dyslexic growing up has turned into a part of their genius in business. They dive into how Isabelle founded LeapZone Strategies, what her definition of being disruptive is, and the Big Four foundational ideas that she leads businesses into embracing on their paths to disruptive success.

Esther Weinberg is a business growth accelerator that equips executives in high-growth media and technology industries to create game-changing breakthroughs, increase profitability in declining markets and create successful and sustainable “portable” virtual cultures with executives, leaders and teams.

As Founder & Chief Leadership Development Officer of The Ready Zone, Esther is a respected thought-leader with first-hand experience. She moves leaders through change with proven systems to create big pivots, big impact and big returns. With over 20-years experience, her innovative strategies have assisted clients to grow, scale and thrive during the worst and best of times including Netflix, NBCUniversal, Microsoft, ESPN, WarnerMedia, Warner Bros., CNN, DreamWorks Animation, Discovery Communications, Adobe, Disney, IMAX, National Geographic, and Nickelodeon.

In this episode….

Esther Weinberg was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, a heritage she is very proud of, like most New Yorkers. She is a graduate of New York University and came up, after university, in the marketing and PR side of business, working in magazines and publishing before transitioning to PR for an agency doing entertainment work. It was after working in Uganda that she had an “a-ha moment” about what all people in any business really want: human dignity. People from all walks of life in a vast array of company settings told her essentially the same thing using different terms and language for it. And from that discovery The Ready Zone was born.

Esther founded the concept of ZPIs (Zone Performance Indicators) and six foundational strategies that assist corporations in working through change. She wrote a book on the subject called Better Leaders. Better People. Better Results. 6 Eye-Opening Strategies to Thrive Through Change You Didn’t Ask For. As a renowned speaker, she is articulate about exactly how these ideas work and discusses them with clarity and encouraging candor.

In this episode of What CEOs Talk About, host Martin Hunter and Esther Weinberg discuss the lessons and revelations they both had during separate times in Africa, how COVID forced many companies into reorganizations they hadn’t planned for, why relationships with people are more valuable than people’s performance, and strategies for approaching difficult conversations. 

This podcast is brought to you by URGEO, Operational excellence in action through the Are you Ready Program!

https://www.urgeo.com/

Are you READY to free up your time?

Optimize your Organization?

Grow revenue and reduce costs?

Build your leadership team?

Partnering with organizations like yours, we work with you to implement our proven methodology designed to transform your operations, while providing accurate advice and support for real success.

Translating strategy into frontline operations, URGEO helps leaders and the people within their organization excel at safe, on-time, on-budget and on-spec delivery. Let’s touch base so we can learn how we can level up your business. Contact us today: https://www.urgeo.com/contact

Boris Maganic founded 360Pros through his innate sense of curiosity, adventure and passion for continuous learning. Often taking the road less traveled, he focuses on the pathways which interest him the most. Self-taught in many avenues, Boris obsessively dedicates his actions with intent, reflecting his experience of the world in how he makes important business decisions.

Boris designed 360Pros to, quote, “offer immersive media solutions that allow businesses to market, maintain or sell their space to potential customers on a global scale”. He works to embody a spirit of learning and spiritual growth in all his endeavors, in and outside of business.

In this episode….

There were three thought seeds that planted the idea of 360Pros in Boris Maganic’s mind; three revelations that started him on his journey. With four and a half years of the business now behind him, Boris understands very much that business is a kind of spiritual journey that works in concert with his company’s core values.

Boris Maganic is largely self-taught and in that vein is always learning. He understood early on that virtual reality and immersive experience would define the future and now he’s working in that very medium as a way of expanding learning for clients and their end-user customers. He details a lot of what motivates him to create experience through his work.

In this episode of What CEOs Talk About, host Martin Hunter and Boris Maganic break down exactly what it is that 360Pros does and offers in terms of service. They discuss how aspects of chaos (the unknown) and order (the known) are necessary for the spiritual journey of business, how to look for balance, what a gift feedback and critique can be, and who their various corporate, creative, and podcast influences are.

This podcast is brought to you by URGEO, Operational excellence in action through the Are you Ready Program!

https://www.urgeo.com/

Are you READY to free up your time?

Optimize your Organization?

Grow revenue and reduce costs?

Build your leadership team?

Partnering with organizations like yours, we work with you to implement our proven methodology designed to transform your operations, while providing accurate advice and support for real success.

Translating strategy into frontline operations, URGEO helps leaders and the people within their organization excel at safe, on-time, on-budget and on-spec delivery. Let’s touch base so we can learn how we can level up your business. Contact us today: https://www.urgeo.com/contact

As Level5’s Director of Enterprise and Brand Strategy, Sean Pavlidis works closely with clients to identify and articulate their most significant growth opportunities and build a clear and accountable plan that turns those opportunities into a reality.

Sean has had the pleasure of working with a broad range of clients across private and public sectors – from startups experiencing growing pains to established multinationals facing unprecedented changes in their business environment. He is hands-on when it comes to contributing his time to community causes. He sits on the board of a Toronto-based not-for-profit and acts as an industry lead on Queens’ University-based consulting organizations. He’s also an active speaker, panelist and judge in various industry and post-secondary events.

Prior to joining Level5, Sean conducted equities research focused on the natural resource sector in Canada and across the globe.

In this episode….

