Tersia Maritz | CEO & President | WasteLine Containers Ltd.

In today’s time, empowering employees to make decisions and take action is essential. Involving employees in co-creating with the people close to the project, which requires trust and transparency, can make a massive difference in employees’ morale. Collaborative leadership values openness and communication, encourages motivation, and treats all team members respectfully.

Saylor Huang | CEO | Skyreach

Regardless of what, why, and where you lead, you—as the leader—are directly responsible for engaging those who follow you. And engagement is assisted by your culture, which you are also responsible for as a leader. This is why leaders must set the right tone for the organization—engagement, culture, and the employee experience. Leadership means inspiring others to achieve specific outcomes, whether you are leading a family, a class, or a corporation.

Dr. Michelle Acorn | CEO | Nurse Practitioners’ Association of Ontario

Supportive leadership is an essential and valuable leadership style for businesses. It fosters positive relationships between employees and ultimately empowers team members to develop their professional skills and work well autonomously or with little active management and guidance.

Marina Charriere | CEO | Star Drug Testing Services

Marina Charriere, CEO of Star Drug Testing Services, Star Drug Testing Services (Windsor Park), and First Defence Face Masks go hand in hand. Star is a drug and alcohol testing facility, and First D F M is a face mask company. One of Marina’s qualities that have transformed the organization is her openness to thinking out of the box. Her innovative ways of understanding the current need of her companies are always at the forefront of all her thinking. Coming from 25+ years in the education sector, Marina has transitioned her talent of broadening minds, her ability to inspire people, and committing herself to active listening in any environment she finds herself surrounded by, just like she did with her students and staff.

Justin Bourque | CEO | Willow Lake Métis Nation

As the CEO of Willow Lake Métis Nation, Justin has been the proud architect of a transition away from a centralized approach to governance so that his community can return to a grassroots organization governed by, and for, the Willow Lake Métis Nation (WLMN). Justin relentlessly focused on restructuring the WLMN as an organization to ensure that it is accountable to its members, driven for community prosperity, and remains culturally grounded. He is committed to bringing new community-based services to the Nation, determined to protect and enhance the community’s rights, and to ensure the Willow Lake Métis have an economically sustainable future for generations to come.

Joan Kanigan | CEO | Western Development Museum

Joan Kanigan, CEO of the Western Development Museum (WDM), took an extraordinarily unique yet bold step as a leader in 2021. She initiated a 360o Performance Assessment to better understand how she was performing and where she needed to improve—all through an honest and critical feedback system to know where she was standing as a leader and a manager. “My intent with this performance review was to ensure I am serving the WDM and those I am responsible for to the best of my abilities,” she says. “The things that my staff felt I was doing most effectively include listening to them at all levels, using staff input to make decisions; making people comfortable to bring issues, opinions, and questions forward; valuing others’ thoughts and opinions; and identifying needs and opportunities for organizational improvement.”

Jeff King | CEO | Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver

The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) is a member-based professional association of 15,000 REALTORS® and their companies who live and work in communities from Whistler to Maple Ridge to Tsawwassen and throughout the Metro Vancouver area.

Geneviève Fortier | CEO | Promutuel Insurance

For Geneviève Fortier, providing a distinctive experience to insured members is priority number one. She believes that delivering on this critical mission requires a daily commitment from the entire team and network of mutual associations. Listening to clients’ voices and taking action to make it easier for them to purchase insurance or navigate the claims adjudication process is key to fulfilling the Promutuel promise: to be there when members need us the most.
Geneviève is convinced that providing clear direction is one of the most critical tasks for a CEO. Clear direction isn’t just a matter of setting performance targets for the organization. It’s also a matter of getting team members to buy into the vision—and it takes both to be successful.

Ben Thompson | CEO | Tridon Communications

Tridon Communications, founded in 1981 and currently led by Ben Thompson, CEO, Chad Tomachefski, CGO, and Greg Tolson, COO, is western Canada’s leading Telecommunications System Integrator (TSI). Tridon aims to address all aspects of telecommunication system requirements, including PTT land mobile radio, fiber optics, structured cable, access control, PTP wireless and microwave, tower construction and maintenance, cyber security, and more. Tridon can take any telecom project from inception to completion, including design and engineering, project management, construction, installation and maintenance, repair, and maintenance, successfully providing organizations with end-to-end solutions as a single point of contact for wired or wireless communications.

Anubhav Agarwal | President & CEO

To Anubhav Agarwal, President & CEO, Irpinia Kitchens, and Partner at Rhyno Equity Group, providing the Company’s employees with a safe, secure and productive working environment is priority number one. Anubhav believes that the most important resource of any organization are its people. Understanding this fact is a critical aspect of Anubhav’s inclusive and non-bureaucratic leadership style with the goal to inspire employees at all levels to perform their best each and every day.
“Our employees choose Irpinia as their family away from home and we want to make sure that we reward them for placing their faith in Irpinia,” says Anubhav. He likes to challenge the norm and encourages everyone to bring a continuous improvement mindset to work every day.
Anubhav recognizes the need to have a strong management team that shares the same sense of responsibility to the Company’s employees as he does. He empowers Irpinia’s management team to operate their departments autonomously, fearlessly and most importantly, collaboratively.