The

Ampersand

HUMANIS BLOG

October 1, 2020

Making Our Own Luck – The Ampersand October 2020

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

To paraphrase Frank Sinatra’s 1961 rendition of Ervin Drake’s It Was a Very Good Year, September was a good month, a very good month.  Okay, not for much of the world, particularly our friends to the south who continue to embarrass themselves to an almost unrecognizable point, but it was good, very good, for the good ship P&Co.

A big win on a high-profile RFP, a validation of our Buy Local zeitgeist, continued leadership in diversity and inclusion initiatives, a new P&Co. training program, a return to the office, a reversal of salary rollbacks, a resumption of Board activities and teaching and even a found stolen bicycle!

Since March, our Ampersands have mostly echoed the general mood of the day; cautious and uncertain yet spattered with a trace of optimism. Good news remains elusive so you’ll forgive a little squawking. Maybe some of it will rub off on you. Treat it like a chain letter that you must forward along to receive the luck!

No, we didn’t just spend our summer watching Netflix and hiding under our bed. Perennially glass-half-full kind of people, we used the quiet offered by COVID to look inwards and redouble our efforts to innovate and grow; to respond to our changing world and create the future we want; to nurture existing relationships while caringly curating new ones. The upshot of all that quiet, hard work?  Here are six specific examples:

1. Green Line RFP

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On the Friday afternoon before the Labour Day Long Weekend we learned that we were the successful proponent for the senior leadership and legal roles related to Calgary’s Green Line project, the largest infrastructure undertaking in the City’s history. This was a significant victory for a local boutique search firm. We were aided in our submissions, and will continue to be aided in our delivery, by our amazing Panorama partners around the globe. Panorama is a strategic alliance of like-minded boutique search firms united by the belief that small is mighty but global is reality. Still, in the end, it was our deep local connectivity, our connection to community and our commitment to diversity that won the day.

As you know, if you’ve been following along these past 11 years or so, we can be a bit outspoken when it comes to local organizations supporting local vendors. ‘Nobody ever got fired for hiring IBM’ goes the saying. We ain’t IBM so we typically lose more than we win when it comes to RFP competitions. They are time consuming to respond to and, because it’s the only way we know how, we pour our hearts into every one, every time.  Every word written from scratch, no boilerplate, no clichés, no b.s.  You’re looking at the P&Co. Marketing Dept. and in this case, particularly at this time, it was an incredible shot in the arm for our humble little enterprise.

This project will keep us busy for the next several years.  More importantly, the Green Line will create jobs now and once complete, will connect people and places, and enhance the quality of life for all Calgarians in the future. Along with the new MAX bus rapid transit lines and the Red and Blue LRT lines, the Green Line will improve mobility choices connecting people to destinations across the city with transit service that is fast, frequent, reliable and sustainable.

We will work very hard to attract the very best and most dedicated experts to provide guidance to Administration and delivering on megaprojects. In each of these Green Line opportunities, we are looking for individuals with strong values, good integrity, exceptional team players, and strategic critical thinkers. The Green Line will be more than just a transit line. If you bring the expertise and attributes, and you’d like to be part of a project your children and grandchildren will continue to enjoy, watch this space in the weeks, months and years ahead.

2. P&Co. University

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We have actively been working with fast-growth companies in the AgriTech sector, one of the most rapidly growing industry segments in these parts. Many of these companies need to hire people but, quite frankly, don’t know how. They are big enough to be actively recruiting but still too small to justify in-house HR on the payroll. Half full types like us see opportunity in that. And so, with the help of some experts in the field, we developed a proprietary, 21 module syllabus on exactly how to recruit and we are going to shop it around to companies large and small to show them the tricks of our trade.

While not quite as revealing as Penn & Teller’s Fool Us TV show where they openly divulge how most tricks are actually done  (in one of their best-known routines, they perform the “cups and balls” trick with clear plastic cups, ostensibly showing where the sleight of hand takes place), the magic of our program is that there is government grant money available to our clients who graduate from it.  As the Vanity Fair article on the brilliance of Fool Us suggested:

“The greater motivation of the show, I think, is having experienced magicians cogently articulate the merits of a performance, which in turn helps the lay public better appreciate magic.”  Precisely!

