Meet Aritzia's Jennifer Wong, One of Canada
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WHAT INVESTORS BRUCE POON TIP ON EXECUTIVE MBA GUIDE: PROCRASTINATION DON’T UNDERSTAND HIS PLAN TO REBOOT MAKING THE DIGITAL IS EASY TO BEAT— ABOUT NUTRIEN THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY LEAP FORWARD SO STOP STALLING THE MAGAZINE FOR LEADERS SHE BUILT A FASHION EMPIRE BY WORRYING ABOUT EVERYTHING (EXCEPT THE FASHION). MEET ARITZIA’S JENNIFER WONG, ONE OF CANADA’S 50 BEST EXECUTIVES NOVEMBER 2020 11_20_COVER_FINAL.indd 1 2020-10-09 2:24 PM MBA MBA with Co-op Accelerated MBA UNLOCK YOUR POTENTIAL WITH A DEGROOTE MBA EMBA Blended Learning Part-Time MBA | degrooteschool.ca/MBA 1110448501.ad 1 2020-10-07 4:03 PM Contents CANADA’S BEST EXECUTIVES 2 EDITOR’S NOTE 13 BIG IDEA 52 WEALTH Understanding why Fidelity portfolio 4 ADVISORY BOARD employees are chronic manager Mark Schmehl’s procrastinators can help opportunistic strategy 6 SEVEN THINGS combat dawdling is sometimes puzzling— Working from home is like owning airline stocks much more rewarding 16 ASK AN EXPERT in a global pandemic— for men than women, How do you ease a return but it’s hard to argue fear of pandemic flying from parental leave when with stellar returns persists and U.S. auditors there’s no one left in the prefer Republican CEOs office? 56 TURNING POINT to Democrats Max Dubois has built 18 THE EXCHANGE Montreal’s online-only 9 NEED TO KNOW Bruce Poon Tip won Altitude Sports into a Even bigwigs are global renown for raising mini-Amazon of outdoor dressing casual on video the bar on adventure gear—and one that’s calls, but hierarchy tourism. The travellers pivoted successfully even asserts itself in other have gone, but they’ll as bricks-and-mortar ways be back, and he’s busy rivals have faltered imagining even more seductive options LEADING BY STYLE Aritzia president Jennifer Wong knows that fashion is equal parts glamour 22and analysis, and she leads off our inaugural group of Best Executives. /By Joanna Pachner 28 THE LIST 50 just-below-CEO-level leaders who help lift their organizations from good to great. 36 GROWING CONCERN A blockbuster merger made Nutrien the largest potash producer on the planet. So why aren’t investors impressed? The price of the stuff is still near rock bottom. /By Michael McCullough 42 EXECUTIVE EDUCATION GUIDE Campus life got challenging for Canada’s Northland MBA schools during Power CFO Pauline the pandemic, so they Alimchandani shifted online—fast. Page 33 /By Jennifer Lewington COVER PHOTOGRAPHED EXCLUSIVELY FOR ROB MAGAZINE BY EVAAN KHERAJ; (RIGHT) BRIANNA ROYE KHERAJ; EVAAN BY MAGAZINE ROB FOR EXCLUSIVELY PHOTOGRAPHED COVER NOVEMBER 2020 / REPORT ON BUSINESS 1 11_20_Contents.indd 1 2020-10-13 1:16 PM Editor’s Note November 2020, Volume 37, No. 2 Editorial Editor JAMES COWAN Assistant Editor DAWN CALLEJA Senior Editor JOHN DALY Copy Editor LISA FIELDING, Research CATHERINE DOWLING Art Art Director DOMENIC MACRI Associate Art Director BRENNAN HIGGINBOTHAM Director of Photography CLARE VANDER MEERSCH Contributors DEBORAH AARTS, STEVE BREARTON, JOE CASTALDO, TREVOR COLE, ROSEMARY COUNTER, TIM KILADZE, JASON KIRBY, JOANNA PACHNER, JUDITH PEREIRA Advertising Chief Revenue Officer ANDREW SAUNDERS Managing Director, Creative Studios and Ad Innovation TRACY DAY Senior Manager, Special Products ANDREA D’ANDRADE Product Manager Clap for the CEO’s right hand RYAN HYSTEAD Production Back in 2016, I interviewed Harley Finkelstein, the chief operating officer at Managing Director, Print Production SALLY PIRRI Shopify. It was less than a year after the retail software company’s successful Production Co-ordinator stock market debut and a few months after Finkelstein had been promoted ISABELLE CABRAL from his previous role as chief product officer. Regardless of title, Finkelstein Publisher often served as Shopify’s main spokesperson and most public face, taking PHILLIP CRAWLEY the place of chief executive Tobi Lütke. “We’ve just decided to focus on our Editor-in-Chief, The Globe and Mail DAVID WALMSLEY strengths,” Finkelstein told me, explaining the reason behind the unconven- Managing Director, Business tional division of roles. “A lot of companies get that wrong. They focus on miti- and Financial Products gating the weaknesses of their leaders instead of amplifying their strengths.” GARTH THOMAS Editor, Report on Business In the ensuing years, Lütke has stepped into the spotlight more often (and GARY SALEWICZ Finkelstein has earned another promotion—he became Shopify’s president on Report on Business magazine is Sept. 29). But Finkelstein’s prominence underscores a simple fact about run- published 10 times a year by The Globe ning a company. No chief executive—no matter how smart—operates a suc- and Mail Inc., 351 King Street E., Toronto cessful business on their own. A few non-CEOs have earned their own fame, M5A 0N1. Telephone 416-585-5000. Letters to the Editor: like Apple’s Jony Ive or Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg. But we often attribute a [email protected]. company’s success to its CEO and downplay the contributions of innumerable The next issue will be on Nov. 28. SVPs and EVPs, along with chief operating, innovation and financial officers. Copyright 2020, The Globe and Mail. Which is why we’re launching the Best Executive Awards. In this issue, we Indexed in the Canadian Periodical Index. Advertising Offices celebrate the accomplishments of 50 corporate leaders working in the C-suite Head Office, The Globe and Mail, or at the senior and executive vice-president levels. We began assembling this 351 King Street E., Toronto M5A 0N1 list in January by calling for nominations of excellent senior execs working Telephone 416-585-5111 or toll-free 1-866-999-9237 in five functional areas: finance, human resources, operations, sales and mar- Branch Offices keting, and technology. As the magnitude of the pandemic became clear, we Montreal 514-982-3050 issued a second call, seeking stories of individuals who had met the challenge Vancouver 604-685-0308 Calgary 403-245-4987 of the moment. We also broadened our criteria to include not-for-profits, and Email: [email protected] government and academic institutions. Editors within The Globe and Mail United States and countries outside of newsroom made their own suggestions. Then, our team evaluated the con- North America: AJR Media Group, tenders based on their achievements and effectiveness as leaders. To ensure 212-426-5932, ajrmediagroup@ globeandmail.com our final list reflected the many different skills needed to run a successful Publications mail registration No. 7418. organization, we chose 10 honourees in each of our five functional areas. The publisher accepts no responsibility All of these execs have profoundly improved their organizations, some- for unsolicited manuscripts, times by labouring in unglamorous areas. It’s true of Aritzia president Jen- transparencies or other material. Printed in Canada by Transcontinental nifer Wong, a Best Executive honouree and our cover story. “Wong is Aritzia’s Printing Inc. Prepress by DMDigital+1. analyst-in-chief,” writes contributor Joanna Pachner. “Finance, HR, facilities, Report on Business magazine is electronically available through subscription to Factiva.com logistics, technology, operations—those are all her.” Like Lütke and Finkel- from Factiva, at factiva.com/factiva Send feedback to or 416-306-2003. robmagletters@ stein, Wong and Aritzia CEO Brian Hill amplify each other’s strengths. It globeandmail.com shows what firms achieve by letting their best executives shine. /James Cowan tgam.ca/r KESHIRI KOUROSH PHOTOGRAPH 2 NOVEMBER 2020 / REPORT ON BUSINESS 11_20_EdsNote_Masthead.indd 2 2020-10-09 2:19 PM USA Germany Hong Kong Israel China Canada DO YOU QUALIFY for Canada’s Top-Ranked Executive MBA? Toronto With its global network and classes every third weekend, the Kellogg-Schulich EMBA minimizes time away from work and maximizes in-class and study team learning. It is the EMBA for global leaders. For program information and pre-application interviews for the January 2021 start date, contact us at: 1.888.736.3810 (Toll Free) schulich.yorku.ca/emba Racheal Awe (EMBA ’17) Associate Vice President, Digital Strategy & Delivery Canadian Tire Corporation Canada’s Top-Ranked Business School NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Kellogg-Schulich Executive MBA: #1 IN CANADA (The Economist, QS TopMBA) #3 IN THE WORLD (QS TopMBA) #9 IN THE WORLD (The Economist) School of Management 1109730501.ad 1 2020-09-28 10:50 AM Advisory Board “DON’T Remotely working FORGET In our last issue, we reported on companies making a THE LITTLE workforce. Luckily, they can long-term switch to remote working. Then we invited THINGS. be addressed with the same A SIMPLE approach—trust. The knee-jerk executives from the Report on Business list of Canada’s ‘HOW reaction to having your entire Top Growing Companies to share their own insights into ARE YOU workforce move to WFH might how they’ve managed the pandemic-induced shift DOING?’ OR be to increase the number of BIRTHDAY meetings, almost turning them NEIL SEEMAN candid about the fact that stress CARD SENT into daily check-ins. Not only CEO, RIWI CORP. VIA SNAIL and confusion can build quickly MAIL WHEN will this kill productivity by Provides data and intelligence based from misunderstandings in a breaking up the flow of work on citizen sentiment YOU CAN’T remote context. It’s not really SEE ONE for your team, but it also kills about addressing the challenges ANOTHER morale by pretty much saying, Any leader who suggests of remote work—it’s about IN PERSON “I don’t trust you.” Instead, managing remote teams is easy authentic leadership. If you lead GOES A focus on results and output. amid a pandemic doesn’t have with transparency, the remote LONG If I have a team member who’s a finger on the pulse of reality. work stress will dissipate.