Viewpoints, Fall 2014 - Sauder School of Business

A MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF THE SAUDER SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AT UBCFALL/WINTER 2014 • VOLUME 34 • NO 2

THE CREATIVITY ISSUETHE CREATIVITY ISSUE

A MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF THE SAUDER SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AT UBCFALL 2014 • VOLUME 34 • NO 2

Creating value

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1VIEWPOINTS FALL 2014

Cole Nakatani, BCom 2011.

In memoriam: Peter Lusztig, BCom 1954, Dean Emeritus.

ALUMNI STORIES

37

45

Viewpoints from the Dean

Sauder Index

Newsworthy

Insider Information

Actuals

Earning Interest

Class Notes

Reunions

Points of View

IN EVERY ISSUE

2

3

4

6

8

33

38

46

48

The democratization of creativityMore and more companies are turning to crowdsourcing to

solve problems and develop products. Is business as simple

as asking people what they think?

16

The playdough resuméCreativity: CEOs demand it, but are businesses geared to

help employees develop creativity as a workplace skill?

21

[email protected]

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linkedin.com/company/sauder-

school-of-business-at-ubc

Mad wo/menThree Sauder alumni working in the “Mad Men” world of

advertising share their insight into the creative process

behind many big brand campaigns.

30

Alumni Centre to be named for Robert H. Lee

The $18.5 million facility will open in spring 2015 and will be

a resource and meeting place for UBC’s 300,000 alumni.

35

Cover photo by Mark Mushet. Photographed

on location at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Back cover, left to right: Liz Starbuck Greer,

Angèle Beausoleil, Pete Mitchell, Liz Newton,

Paul Cubbon. Front cover: Jenny Duff y,

Jordan Cash, Moura Quayle, Darren Dahl,

Jim Southcott.

Correction Incorrect information appeared on page 35 of

the Spring/Summer 2014 issue of Viewpoints.

The last three characters of the main headline

(meaning “and”) should have been removed, and

the translation should have read: “A sentence

meaning ‘It comes from the Ancestors’ in the

Musqueam dialect.” The Viewpoints team deeply

apologizes for this error, and any concern it may

have caused. The page has been corrected in the

online version of the magazine.

The creativity issue

“Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great

creative people.” – LEO BURNETT, PROMINENT 20TH C. AD MAN

Does the study of creativity belong at a business school? For some readers, the idea may

be a stretch; for others, an obvious evolution. In this issue, we take a look at creativity and

curiosity, as the springboards to all that comes next in business.

12 COVER STORY Six ways creativity is changing business

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2 FALL 2014 VIEWPOINTS

Several articles in this issue touch

on the connection between creativity

and leadership. How can organizations

encourage creativity among their

employees? Part of the answer has to be

creating an environment that is open to

experimentation.

My favourite example of the

relationship between creativity and

leadership actually comes from a very

diff erent domain, namely music, and

specifi cally jazz.

The great jazz pianist and composer

Herbie Hancock recalled in a recent inter-

view (The Wall Street Journal, February 5,

2014) how Miles Davis fostered creativity

among the musicians in his 1967 quintet.

“This night was magical… we were

communicating almost telepathically,

playing ‘So What’…. Miles was playing and

building and building, and then I played

the wrong chord. It was so, so wrong. In

an instant, time stood still and I felt totally

shattered. Miles took a breath. And then

he played this phrase that made my chord

right. It didn’t seem possible. I still don’t

know how he did it. But Miles hadn’t heard

it as a wrong chord—he took it as an

unexpected chord. He didn’t judge what

I played.”

VIEWPOINTS FROM THE DEAN

UNIVERSITIES IN GENERAL, AND THE

Sauder School in particular, have been

involved in the creative process for many

years. After all, original research is a

deeply creative enterprise, since successful

researchers, faculty and students are

expected to contribute something

new to the body of human knowledge.

Contributions that are original or even

unexpected are generally considered to be

the most signifi cant. Originality is one of

the hallmarks of truly impactful scholarship;

impactful scholarship is fundamentally

creative.

Although creativity has long been part

of the research fabric of the school, its

explicit incorporation into the curriculum is

quite new. In the undergraduate program,

the MBA, the Masters of Management, and

even executive education, students are now

examining the role of creativity in value

creation, and exploring and developing

their own creative abilities. In the pages

that follow, you will hear stories of how

creativity has been incorporated in the

classroom, and stories of the impact that

this has had on students. You will also learn

about how classrooms in the school are

changing to support creative approaches to

problem solving.

Jazzed about creativityThis issue of Viewpoints focuses on creativity and its role in business

and business education. The creation of value is, of course, at the core

of business. However, emphasis on imagination and originality as

important elements of the process of value creation is relatively new. It

is only recently, for example, that we have begun to refer to advertising,

architecture, fashion, video game design and the performing arts as

“creative industries.” This is almost certainly a misnomer, since all

successful organizations are creative in some sense, but it does illustrate

that creativity seems to play a larger role in today’s knowledge economy

than it might have played in the past. Perhaps advances in information

technology, and the resulting ease of knowledge sharing, foster

imagination, originality and the creative process.

I like this story for a number of reasons.

It illustrates the genius and integrity of

two remarkable musicians. It also reminds

us that even the most accomplished

professionals will occasionally make

“mistakes.” Finally, it highlights one of the

salient challenges of leadership—learning

to listen to others and working to create an

environment that gives them the freedom to

bring their unique talents and ideas to the

common goals of the enterprise, whether

that is creating music or creating value.

I hope you enjoy this edition of

Viewpoints. Please stay in touch. ■

Sincerely,

Robert Helsley, DeanGROSVENOR PROFESSOR OF CITIES,

BUSINESS ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC POLICY

[email protected]



The Sauder IndexBY JENNIFER WAH

OUR MISSION FOR VIEWPOINTSViewpoints Magazine is designed to nurture dialogue and relationships with our alumni and friends by ensuring that you continue to enjoy the practical benefi ts of the school’s leading-edge business thinking. Viewpoints presents news, research and commentary that demonstrate the ability of our faculty and our graduates to defi ne the future of business and to open doors for those who are connected to the Sauder School of Business. Your thoughts about this mission are always welcome.