Our motivation is to make our clients better and while we will teach line mangers with technical backgrounds who aren’t sure how to interview or source or reference or screen or keep warm or turn off or any of our other terms of art that are second nature to us, we’re confident that they will appreciate what we do just a little more and probably still hire us for the bet-the-farm searches just as I will likely never try to saw myself in half, just because someone showed me how it’s done.

To learn more about our training and how your talent acquisition teams, likely gutted by layoffs, or anyone on your team can be better at attracting and retaining talent, you can learn more by visiting our website here.

3. Spike in Work

Turns out that another benefit of spending idle pandemic time not just watching Tiger King, is that by staying close to people, occasionally asking how they’re doing, randomly sending ‘Thanks a Latte’ coffee cards Making Our Own Luck - The Ampersand October 2020 • Image 3 rotated e1601490176959, dropping by their home during Stampede Week with a box of goodies and routinely, and quietly, performing countless other random acts of kindness, they remember that next time they have a need. Go figure.

Soon after being awarded the Green Line work, other searches poured in the door. As you can see from our Featured Opportunities, these include a Chief Administrative Officer for a professional services firm, a VP, Operations in the real estate space, an HR Manager for an oil and gas company, a President for a P/E backed portfolio company and multiple board and committee mandates for a multitude of civic entities. Turns out good things do happen to good people. And though it’s likely temporary and we may all be back under the bed soon enough, you need to take the wins when you get ‘em.

4. An Innovation Revitalization

The V-shaped recovery we’ve experienced since our March swoon, which is looking evermore like a check mark, but could go L or W shaped at any moment, has re-energized us in many ways. Back downtown in our Stephen Avenue office, salary-roll backs and 4-day work weeks cancelled, we are seizing on the new energy by actively exploring other ways we can serve clients, old and new. To this end, we are in the midst of a comprehensive assessment through a trusted consultant to dive deeply into our market, assess the gaps and the opportunities and we’ll report back once this is more fully baked.

The goal is to transcend the transactional; to become a more holistic trusted advisor available to our clients at all times for multiple needs and not just the trouble shooter when a crisis hits. As we’ve hinted before, we’re on a journey designed to transform us from plumbers to window washers and we’ll keep you posted on our progress.

5. Embracing Equity, Diversity & Inclusion

For the record, our firm has been an industry leader in diversity since long before diversity in hiring gained its current prominence. As far back as 2009, we wrote on our website:

“There is a leaning amongst the more traditional executive search firms toward ‘pale, stale and male’; both in their own makeup and the candidates and clients they represent.  The world is changing and though our team believes the best candidate should always get the job, we believe that diversity of thought, gender and background makes us better and, by extension, makes our clients better too.”

Indeed, that language lives there today. Still, we acknowledge that whatever ‘change’ we referred to those many years ago could not have foreseen the long-overdue and seismic shift currently underway.  While we must guard against tokenism and call out those who simply wish to ‘check the box’ and while we believe diversity comes in many shapes and forms, not all of them visible or obvious, these are topics for a future blog post.

In the here and now, we are proud to have our own Ranju Shergill co-chair the Panorama global Diversity and Inclusion initiative. As one of 40 firms working together as Panorama, we are global and diverse and that makes us uniquely positioned to be a platform as a voice for change – for fairness and equality. The executive search and leadership development industry experts are key to driving change towards more diversity in organizations and we plan on leading by example.

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Our entire commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion can be found here.

You have to understand that for a firm whose partnership is 50% female and whose headcount is over 70% female and who has employed gay and straight, black, white and brown, Jewish, Christian and Sikh and proudly a black, gay male who once auditioned on Canadian Idol, this diversity and inclusion issue is second nature to us; it’s hard-wired in who we are: tolerant, respectful, open-minded humans. We approach every search informed by the values of who we are as people, striving to find the best fit possible for our client, while ensuring a fair, transparent equitable, diverse and inclusive process.

But we realize not everyone thinks that way and it is our responsibility as trusted advisors to our clients and leaders to our community to remind those constituents of the values that we sometimes take for granted.

