The Exchanges

Q start, not even being 40 yet. So I'm glad that you had a role model, someone to look up to, like your father. Did you ever get a chance to work with him, or to go to work with him, or see actually what he did, or did you just have this idea of like, he's important, or he seems important, and that was like enough for you, that image?

A No, there was a decade starting as, uh, delivering papers. My dad was in the newspaper business, so 10, when I was 10, I was a carrier girl, not a carrier boy. Um, and then I loved on Saturdays going into my dad's office, you know, if he had to do, if I had to do some filing or whatever it was, I was going in with my dad. Um, Part-time jobs throughout, uh, right into university. My dad would always find work for me and I worked for him probably just part-time in different capacities. Um, everything from doing the fortiori race tracks to running circulation ads to, so for about a decade, uh, I worked with, with my dad, for my dad, um, in that period, that very formative, formative years for myself.

AI assessment note: “for about a decade, uh, I worked with, with my dad, for my dad”

Q got to see all of that And go, wow, running a business looks like it sucks. I don't really want to be a part of that in I've ended up in it anyways, but at least when I was younger, I got a sense of, of the pluses and the minuses of it all. So. At what point did you realize that you wanted to focus on helping women specifically?

A Well, for me throughout my career, and I started relatively young, my first tax season, I was 19 years old and it was all men in the accounting profession. My bosses, my managers, I had no female role models. And pretty much that was throughout till probably my late thirties, even to early forties. Where, where I worked, and who my colleagues were, and who my bosses were, were all men. And so, as a professional, I never thought, I, I'm a woman, I have to be treated differently. I just have to make sure I show up, and do good work, and work hard. So really it probably started for me in my about mid forties when I was showing up and there wasn't enough women in technology. So I was on the board of the Canadian Association of Technology Alliance, and I joined this board, 35 member board, and there was only three women. And I, and the chair of the board and the CEO said, okay, you, you are going to work with This organization called Springboard, but we want you to advance more women in technology. And this was 2003, 2004. I'm like, sure. I'm in. And through that, just that re realizing that women need more empowerment. Women need more role models. Women need support. Um, so I was able to create what we call the women in technology forum through CATA. And then from there. I was also advancing my career in governance. I was serving on boards by then, and I, there was not enough women…

AI assessment note: “So really it probably started for me in my about mid forties”

Q So there's this understanding that like board should have a quarterly meeting. Is that like mandatory?

A So, so first of all, if you're a publicly listed company, you have quarterly financials and they have to be approved by the board before those financial results press release goes out. So, by minimum, you, minimum, you have to have a quarterly meeting because the committees meet, and then the committee has to make recommendation, and the board has to make that final approval, and it's in the mandates of, of any of the committee work, ah, the board has a mandate or a charter. So, if you're a public company, so quarterly is a minimum, right, is a minimum, but you have this kind of, I call those the perfunctory, ah, Responsibilities where you have to approve these financial statements, but you should always be having conversations on strategy. And so, It is good discipline if you're in business. You should be reviewing your, your financials. You should be looking at how do we perform? Where are we going? So as a minimum, whether you're a private company, public company, a not-for-profit, a public sector, ah, organization, ah, you, you should as a minimum be doing, having quarterly meetings. Now, there's going to be a multitude of different areas and challenges if you're in the middle of a transaction. I've been aware you form a special committee because the transaction, if it's an M&A, um, it can, those, that, that activity and that work is pretty, uh, timely, time sensitive, and …

AI assessment note: “if you're a publicly listed company, you have quarterly financials and they have to be approved”

Q as a leader to have an opinion and that opinion should be firm, but then to elicit from other people what they think and be open to changing your opinion. So how, how do you do that? So you just like, hold on to your opinion. You just go, look, I know what I want. And then, but just don't keep, just to keep it to yourself in the beginning.

A Well, I think, I think there's no, it's not a hard, fast rule. It's not okay. Be the last to speak always, but you might lead the conversation and say, Hey, we've got a challenging, um, issue to get through. Um, I know everyone's coming with their opinions and their views. Um, and, and you could start off and go, hey, you know what, I, I think that we're not going to, you may even prejudice and go, I don't think we're going to come to a decision in this meeting, but let's start the conversation, right? So right away, you're saying, oh, we won't have enough time. If, you know, ah, two, you could go, okay, I know that, um, we're going to have this conversation. We've had these conversations. I've, I've spoken to the, you know, our stakeholders. I've spoken to the CEO. Here's what I'm thinking at this time, but I'm going to open it up to discussion because I want to hear from you. I want to be open. So I'm not saying it's one way or the other, but there's different ways you can get into that, right? And so you want to set the stage first. You want to set the stage. You want it to be open and collaborative. Um, and if you think that your view Is really critical to maybe give context. So I would have given context that, listen, we've spoken to the government. We've spoken to the stakeholders, spoken to the CEO. Here's kind of what, what I'm hearing. Um, but I want to hear from you a…

AI assessment note: “there's no, it's not a hard, fast rule. It's not okay. Be the last to speak”

Q What are the reasons that someone would join a board beyond just investing and having a specific amount of equity?

A That's probably not the right reason to join a board, to be honest. Uh, because if you, depending on your stake, I don't You know, if you're an investor, I've been in venture capital and we would invest in a portfolio company. We would have a seat at the table because it would be in the shareholders agreement because of the sizeable investment we would make. But, you know, if you're, um, a company and you have, um, angel investors coming in, not all of them can go on your board, right? That would be unruly to manage. So, and also you're conflicted. There were times when I was in venture capital where we'd be making investment decisions, but I'd be conflicted as the board member representing the fund on certain decisions because, you know, I, you know, let's say we put in a million dollars and the next round because of circumstances was going to be a down round and the valuation was down. I'm, we might, as from a investment perspective, what was good for the company might not have been good for the fund. And so there's conflicts there. And I think what's important, and then there's independence issues, right? So if you've got your money in, you're not necessarily independent to some of those decisions. So I always, to me, when I'm thinking about in an ideal world, when you're setting up a board or creating a board, Or adding to the board. Independence is so, so important. And so…

AI assessment note: “if I go back to the question is why would someone want to join a board?”