EDITORIALDale Griffi n EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Erica Smishek EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Jennifer Wah MANAGING EDITOR

DESIGNBrandon Brind ART DIRECTOR | CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Deana De Ciccio ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR

Karen Cowl GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Leanne Romak GRAPHIC DESIGNER | ILLUSTRATOR

PRODUCTIONSpencer MacGillivray PRODUCTION MANAGER

Viewpoints Magazine is produced by Forwords

Communication Inc. and published by the Sauder

School of Business, University of British Columbia

2053 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2

Tel: 604-822-8555, Fax: 604-822-0592.

Viewpoints is published regularly for alumni and

friends of the Sauder School of Business.

We welcome the submission of ideas and articles

for possible publication in Viewpoints Magazine.

Email: [email protected]

For an online version of Viewpoints, visit

www.sauder.ubc.ca.

CHANGE OF ADDRESSSend change of address to Alumni Relations Offi ce,

fax: 604-822-0592 or email to [email protected]

©Copyright 2014, Sauder School of Business.

Editorial material contained in Viewpoints Magazine

may be freely reproduced provided credit is given.

ISSN 089-2388. Canada Post. Printed in Canada.

EDITORIAL BOARDDale Griffi n (Chair), with Katie Armitage, Sheila

Biggers, Andrew Riley, Erica Smishek, Jennifer Wah

and Bruce Wiesner

CONTRIBUTORSBrenda Bouw, Sue Bugos, Allan Jenkins, Chris Lane,

Spencer MacGillivray, Andrew Riley, Thiago Silva,

Erica Smishek, Jennifer Wah, Bethan Williams

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Most played instruments, worldwide, by lessons: Piano, guitar, drums

Countries with the highest musical instrument sales: US, Japan

Percentage of children under 17 worldwide who report never

having played an instrument: 15

Highest price paid for an original painting (Paul Cézanne’s The Card Players): $273 million

Buyer: State of Qatar

Most-admired living artist, according to a Vanity Fair poll of

100 art-world luminaries: German painter Gerhard Richter

Bestselling musical artists of all time: The Beatles,

Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson

Percentage of work time Google employees are required to devote to exploring their own ideas: 20

Notable developments as a result of Google’s approach:

Gmail, Google Reader

Year the term “hackathon” was fi rst used, in reference to programmers

dedicating time to play and explore coding: 1999

Top prize off ered at salesforce.com’s innovation hackathon at the “world’s

largest software event ever” in October, 2014: $1 million

Area of the brain previously believed to be solely responsible for creative thinking: Right

Number of areas now shown to be involved in creative thinking, according to

new research from Dartmouth College: 11

Ideal temperature and light factors to inspire creativity:

25° in natural light (vs. artifi cial light)

Value of richest literary prize in the world, the Nobel Prize for Literature: Currently about $1.25 million

Value of top CanLit prize, the Scotiabank Giller prize: $100,000

Percentage increase in Google searches about “knitting for

beginners” in 2013: 30

Percentage of US adults who feel “creating online” is

a part of our culture: 72

Sources: cio-today.com, wired.com, psychologytoday.com, buff erapp.com, wikipedia.org, vanityfair.com, bbc.com,

indigoboom.com, hbr.org


http://www.sauder.ubc.ca



NEWSWORTHY SAUDER IN THE NEWS

Left to right: Russell Lundholm, Rafael Rogo, and Jenny Li Zhang.

Sauder prof. weighs in on pipeline politics

Leading news outlets from across Canada

sought comment from Associate Professor

Werner Antweiler about the federal

government's decision to approve the

Northern Gateway pipeline in mid-June.

“There are going to very substantial

delays on actually moving on this project,”

Antweiler told The Canadian Press. He was

quoted in the Financial Post, The Globe and

Mail and The Vancouver Sun. ■

Being early beats being better

The Harvard Business Review’s “Defend Your Research” column has Associate Professor

Marc-David Seidel and his co-author answering questions about their new study on fi rst-

mover advantage.

The Strategic Management Journal study shows leaders tend to pursue innovations, even

as complex as airplanes, based on early adoption by competitors instead of close scrutiny

of the technical merits—sometimes with deadly consequences.

“Business leaders tend to panic when new innovations are about to hit the market. They

scramble to buy an apparent early leader,” says Seidel. “Sometimes this results in inferior

products, but as we show in our study, in the airline industry there was loss of life.” ■

Research on foreign fi rms and corporate communications generates headlines

The farther companies are from the

United States, the harder they work to

communicate corporate performance,

according to a study co-authored by

Professor Russell Lundholm and Assistant

Professors Rafael Rogo and Jenny Li Zhang,

which was featured in top publications such as

Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Bloomberg

Businessweek, and The Times of India.

The study, published in The Accounting

Review, fi nds that distance from the US

predicts how clear a foreign fi rm’s annual

report and earnings press releases will be.

“Our results suggest that foreign fi rms

are responding to a perceived reluctance on

the part of US investors to own them. They

are using simple language that is easy to

understand, and they are also off ering more

quantifi ed facts about their performance,”

says Lundholm. ■


Analysis of NHL players generates global headlines

Professor James Brander pinpointed the optimal age for NHL players in a study that was

covered by leading publications and news sources across Canada and the United States,

including The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and the CBC.

The Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports study found that the performance of

forwards peaks between the ages of 27 and 28. Defencemen are best between 28 and 29,

and the performance of goaltenders varies little by age.

“While confi rming conventional wisdom that players peak in their late 20s, the study

proves it is wishful thinking for managers to expect a player in his mid-20s to continue

improving signifi cantly,” says Brander. “The vast majority of players are at 90 per cent of

their best by age 24, although there are a few late bloomers.” ■

Study on luxury brands makes international news

Snobby staff can boost high-end retail sales, according

to a study by Senior Associate Dean Darren Dahl,

which was featured in world-leading news outlets such

as BBC News, New York Magazine, TIME, CNN Money,

The Sydney Morning Herald, The Telegraph, GQ and The

Wall Street Journal.

The forthcoming Journal of Consumer Research study

reveals that consumers who get the brush-off at a high-

end retailer can become more willing to purchase and

wear pricey togs.

“It appears that snobbiness might actually be a

qualifi cation worth considering for luxury brands like

Louis Vuitton or Gucci,” says Dahl. “Our research

indicates they can end up having a similar eff ect to an

‘in-group’ in high school that others aspire to join.” ■

Research fi nding ostracism to be worse than harassment makes international news

Ostracism can be more damaging than bullying in the workplace,

according to a study by Professors Sandra Robinson and Jennifer

Berdahl that was profi led in Fast Company, New York Magazine,

the Daily Mail, The Times of India, Women’s Health and The Globe

and Mail.