6. Community, Community, Community

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As always, we continue to be heavily immersed in our community and we used our COVID downtime to redouble our efforts.  Adam is once again teaching his Client and Business Development course at the U of C Faculty of Law while also serving on the YMCA and Calgary Municipal Land Corporation Boards.  Ranju is vice-Chair of the Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association.  Erin Dand volunteers with CRIEC (the Calgary Region Immigrant Employment Council) and serves as a mentor in their mentorship program for internationally trained lawyers (“ITL”s) who come to Canada hoping to break into the legal world here. Through COVID, Erin has been mentoring a couple different individuals, and the most recent was an ITL from Nigeria who landed in Calgary in late March in the middle of the lockdown who Erin helped land her first job since arriving in Canada.

After the 2020 cancellation, the P&Co. Pro Bonos hope to again lace up the skates for the Gordie Howe CARES Pro-Am in support of Alzheimer’s and continue to support, in ways large and small, so many important people, causes and organizations in our city.  Samuel Goldwyn said, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”  We say, the more you give, the more you get.

In a month full of good news and good luck we conclude with the story of a stolen bike returned. I nervously forayed onto Facebook in early September to report my youngest son’s mountain bike stolen while he attended a movie with friends in Fernie.

More conventionally, I filed a police report with the local RCMP detachment providing them the serial number and a description and I then, quite appropriately, resigned myself to never seeing the bike again.  Four days later, the RCMP in Kamloops calls. A constable was fuelling up, noticed a truck loaded with bikes, approached the driver who acted suspiciously, ran the description through the computer and got a hit. Guy arrested. Bike retrieved and soon to be returned thanks to a neighbour’s friend in Kamloops.

We live in a strange times, friends. A pandemic continues to rip across our planet, an American president won’t condemn white supremacists, and Tampa Bay wins a Stanley Cup beating Dallas in Edmonton in September.  Yet, we can only control the things we can control.  Left foot, right foot. Day to day, month to month. And right here, right now, fleeting though it may be, we had a good month.  A very good month indeed.

Regards,

Adam

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YANOUK POIRIER

ASSOCIÉ-DIRECTEUR
M. Yanouk Poirier cumule plus de 25 ans d'expérience professionnelle et il a dirigé avec succès de nombreuses missions de recrutement exécutif, de conseil en leadership et de recrutement de membres de conseils d'administration pour des PME, de grandes entreprises nationales et internationales.

Très impliqué, M. Poirier siège aux conseils d'administration de Penrhyn International, du Club St-James de Montréal et de la Fondation du cancer du sein du Québec. Il est également mentor et gouverneur pour l'Université de Sherbrooke. Yanouk se décrit comme un homme de famille, un père, un entrepreneur et un connecteur. Il croit profondément que nous pouvons changer le monde un leader à la fois et que nous avons la responsabilité de redonner à la société.

Titulaire d'un MBA de l'Université de Sherbrooke, Yanouk détient également un post-MBA axé sur les grands enjeux stratégiques mondiaux. Il est également certifié en coaching exécutif (ACC) par l'International Coaching Federation.
CO-MANAGING PARTNER
Mr. Yanouk Poirier has over 25 years of professional experience and has successfully led numerous missions in executive recruitment, leadership consulting, and board member recruitment for SMEs, large national and international companies. Highly involved, Mr. Poirier sits on the boards of Penrhyn International, Club St-James in Montreal, and the Quebec Breast Cancer Foundation. He also serves as a mentor and Governor for the University of Sherbrooke. Yanouk describes himself as a family man, a father, an entrepreneur, and a connector. He deeply believes that we can change the world one leader at a time and that we have a responsibility to give back to society.

Holder of an MBA from the University of Sherbrooke, Yanouk also holds a post-MBA focusing on major global strategic issues. He is certified in executive coaching (ACC) by the International Coaching Federation.

CYNTHIA LABONTÉ, MBA

ASSOCIÉE-DIRECTRICE
Depuis plus de 20 ans, Cynthia Labonté assiste des conseils d'administration et des dirigeants d’entreprises dans la gestion complète des processus de recrutement de cadres exécutifs. Auparavant, elle a dirigé une équipe en recrutement de cadres au sein d’une importante firme de consultation stratégique au Canada.