Sean Pavlidis received his BComm from Queen’s University in Toronto. From there he went right into consulting at Level5 Strategy. Though he had initially planned to stay only around five years in consultancy, he discovered that he loved the work, the company, and loved client services. So he remained onboard and is now a Principal; Director of Enterprise and Brand Strategy.

Sean describes himself as having a one-track mind but he is also very open to learning new skills from the ground up, including carpentry which he dove into upon moving into his house and deciding things needed fixing and upgrading. He translates this thirst for knowledge into lessons that apply to his work and business in general. Everything can be instruction for better and more flexible leadership.

In this episode of What CEOs Talk About, host Martin Hunter and Sean Pavlidis discuss what makes a great, and flexible, leader and what should be avoided. They share stories of influential leaders from their own lives, discuss Sean’s top three behaviors of a flexible leader, and break down why COVID has been so hard on the industry. Martin and Sean provide insight into leadership traits that can help you break free of inflexibility and share practical and useful advice to implement right away.

This podcast is brought to you by URGEO, Operational excellence in action through the Are you Ready Program!

https://www.urgeo.com/

Are you READY to free up your time?

Optimize your Organization?

Grow revenue and reduce costs?

Build your leadership team?

Partnering with organizations like yours, we work with you to implement our proven methodology designed to transform your operations, while providing accurate advice and support for real success.

Translating strategy into frontline operations, URGEO helps leaders and the people within their organization excel at safe, on-time, on-budget and on-spec delivery. Let’s touch base so we can learn how we can level up your business. Contact us today: https://www.urgeo.com/contact

Josh Jeffries is a Managing Director with Risk Strategies.

While merging companies with his business partner in 2010, Josh began working on his MBA which gave him the opportunity to learn the US healthcare reform implemented March 23, 2010 inside and out. He views the biggest barrier to change in the healthcare industry as status quo; thinking there are no alternatives. There are always alternatives and he is dedicated to presenting options that offer better care and reduce overall costs to employers.

In this episode….

Josh Jeffries started out as a soccer player in college but he realized he couldn’t make a living playing soccer and switched to selling life insurance. Early on in life he watched his father and father’s friends lose their jobs with the Hoover company which motivated him to not want to work for someone else. The entrepreneurial drive served him well and he found a business partner and began working on a way to reshape the structure of health insurance for employers.

Josh used the US healthcare reform of March 2010 for the basis of almost everything he did; he learned the reform inside and out whereas his competitors were spending money trying to fight it. He believes an ideal would be a community-based structure where a person’s safety net shouldn’t have to change just because their job did. He challenges the status quo with the work he does.

In this episode of What CEOs Talk About, host Martin Hunter and Josh Jeffries dive into the health insurance industry and examine how Josh came to work in it and why. Josh explains the high rate of medical bankruptcies in the US and how they come about, he breaks down why the industry contains so much price gouging, and he lays out the basis of how he approaches insurance from a different perspective. Martin and Josh discuss the ways in which access and cost are barriers to healthcare and also examine Josh’s business model.

This podcast is brought to you by URGEO, Operational excellence in action through the Are you Ready Program!

https://www.urgeo.com/

Are you READY to free up your time?

Optimize your Organization?

Grow revenue and reduce costs?

Build your leadership team?

Partnering with organizations like yours, we work with you to implement our proven methodology designed to transform your operations, while providing accurate advice and support for real success.

Translating strategy into frontline operations, URGEO helps leaders and the people within their organization excel at safe, on-time, on-budget and on-spec delivery. Let’s touch base so we can learn how we can level up your business. Contact us today: https://www.urgeo.com/contact

Graham North is a brand consultant who thinks the brand strategy process is in dire need of reinvention. He works at San Francisco agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners, where he invented and leads a brand strategy called Brand Camp, which combines rigorous research, radical collaboration, and a touch of brand therapy to help leadership teams make hard tradeoffs to align on better brand strategies. For his role in building Brand Camp, he was named Campaign’s 2020 Strategic Planner of the Year. 

Graham is also Founder of The Weekend, a weekend-long brand accelerator consultancy.

In this episode….

Graham North says his title is itself a branding issue. He would know as he’s something of a brand consultancy expert. According to Jeff Goodby of Goodby Silverstein & Partners, “Graham is spearheading a new way of thinking and approach to clients’ problems. It is exactly what clients need in this time of crisis and rapid reinvention.”

In a 2016 article titled How the Advertising Industry is Wasting Talent, Graham posits the following thought: “Listen more. Doggedly remove barriers in the creative process, and stop trying to swoop in with all the answers.” He remains firm on this point and restates in this interview that his number one piece of advice is to “listen like you’re wrong”.

In this episode of What CEOs Talk About, host Martin Hunter and Graham North dive into what exactly makes (and breaks) a brand. They discuss what a brand is and is not, how to get to the core of what you actually do that defines your brand, why listening is a necessary part of identifying your brand, and some of Graham’s process in defining brands for clients.

This podcast is brought to you by URGEO, Operational excellence in action through the Are you Ready Program!

https://www.urgeo.com/

Are you READY to free up your time?

Optimize your Organization?

Grow revenue and reduce costs?

Build your leadership team?

Partnering with organizations like yours, we work with you to implement our proven methodology designed to transform your operations, while providing accurate advice and support for real success.

Translating strategy into frontline operations, URGEO helps leaders and the people within their organization excel at safe, on-time, on-budget and on-spec delivery. Let’s touch base so we can learn how we can level up your business. Contact us today: https://www.urgeo.com/contact