While most people consider ostracism less harmful than

bullying, feeling excluded is signifi cantly more likely to lead to job

dissatisfaction, health problems and quitting, according to the

Organization Science study.

“We’ve been taught that ignoring someone is socially

preferable—if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say

anything at all,” says Robinson. “But ostracism actually leads

people to feel more helpless, like they’re not worthy of any

attention at all.” ■


Sauder prof. wins award for infl uential research on vengeance, justice and forgiveness

Sauder professor Karl Aquino has

won an award for the most infl uential

paper on workplace confl ict from

a leading international network of

business researchers.

The Academy of Management’s

confl ict management division chair,

William Bottom, says Aquino’s

paper was the “clear winner” among

the candidate articles.

Aquino and his co-authors

investigated diff erent responses to

being harmed at work, and found that in workplaces with strong

procedures to address wrongdoings, people tend more towards

forgiveness and reconciliation. ■

Sauder research director now president of Canada’s leading network for research administrators

The director of Sauder’s Offi ce of

Research Support Services, Frances

Chandler, is the new president

of the Canadian Association of

University Research Administrators,

the country’s leading network of her

peers.

CAURA also gave her an award

for distinguished service, for her

work in advancing the organization’s

goals of communicating and

facilitating cutting-edge research.

“My job is to help faculty members be successful in their

research,” says Chandler, who’s now in an even better position to

access information on funding bodies and journals, and represent

Sauder internationally. ■

Sauder breaks into top 50 in Financial Times ranking of executive education

Sauder Executive Education rates among the top 50 providers in

the world for open (available to all) programs, according to the

global 2014 executive education rankings by the Financial Times.

The school gained two places in the ranking, rising to 49th

globally for the quality of its courses off ered to management

professionals. Sauder is one of only six Canadian business

schools included in the ranking, and one of just two schools

west of Ontario. ■

SAUDER FACULTY INSIDER INFORMATION

Sauder’s Ch’nook program earns federal government award

Ch’nook’s inaugural Links to Learning workshop

earned praise from the Government of Canada

by winning a 2013-2014 Deputy Ministers’

Recognition Award for Collaboration and

Partnerships, presented in June to Miranda

Huron, Program Manager for Ch’nook’s Scholars

and Cousins initiatives.

Links to Learning 2013, the fi rst of an annual event presented

by Aboriginal Aff airs and Northern Development Canada in

partnership with Ch’nook, is a technical training forum for First

Nations economic development offi cers and land managers. ■

Karl Aquino

Frances Chandler

Sauder joins global network of leading business schools as only Canadian member

The Sauder School of Business

is the only Canadian member of

the Global Network for Advanced

Management (GNAM), a 27-school

partnership dedicated to integrating

international experience into

graduate business education.

MBA students at Sauder’s

Robert H. Lee Graduate School will

now have unprecedented access

to learning opportunities with

business schools around the world.

“Our partnership with GNAM off ers the Sauder School an

intriguing opportunity to contribute to and engage with a global

community dedicated to advancing an international approach to

business,” said Sauder’s Dean Robert Helsley. ■

Sauder a new partner in trailblazing program for corporate directors

Canada’s fi rst university-accredited training program for corporate

directors is coming to the Sauder School of Business in a new partner-

ship with national organization The Directors College. The fi rst courses

began this past summer through Executive Education at Sauder.

The Directors College’s Chartered Director program focuses on

practical governance issues, as well as the cultural and behavioural

aspects of good governance. Board members and senior executives

gain a deeper understanding of today’s best practices in corporate

governance, and earn a Chartered Director (C.Dir.) designation

upon completion of the fi ve-module program.

The new partnership will give students greater regional choice,

fl exibility to complete the program at their own pace, and a

broader network of relationships. ■

Dean Robert Helsley


Sauder prof. leads UN aviation conference

Sauder professor Tae Oum

addressed the world’s aviation

leaders in May at a global

conference in Montreal hosted by

the United Nations’ International

Civil Aviation Organization—the

only UN agency headquartered

in Canada.

In his keynote talk, Oum set

the agenda for the conference,

discussing pressing issues facing

the industry, such as sustainable

development and climate change, liberalizing international

agreements, and meeting consumer expectations.

Sauder professor Anming Zhang also spoke at the conference,

in a session devoted to exploring how to create greater effi ciency

in the transport of cargo. ■

Tae Oum

BCom student brings Arc Initiative’s knowledge exchange home to Rwanda

Jim Gilliland is President and CEO of Leith Wheeler Investment Counsel. He has extensive investment

experience, acquired through his time at HSBC Asset Management/M.K. Wong & Associates in Vancouver

and Barclays Global Investors in San Francisco, in fi xed income markets in Canada and the United States.

Among his achievements, Gilliland has launched and managed a fi xed-income hedge fund; developed

platforms to manage risk; and created customized client solutions and liability-driven products. Gilliland is a

Chartered Financial Analyst and holds an Honours Bachelor of Commerce degree from the Sauder School of

Business (1993) and a Master in Financial Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. ■

Debra Hewson is President and CEO of Odlum Brown Limited, a full-service investment fi rm. She has earned

a reputation for her vision, passion and dedication as a leader in the business community for more than 30

years. In 2010, she was recognized as one of BC’s 100 Women of Infl uence by The Vancouver Sun. Hewson

has also been involved in the broader community as a board member of St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation. In

2012, she received the British Columbia Community Achievement Award and a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond

Jubilee Medal. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of British Columbia (1981) and is Industry

Director for the Canadian Investor Protection Fund. ■

Jonathan Kallner is Regional Managing Partner for the Greater Vancouver Area at KPMG. For more than

25 years he has provided audit services and business advice to clients in a variety of industries including

retail, distribution, technology, life-sciences and not-for-profi t. Kallner is a Chartered Accountant and holds

a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of British Columbia (1989). He is also a

member of the Institute of Corporate Directors, a school for director education and certifi cation. Outside of

offi ce hours, Kallner is a dedicated soccer coach at the grass-roots/youth level and serves on several boards

including schools, family services and community-based organizations. ■

First-year BCom student Arielle Uwonkunda took the Arc Initiative’s

name to heart by spearheading its expansion into her home country

of Rwanda.