Elle a réalisé à bien, plus de 350 mandats de recrutement de cadres exécutifs pour des entreprises et des firmes réputées dans les secteurs manufacturier et industriel, de la distribution, du commerce de détail, des services professionnels et des organisations à but non lucratif. Son esprit entrepreneurial et son sens des affaires, lui permettent de reconnaître la culture unique et d’analyser le leadership requis afin de répondre aux enjeux d’affaires de ses clients.

Mme Labonté est membre d’EntreChefs (réseau de plus de 2000 membres d’entrepreneurs au Québec). Cynthia est très impliquée dans la communauté philantropique de Montréal et participe activement à des conseils d’administration et de nombreuses causes locales.

Elle est titulaire d'une double diplomation MBA de l'Université Paris-Dauphine et de l'ESG-UQAM.
CO-MANAGING PARTNER
For over 20 years, Cynthia Labonté has been assisting boards of directors, corporate executives and public organizations in the complete management of executive search processes. Previously, she led a team of senior managers and consultants at a major Canadian strategic consulting and executive search firm.

She has successfully completed over 350 executive search mandates for leading companies and firms in the manufacturing, industrial, distribution, retail, professional services and not-for-profit sectors. Her entrepreneurial spirit, business acumen, rigor and analytical skills are essential attributes that enable her to recognize the unique culture and needs of organizations, and to analyze the leadership required to meet her clients' business challenges.

Ms. Labonté is a member of EntreChefs (a network of over 2,000 entrepreneurs in Quebec). Cynthia is very involved in Montreal's philanthropic community, actively participating on boards and in many local causes.

She holds a double MBA from Université Paris-Dauphine and from ESG-UQAM in Montreal.

ROBIN FERRÉ

CONSULTANT
Robin Ferré est consultant en recherche de cadres exécutifs.

Avant de se joindre à Humanis, Robin a travaillé comme consultant, puis directeur chez un acteur important en recrutement exécutif ou il a œuvré dans des secteurs variés tels que les services professionnels, les technologies ou le secteur manufacturier.

Auparavant, il a travaillé dans diverses organisations en Europe et au Canada, dans des fonctions liées aux ressources humaines et au recrutement.

Durant son temps libre, Robin est très impliqué dans sa communauté. Il est membre du conseil d’administration de la Société Économique de l’Ontario et du conseil d’administration de l’Alliance Française de Toronto.

Il est également un grand amateur de sports de combats qu’il aime pratiquer ou simplement regarder, après un bon diner avec ses proches.

Robin Ferré est titulaire d'un baccalauréat en droit et d'une maîtrise en ressources humaines.
CONSULTANT
Robin Ferré is an executive search consultant.

Prior to joining Humanis, Robin worked as a consultant and then as a director for a major player in executive search in Canada, where he worked in a variety of sectors including professional services, technology and manufacturing.

Prior to this, he worked in various organizations in Europe and Canada, in human resources and recruitment functions.

In his spare time, Robin is very involved in his community. He is a board member of the Société Économique de l’Ontario and the Alliance Française de Toronto.

He's also a big fan of combat sports, which he likes to practice or simply watch after a good dinner with his loved ones.

Robin Ferré holds a bachelor's degree in Law and a master's degree in Human Resources.

MARIA ICAZA

CONSULTANTE
Maria Icaza vient de Mexico et possède plus de 13 ans d'expérience en recrutement de cadres. Elle collabore en continu avec les associés pour le recrutement de cadres supérieurs dans les secteurs manufacturier et distribution, de la vente au détail, des services professionnels et des OBNL. Elle a surtout travaillé sur des mandats au Canada et au Mexique, elle a aussi effectué quelques projets en Europe et aux États-Unis.

Elle a d’excellentes aptitudes relationnelles et sait naturellement attirer des talents de haut niveau. Outre sa passion pour les relations interpersonnelles, elle s’épanouit en apprenant sans cesse. Engagée auprès de la firme, elle comprend le marché des talents et carbure travail d’équipe.

Elle possède un baccalauréat en marketing de la Universidad del Valle de Mexico.