The Arc Initiative, founded and led by Sauder lecturer Jeff Kroeker

and BCom alum Thato Makgolane, brings world-leading business

smarts to communities in developing countries, building leadership

and business management skills in a two-way exchange of knowledge.

The fi rst business skills workshop in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali,

drew a resoundingly positive response from the 45 entrepreneurs

in attendance, and from Rwanda’s fi nance minister, Claver Gatete,

a UBC alum, who was on hand to thank the team for their work. ■

Business leaders join Sauder’s Faculty Advisory Board

Sauder BCom student Arielle Uwonkunda (second from right) in Rwanda.


ACTUALS SEEN AND HEARD IN THE SAUDER WORLD

Entrepreneurship in Hong KongOn March 26, 2014, four panelists

from diff erent sectors shared their

experiences and entrepreneurial

journeys with over 50 alumni at the

“Entrepreneurship in Hong Kong: An

Inside Look” event, organized by the

Sauder Business Club of Hong Kong.

Attendees learned about the

entrepreneurial scene in Hong

Kong including the types of funding

available, the government’s role in

supporting businesses and the types of

deals seen in the region recently.

The event was held at the Café

Habitu at Lan Kwai Fong in Central

Hong Kong and featured the panelists

Charles Ng, Associate Director-

General, Invest Hong Kong; Jah Ying

Chung, Founder and Air Marshal,

Launchpilots; Casey Lau,

Co-founder and Executive Director,

StartupsHK and Community

Development Manager, APAC for

SoftLayer, an IBM company; and James

Giancotti, Co-founder, Bigcolors and

Partner, Excitin.

CEO Dinner in BeijingOn May 6, 2014, alumni in Beijing had

the opportunity to attend an exclusive

CEO Dinner with Paul Hollands,

BCom 1979, President and CEO of

A&W Food Services Canada Inc.,

one of Canada’s elite food service

companies. Hollands shared his

experiences as a business leader and

as a graduate of the Sauder School.

Twenty alumni attended this intimate

and interactive event hosted by the

Sauder Business Club of Beijing.

Dean’s presentation in Hong KongForty alumni had the opportunity

to learn more about what makes

cities economically sustainable and

successful at an exclusive event held

by the Sauder Business Club of Hong

Kong on May 6, 2014. Robert Helsley,

Dean of the Sauder School of Business

and the Grosvenor Professor of Cities,

Business Economics and Public Policy,

presented his “Successful Cities”

research to a sold-out audience.

Alumni Mentorship Program launch in VancouverThe Sauder Business Club of

Vancouver organized a special event to

mark the launch of the second cohort

of the Alumni Mentorship Program on

May 8, 2014.

Mentors and mentees learned

more about the program’s positive

impact on the past participants’

careers and personal development.

The program’s goal is to provide

an opportunity for Alumni mentees

to learn from experienced alumni

mentors. Through an application and

interview process managed

by Alumni Career Services, mentees

are paired with mentors based on

their personal and professional

development objectives.

The fi rst cohort of the Alumni

Mentorship Program in Calgary and

Toronto will be launched this fall.

Speed networking in TorontoThe Sauder Business Club of Toronto

organized its fi rst ever speed

networking event on June 26, 2014. It

was a great opportunity to connect with

a diverse group of established alumni

from diff erent graduating years who

work across various industries.

This intimate gathering stood

out from most networking events,

where it is common to see groups

of old acquaintances mingle and it

may be diffi cult to break into their

conversations. Instead, the organizers

structured the evening diff erently to

give attendees the opportunity to

speak with established alumni for three

minutes each to ensure maximum

interaction. Once the round of speed

networking ended, the fl oor was

opened to continue the conversations

that had started. ■

Sauder Business Clubs bring alumni together around the worldSAUDER’S NETWORK OF BUSINESS CLUBS ORGANIZE SOCIAL, BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT EVENTS

AROUND THE WORLD TO SUPPORT THE ALUMNI COMMUNITY. DURING THE SPRING THE CLUBS HELD NUMEROUS

EVENTS TO CONNECT ALUMNI, FACULTY AND BUSINESS PROFESSIONALS FROM A WIDE RANGE OF INDUSTRIES.

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SAUDER ALUMNI AND STUDENTS were treated to a talk by Steven

Levitt, co-author of best-selling

books Freakonomics and Super-

freakonomics, on June 9, 2014

when he was hosted by Sauder’s

Canaccord Learning Commons

Conversation Series at UBC

Robson Square.

A professor at the University of

Chicago’s Booth School of Business,

where he is director of the Becker

Center on Chicago Price Theory,

Levitt fi rst captured international attention when he used economic

principles to show a correlation between decreased crime rates

and the beginning of legalized abortion in the United States.

His talk to the packed room was irreverent and insightful, like

his books, but also full of valuable advice for business graduates.

There were inspirational moments, as the famed academic

discussed overcoming the odds by achieving success in economics

without being particularly good at math. He joked the one thing

an old teacher remembered him by was his abysmal ability with

numbers. To make up for his lack of talent, Levitt followed his

father—a leading expert on intestinal gas—by choosing topics

“so embarrassing and degrading that no self-respecting

economist would go near them.”

Levitt found his niche by applying economic principles in

uncharted territory far removed from traditional economics,

like the cheating strategies of sumo wrestlers and the fi scal

decision-making capacity of capuchin monkeys.

He talked about the importance of staying true to principles,

saying the day his consulting fi rm was fi red by their biggest client—

who had been too set in their ways to accept any criticism—was

the best day they ever had. He also discussed the importance

of being able to say ‘I don’t know’—the fi rst step in solving any

problem—in a business world where people do all they can to

pretend they know the answers.

Levitt advised the crowd to set aside emotion and moral

judgement when doing research, in order to be open to whatever

facts might be discovered. “Only if you really pull yourself out of

the moral part of it, can you see the world for what it is,” he said,

and that a moral compass should only be brought into play once

the facts are identifi ed.

Levitt was in Vancouver on a tour promoting his latest book,

Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Off er to Retrain

Your Brain. ■

Famed ‘freakonomist’ Steven Levitt speaks to Sauder alumni in Vancouver

Alumni enjoy their common Sauder bond at UBC Alumni WeekendTHE SAUDER SCHOOL OF BUSINESS WAS PLEASED TO welcome alumni back to the Henry Angus building on May 24,

2014, as part of UBC Alumni Weekend festivities.