Maria est parle couramment l’espagnol et l’anglais et améliore son français de façon intensive!
CONSULTANT
Maria Icaza is from Mexico City; she has more than 13 years of experience in executive search. She has collaborated with partners on senior management roles up to C-Suite positions in the manufacturing, consumer, retail, pharmaceutical, industrial and professional services industry. She has been working in Mexico and Canada, nevertheless she did some assignments in Latin-America, Europe, and in the United States.

She has strong interpersonal skills and naturally attracts high-caliber talents. Besides her love for connecting with people, she aims to learn new things every day. Committed and devoted to the firm, she understands the talent market and thrives from being part of a team.

She has a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing from Universidad del Valle de Mexico.  

Fluent in Spanish and English, and in French (in development).

STÉPHANIE LAROSE

COORDONNATRICE DE PROJETS
Stéphanie œuvre en communications et en recherche depuis plus de 10 ans. Toujours à l’affût du mot juste, elle se spécialise en rédaction, en traduction et en révision. Elle a également à son actif plusieurs mandats de recherche de candidats. Son sujet de prédilection reste l’humain : l’exploration du potentiel de celui-ci la fascine.

Véritable caméléon, elle navigue au sein d’industries variées et côtoie tant des profils exécutifs qu’artistiques. Sa force réside dans sa curiosité ainsi que son sens de l’écoute de ses collaborateurs.

Titulaire d’un baccalauréat en Lettres modernes de l’Université de Lorraine (France), elle accorde une place importante à la bonification de ses connaissances linguistiques et littéraires. Sensible à l’art sous toutes ses formes et créative, elle tire son inspiration de ceux qui osent sortir du lot.

Mère de deux jeunes enfants, l’éducation et l’ouverture sur le monde restent au cœur de ses priorités. Dans ses temps libres, rien ne la ravit plus que de recevoir à sa table des personnes authentiques et ricaneuses.
PROJECT COORDINATOR
Stéphanie has been working in communications and research for over 10 years. Always looking for the right word, she specialized in writing, translating, and proofreading. She has also worked on many search mandates. Her favourite topic remains human beings: exploring their potential fascinates her.

A true chameleon, she has worked within various industries and still deals equally with executive and artistic profiles. Her strength lies in her curiosity and her listening skills towards her collaborators.

She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Modern Literature from Université de Lorraine (France) and attaches great importance to improving her linguistic and literary knowledge. Sensitive to art in all its forms and creative, she draws inspiration from those who dare to stand out.

A mother to two young children, education and openness to the world remain at the heart of her priorities. During her free time, nothing pleases her more than to welcome at her table people who are authentic and have a great sense of humour. 

RICHARD BÉLANGER

CONSULTANT SENIOR
Le parcours de Richard Bélanger en tant que gestionnaire de haut niveau lui a permis d'accompagner plusieurs types d'entreprises dans divers secteurs d'activité, principalement en recherche de cadres mais aussi dans leur processus de planification de la relève.

Son expérience de plus de 25 ans dans le domaine du recrutement exécutif a été acquise au sein de sa propre firme ainsi qu’auprès d’une importante firme canadienne de consultation stratégique et de recherche de cadres.

Richard a été président d’une filiale au sein d’un important détaillant et distributeur dans le domaine des produits de consommation et de vente par catalogue au Canada.

Il siège sur différents conseils d’administration et a développé un réseau enviable basé sur ses valeurs personnelles qui sont l’authenticité, la rigueur et le sens de l’éthique. Ses compétences relationnelles et sa capacité d’écoute active combinées à son courage managérial lui permettent de s’assurer de la compréhension des besoins de sa clientèle.
SENIOR CONSULTANT
Richard Bélanger is a senior consultant who has extensive experience in high-level management which has allowed him to support several types of businesses in different industries and sectors, mainly in executive search but also in their succession planning process.

His experience of more than 25 years in the field of executive recruitment was acquired within his own firm as well as with a major Canadian strategic consulting and executive search firm.

Richard was President of a subsidiary of a key retailer and distributor of consumer products and catalog sales in Canada.

He serves on different Boards of Administration and has developed an enviable network based on his personal values which are authenticity, rigor, and a sense of ethics. His people skills and his ability to actively listen combined with his managerial courage allow him to ensure that the needs of his customers are understood.
Richard Bélanger
514.808.6084