Attendees and their families kicked-off the day with a

pancake breakfast served at the Big 4 Conference Centre and

had the opportunity to peruse old class photos and connect with

Sauder students, professors and staff , all while taking in the view

of the sea and mountains.

The recently renovated Henry Angus building was an attraction

on its own. Several alumni went on a tour of the new facilities for

the fi rst time and were pleasantly surprised by what they saw.

Old memories were shared across UBC’s campus as a whole

as attendees enjoyed several of Alumni Weekend’s more than 40

events, tours and attractions. ■

LAST APRIL WHEN HUNDREDS OF SAUDER STUDENTS WERE

wrapping up their classes and getting ready to receive their hard-

earned degrees, Bachelor of Commerce students still had one last

lecture to attend before the big day. As they settled in their seats

at the Middlefi eld Lecture Theatre on April 7, 2014, the excitement

was palpable.

They converged for one last time as students to hear Paul

Hollands’ (BCom 1979) inspirational story of success at the

Commerce Last Lecture event. He also shared his perspective on

how to leverage the Sauder experience to create positive change

for business and society.

Hollands is President and CEO of A&W Food Services of Canada

Inc. He joined the company in 1980 in an entry level marketing

position and went on to become President in 2002 and CEO in 2005.

He also chairs Sauder’s Faculty Advisory Board.

Throughout the lecture, students learned that the transition

from being a student to trailblazing a career in the real world can be

challenging. One of the keys to success in business is to never stop

learning. Another is to focus on making a diff erence in every role

you fi ll in an organization.

However, Hollands also noted that there is always a possibility

of failure. His advice is that failure should be embraced and turned

into a learning experience in order to ignite and propel future

endeavours.

At the end of the lecture students had the opportunity to

interact with the speaker and participate in a lively question and

answer session, followed by a champagne (or A&W root beer)

toast with mason jars, which they got to take home as a reminder

of this special day. ■

A&W CEO Paul Hollands gives departing BCom students some food for thought at the Commerce Last Lecture


ACTUALS SEEN AND HEARD IN THE SAUDER WORLD

SAUDER ALUMNI LIVING IN NEW YORK ATTENDED THE

annual Maple Leaf Ball on March 14, 2014. Organized by the

Canadian Association of New York (CANY), the event is an annual

black-tie gala dinner for the Canadian community in the Big Apple

in support of the CANY Foundation charities, including the Terry Fox

Run for Cancer Research.

Rupeela Gill, Manager of Business Clubs and Regional

Representatives, hosted alumni at the Sauder table and was

pleased to have the opportunity to connect with them.

“I was inspired by the success stories of our alumni. Each one

of them is making their mark in the New York business community,

and it was great to learn more about their endeavours at this

exceptional CANY event,” she said.

The Sauder connection runs deep within the Canadian

community in the city. Dean Keyworth (MBA 2000), a hedge

fund banker who has been living in New York since 2001, is the

association’s president and has found in CANY a means to give

back to the community.

“Charitable events are at the heart of what we do,” he said and

added that “at the same time, it has been great to remain so connected

to Sauder and my fellow alumni in the network in New York.”

This year’s festivities were held at the Mandarin Oriental hotel

in Manhattan. It honoured Douglas Coupland, Vancouver-based

author and visual artist, and Kenneth Taylor, former Canadian

Ambassador to Iran. ■

Sauder alumni in New York connect at Canadian charity event

Left to right: Dean Keyworth (MBA 2000), president, Canadian Association of New York, Rupeela Gill, Manager, Business Clubs & Regional Representatives, Sauder School of Business.

A congregation for the history books

ON MAY 28, 2014, MORE THAN ONE thousand graduates joined Sauder’s alumni

community, the largest number of Sauder students

to have ever graduated in a single day. After the

UBC congregation ceremonies, the new alumni

gathered at the Henry Angus Building for three

exclusive receptions held throughout the day.

During the events, new alumni learned more

about the services available to graduates, entered

a draw for an iPad Mini and celebrated this

important milestone with friends and family over

drinks and snacks. ■

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THE 6TH ANNUAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP LUNCHEON,hosted by Sauder’s W. Maurice Young Centre for

Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Research, drew more

than a hundred business leaders to celebrate entrepreneurial

ventures emerging from the University of British Columbia.

Held in downtown Vancouver in May, this year’s event

gave the business community a unique opportunity to

experience the broad range of ventures that have been

founded and developed with the support of the Sauder

School of Business.

The event, which included remarks by Robert Helsley,

Dean, Sauder School of Business and Grosvenor Professor of

Cities and Professor Lorne Whitehead, UBC’s Special Advisor

on Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Research, showcased six

student teams who pitched their enterprises to the audience

and identifi ed areas where audience members could get

involved to take their start-ups to the next level.

An impressive range of ventures took to the stage

including:

Blue Perch: Described as LinkedIn meets Tinder, this

job-fi nding app employs sophisticated algorithms to allow

users to swipe their way to the perfect job.

Extem: With a mandate to shift bioscience research from

animal to human stem cells, Extem is pioneering methods to

accelerate the production of human stem cells to enhance

accessibility and give practitioners what they need to

advance medical science.

Santé West: The company’s high-performance

rehabilitation leg brace moderates weight-bearing to reduce

an athlete’s recovery time.

MetaMixis: Using proprietary methods to customize and

manipulate DNA, MetaMixis creates processes that allow

companies to synthesize chemicals using microbes, allowing

them to move away from expensive petrochemicals.

Leader Innovation: Using electrocoagulation technology,

the company is developing a service for the natural gas sector

to treat water contaminated by hydraulic fracturing and

signifi cantly reduce associated economic and environmental

impacts.

BlueBird Snow: The company’s AvyStick allows users to

perform immediate avalanche assessments and share the

data and results to a wider network of users.

Thanks to new initiatives Sauder has recently introduced

to support entrepreneurship training at the school and across

campus, these businesses are coming to life before their

founders even graduate. In his speech, Dean Helsley noted

Vancouver’s business community celebrates young entrepreneurs at UBC

a number of new initiatives spearheaded by Sauder that are

helping entrepreneurship fl ourish on campus, including:

• A reimagined MBA program that includes the new

Innovation and Entrepreneurship career track, a stream

of study that equips students with the training and

network they need to launch successful new enterprises

or bring innovation to existing companies.

• The launch of Entrepreneurship 101, a new

undergraduate course taught by Sauder that, for the

fi rst time, provides training in new venture creation

to students UBC-wide, from music to mathematics,

business to biology.

• New hands-on training in partnership with

entrepreneurship@UBC, including the Lean Launch Pad

Program that provides applied learning for students

from across campus on how to validate the business

feasibility of technology-based ideas.

• The launch of an entrepreneurship specialization in

Sauder’s undergraduate program in September 2014,

which is already generating signifi cant buzz among

students.

“We are being entrepreneurial in the way we are pursuing

and creating entrepreneurship training at the University

of British Columbia,” said Dean Helsley. “We’re scaling

it to meet demand and fi nding ways to have the greatest

impact.” ■


Six ways

is changing businessCreativity

We are no more, or less, creative than we’ve always been. We are, however, wearing the

creative label these days. Creativity is the new black—or indigo or fuschia—and everyone is

sporting it! Those in business understand the fi ne and inseparable line between ideas and

action, creativity and innovation. Here, we’ve chosen to focus on the creative foundation,

and six ways it is changing business.

dream.

where many Sauder students bring their ideas to life, including Jordan Cash, founder of Cartems Donuterie, building on an idea that came to him in a

such as crowdsourcing, now being used by companies like LEGO, and researched by Sauder profs. including Darren Dahl.

where the most valuable resumés are those that show us new ways to mold the same clay.


where many alumni are looking at creative industries through a new lens.

where Sauder’s d.studio serves as an example of creating space to colour outside the lines.

where we need to learn how to doodle again, and learn to create workplace cultures that leave room for interpretation.


expected the course work to be more

about number crunching and deal-making

techniques, as opposed to studies on how

to unleash his creative side.

“It was in the classroom that I

learned to foster my ideas and

to push them forward,” says

Cash.

One course in

particular that inspired

him was called

Cultivating Creativity in

Business, taught back

then by Darren Dahl,

a professor at Sauder’s

Marketing and Behavioural

Science Division.

Today, the course has been

picked up by adjunct professor Jim

Southcott, a long-time marketing and

advertising executive who is now a partner

at Southcott Strategy, with a specialty in

areas such as creativity and innovation

leadership.

Creativity in the business classroom: a perfect fi tSouthcott took over the course two years

ago, believing strongly that creativity is

more important now than ever before in

business. He also believes a classroom of

business students is the perfect place to

foster creativity.

“CEOs today are really focused on

building a creative culture,” says Southcott.

“No CEO would walk into a Sauder MBA

class and say ‘We’re looking for less

creativity.’ There’s a real thirst for it.”

He cites a 2010 IBM Global CEO study

that found creativity was the most crucial

THIS IS A TRUE STORY ABOUT HOW

an MBA grad came up with an idea for a

gourmet doughnut business. It might sound

like fi ction, but it isn’t.

Jordan Cash was living in

South Korea in 2002 when

he had a dream that he

owned a doughnut

shop called

Cartems, a word

with no meaning

or particular

signifi cance—at

least not at the time.

He woke up and

immediately wrote down

the idea, then let it sit in

the back of his mind for nearly

a decade as he cycled through

a number of professions, from sales to

teaching to day trading.

A well-rounded idea Then, in 2011, Cash completed his MBA

at UBC’s Sauder School of Business.

Just months later he opened Cartems

Donuterie, a modern doughnut shop in

downtown Vancouver.

Cash credits his Sauder experience, in

particular the coursework that allowed him

to unlock his creative side, for helping turn

his Cartems dream into a reality.

“Sauder was a testing ground and a

place to assess whether this idea I had

swirling around in my head was viable,”

says Cash, whose MBA focus was on

marketing and entrepreneurship.

It was an unexpected result for Cash

who, before attending Sauder, had pictured

MBA school as much more staid. He

The myth of creativitySauder students learn that creativity isn’t something you’re born with; it’s a practice that can be cultivated inside the classroom—and out

BY BRENDA BOUW

factor for future success of companies.

Among the 1,500 CEOs interviewed

across 60 countries and 33 industries,

creativity was cited one of the best ways to

navigate an increasingly complex business

environment. Forbes Magazine summarized

the article with a headline that stated:

“Creativity Is The New Black.”

Maybe she’s born with it?The challenge for educators such as

Southcott is convincing students from

varying backgrounds that they are

creative. Creativity is not something

you’re born with or develop only as a child,

Southcott says.

“Some students are skeptical at fi rst,”

he says. “They think, ‘Why do I need this

course?’ Plus, so much creativity has been

hammered out of them over the years that

they aren’t sure how to fi nd it.”

Southcott tries to reassure them that

all humans are creative, but tapping into

it often requires discipline. The “Eureka!”

moments are few and far between.

“Creativity is about pushing people

out of their comfort zone to a place

they’ve once been, but maybe pushed

away,” he says.

Southcott usually starts his course by

talking to students about these creativity

myths and getting them to start writing a

journal. He then tries to get students out of

the classroom, observing the campus and

world around them, and reporting back on

how that might infl uence their ideas and

thinking.

Some of his lessons include creative

examples from popular culture, including

Netfl ix programs such as Orange is the

IN THE CLASSROOM

15VIEWPOINTS FALL 2014 15

New Black, where the main character, in

prison for the fi rst time, designs fl ip-fl ops

out of maxi pads. He also talks about

how DuPont came up with a current line

of paint—by getting its team to imagine

they’re the walls. It was that exercise

that lead to the company coming up with

paints that are both beautiful in colour and

protect the surface from the elements,

says Southcott.

At the end of the course, students are

asked to do a creative project. Southcott

asks them to pursue something creative

that they’ve wanted do, but were perhaps

too afraid to try.

The results have been wide-ranging:

students have written songs, developed

smartphone apps, created new food

recipes... the list goes on.

“A big part of it is developing the

confi dence that you can think creatively,”

says Southcott.

For many, it’s the last chance to test

their creative side in a classroom before

entering (or returning to) the business

world. “In a perfect world, creativity

would never leave the curriculum after

kindergarten,” adds Southcott.

Think diff erentSauder MBA student Eli Berenbeim took

Southcott’s course in the fall of 2013 and

says it has taught him to think diff erently

about ideas, and his potential in the

business world.

“One of the biggest key takeaways for

me was that, fi rst and foremost, creativity

is something you can develop,” says

Berenbeim. “I had this preconception that

there are creative people and non-creative

people.”

He also learned that creativity is like a

muscle that works better when it’s trained.

“You may not become as reputed

an innovator as Steve Jobs, but you can

still develop creativity and serve as an

innovator for your organization in your

own right,” he says. “It has a lot to do

with repetition, putting yourself in a

creative space. It’s not about waiting for

an epiphany—there is a regimen to be

followed.”

Berenbeim’s creative space is the time

he spends each morning walking his dog.

“It’s about making creativity part of my

routine and taking time to refl ect,” he says.

“It sounds simple, but it takes discipline.” ■

Jordan Cash’s experience at Sauder unlocked a creative streak that resulted in the launch of a successful donuterie.

Putting on your thinking hat

In his course, Cultivating Creativity in

Business, Sauder adjunct professor

Jim Southcott teaches some of the

methods developed by Dr. Edward

de Bono, regarded as a world-leading

authority in the fi eld of creative think-

ing. In particular, Dr. de Bono is known

for identifying six distinct directions

in which the brain can be challenged.

They are outlined in his book, Six

Thinking Hats®, each of which are as-

signed a colour. The coloured hats are

used as metaphors for each direction.

They are, as presented on the de Bono

Group website:

The White Hat calls for

information known or needed. “The

facts, just the facts.”

The Yellow Hat symbolizes

brightness and optimism. Under this

hat you explore the positives and

probe for value and benefi t.

The Black Hat is judgment—the

devil’s advocate or why something

may not work. Spot the diffi culties

and dangers; where things might go

wrong. Probably the most powerful

and useful of the Hats but a problem

if overused.

The Red Hat signifi es feelings,

hunches and intuition. When using

this hat you can express emotions

and feelings and share fears, likes,

dislikes, loves, and hates.

The Green Hat focuses

on creativity: the possibilities,

alternatives, and new ideas. It’s an

opportunity to express new concepts

and new perceptions.

The Blue Hat is used to manage

the thinking process. It’s the control

mechanism that ensures the Six

Thinking Hats® guidelines are

observed. ■

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IN RESEARCH

The democratization of creativity“Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefi ned, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.” —Jeff Howe, Wired, June 2006

BY ALLAN JENKINS

better products and processes. But it is only

in the past decade that the technology has

developed that lets organisations instantly

and constantly receive and use information

from consumers and widely-spread staff .

And according to Darren Dahl, Senior

Associate Dean, Faculty and Research, at

Sauder, and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal

of Consumer Research, it is only recently

that organizations are seeing real benefi ts

to opening up their innovation game and

empowering consumers to be part of the

equation.

Consumers are thrilled.

“We humans fi nd deep satisfaction

in being creative,” says Dahl. “And there

are lots of ways to do that, anything from

crafting to solving an engineering problem

to playing a game. Creativity comes to life

in many diff erent ways, but we humans just

love it.”

So when companies give us the chance

to be creative for a brand we are passionate

about, we leap at it, says Dahl.

“When Starbucks or LEGO gives you

that opportunity, it makes you feel good.

Why? Not only because you are giving

back to a brand you care about, but you are

also exercising that muscle that you used

when you were a little super-creative kid,

only now you can do it in a more grown-up

context.”

However, managing crowdsourcing

is a challenge, says Dahl, and companies

wrestle with making it an effi cient part of

the innovation process. They also need to

fi gure out how to ensure crowdsourcing

actually gives the crowd what it wants.

THREADLESS IS A T-SHIRT COMPANY—but not just a t-shirt company. It is also

a crowdsourcing success whose quirky,

artistic—and not inexpensive—designs are

sought out by hipsters and mainstreamers

around the globe. So much so that every

design sells out after a limited run, netting

the lean, closely-held company revenues of

more than US$30 million a year.

Churning out dozens of catchy designs

a year would normally require a team of

talented designers and a great deal of

internal debate about what might or might

not sell.

But Threadless has no designers on

staff , nor does it decide which t-shirts will

be off ered. It relies entirely on the “crowd”

—its 2.4 million customers—to do that.

The company receives thousands of

designs from eager contributors, and it

sorts them by asking consumers to vote

on each design. Few designs are approved

by the user base, but those that are go into

production. Successful designers receive

$2,500 in cash and gift certifi cates, and the

pleasure of seeing their name printed on

the shirt’s tag.

By limiting its print runs and removing

even popular designs on a regular basis,

Threadless is able to create strong demand

and high margins for its shirts—so much so

that it never has unsold stock. All because

it puts crowdsourcing at the centre of its

business model.

Ask the crowd what it thinksCompanies have long solicited the opinions

of consumers and employees to develop

Dahl notes that crowdsourcing is not

the best choice in the luxury-goods market,

for example.

“In those situations, you are excited to

buy something because it was designed

by Yves-Saint Laurent or someone else of

incredibly great taste. You are buying into

the prestige and the dream,” says Dahl.

“You are not as excited to buy something

by Fred down the street because there is no

prestige or luxury in Fred.”

Crowdsourcing across the business modelDahl notes that companies can use

crowdsourcing across a spectrum,

according to their needs. Some, such as

Threadless, make it the centre of their

business model, while others use the crowd

to simply engage with customers.

“In the advertising space, you can point

to Frito-Lay and the consumers who have

done ads for the Super Bowl,” says Dahl.

“They have been doing that for eight or nine

years. They get incredible participation and

incredible play on that, and it has been very

successful.”

“LEGO has also been very successful in

terms of involving the crowd,” adds Dahl,

who says LEGO’s crowdsourcing of ideas

from consumers, and acting on them, is at

least partly responsible for the company’s

turnaround.

“You can use consumers across the

innovation spectrum, from generating

ideas, to helping manage what gets

produced, to deciding how it gets

produced,” notes Dahl.


In fact, crowdsourcing is being used to

“crowdfund” projects before there is even

a tangible product. Many start-ups, artists

and just people with an idea are turning to

“crowdfunding” sites to raise funds to get

their projects moving.

At Kickstarter, people seeking funding

set up projects on the site, describe

what they want to do (and why they are

qualifi ed) and ask the crowd to pledge

contributions to meet a minimum funding

level, ranging from a few dollars to many

thousands. If the goal is met, the pledges

are automatically collected and the project

starts. If not, no funds are raised.

Any number of contributors can help

fund a project, and they are often recognized

for their support. For example, a writer

might off er a signed copy of a book to a

$50 backer, and fi ve signed copies and an

acknowledgement in the book to a $250

contributor. Crowdsourcing can continue

throughout the project, asking for, and

rewarding, contributor input and advice as

the project rolls out.

Using the crowd to solve problems large and smallNot all companies use crowdsourcing for

funding and marketing. Some are turning to

crowdsourcing to solve diffi cult problems

while others use it to carry out exceedingly

tedious tasks.

An example is InnoCentive, an open

innovation company, which uses the

crowd to solve diffi cult or even seemingly

intractable problems for its clients.

Companies and non-profi ts commission

InnoCentive to off er major “challenges”

or “problems” that anyone can attempt to

meet or solve. By off ering the challenge to

the crowd, InnoCentive clients are, in fact,

outsourcing major R&D, engineering, or

programming.

The challenges are tough, but the

rewards are big. One current InnoCentive

challenge is to fi nd “innovative approaches

to establishing new intestinal carcinoid and

pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor cell lines

from primary tumors that grow slowly in

vivo and to publicize new methods as well

as availability of the new cell lines for broad,

unrestricted use.”

The reward? US$300,000 if the

challenge is met by April 2015.

Another challenge on InnoCentive

is from the US Transportation Security

Agency (TSA), the body responsible for

travel security in the United States. TSA is

looking for ways to handle bags according to

a passenger’s screening designation, which

would let TSA sort and process bags more

effi ciently. TSA is willing to pay

US$15,000 for the solution.

General Mills, the food-

processing company, uses

its open innovation platform,

the General Mills Worldwide

Innovation Network (G-WIN),

to fi nd new products, better

packaging and better processes.

Recent G-WIN challenges

included a search for better

nitrogen fertilizer technologies

to promote sustainable

agriculture, and better ways to

incorporate whole grains into

wheat-based baked goods.

At the other end of the

spectrum, the carrying out of

tedious and low-paid tasks,

some businesses turn to

the Amazon Mechanical Turk. Touted by

Amazon as “artifi cial artifi cial intelligence,”

the Mechanical Turk lets companies

outsource routine, repetitive mental tasks

that, unfortunately, cannot be done with

computing power alone.

At any time, about 3,000 projects are

available, some with thousands of “human

interaction tasks” to be completed. Recent

tasks included extracting 46,000 sales

receipt data points at US$ 0.02 per receipt,

to transcribing a two-hour interview for

US$76.50. Despite the low pay, companies

fi nd takers for most of the projects

presented.

The new tool in the boxNone of this surprises Dahl.

“Companies will fall across the

spectrum [of crowdsourcing],” says Dahl.

“They will diff er, and they should, in how

they use it, depending on their business

model and what they produce.”

Dahl points to Google and Apple as

examples of the diff erence.

“Google likes to talk to the consumer,

whereas Apple likes to observe the

consumer. That is just diff erent business

models, and that is fi ne. But crowdsourcing

is now another option, and it wasn’t 10

years ago.” ■

Sauder professor Darren Dahl developed and launched many of the school’s courses focused on creativity.

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nuances of deals we do with people and

the fi nancing that we’ve had to work our

way through over the years. It’s also helped

us to expand our business model. Instead

of just renting out facilities to others,

we’re now starting production of our

own fi lm and television projects. It’s one

thing to launch a show—it’s another to be

successful and make money at it.

What’s the most creative project you’ve taken on recently and what inspired you?We are shooting our fi rst reality show called

Guardian Angels, which revolves around

helicopter work. We were inspired to do our

own production by the years of servicing

other clients for productions such as X-Men

2 and X-Men 3, to name just a couple of

examples. Our team has learned a lot from

those experiences, and decided it was

time to take some risks and get into the

production side of the business ourselves.

How do you see creativity changing your profession in the future?The nature of creativity in the visual world

is changing dramatically with the advent of

YouTube and the fact that all markets have

been fragmented. Creativity remains the

same, because it’s always about a story.

However, the way that it’s paid for and

delivered is changing dramatically. That

has and will continue to change the fi lm

and television industry. The impact of the

creative economy is also increasing. For

people who want to get into the creative

economy, the mixture of business and

creativity is the way to go. ■

PETE MITCHELL IS PRESIDENT AND

Chief Operating Offi cer of Vancouver Film

Studios group. He graduated in 1989 with

an MBA from Sauder.

How did your time at UBC/Sauder help to shape your creativity?My time at UBC was spent primarily

in quantitative analysis, which set the

foundation for my ability to be creative. You

need to have that underpinning to be both

creative and eff ective in business. If you’re

creative without a business approach, you

can end up spinning your wheels.

How do you apply that in your current profession?My business involves renting out fi lm

and television production facilities to

major studios. The creative part is in the

The business of creativitySauder graduates are using their skills across creative industries such as music, dance and fi lm to help shape the future of business behind the arts. Viewpoints checked in with fi ve alumni to fi nd out how the business of creativity is changing in their industries.

BY BRENDA BOUW

BONN SMITH IS PRESIDENT AND

co-founder of New Music Channel, as well

as a singer/songwriter and professional

fi lm and television actor. He graduated

from Sauder in 2012 with a Bachelor of

Commerce degree, with a marketing focus.

How did your time at UBC/Sauder help to shape your creativity?UBC surrounded me with unique

individuals. The campus pulses with

interesting characters, from a variety of

backgrounds and walks of life. It didn’t

take me long to realize there was much

to learn from my peers’ (and professors’)

experiences and personalities. I was quick

to befriend as many as possible! I had my

business buddies, my musical friends,

party friends, lazy-day friends, cramming-

for-exams friends and everything in

IN BUSINESS

Selfi e: Bonn Smith, BCom 2012,New Music Channel.

Selfi e: Pete Mitchell, MBA 1989, Vancouver Film Studios group.


between. It is important to branch out and

see who’s out there; this mindset leads

down a colourful and exciting path. It also

comes in handy to have varied opinions to

leverage when making important decisions

like “full-time musician or full-time

accountant?”

How do you apply that in your current profession?It is apparent to me now that business

is all about relationships and teamwork.

My university years gave me hands-on

experience in dealing with diff erent types

of people, problems and timelines—all of

which directly correlate to the “real world.”

It takes the hands of many to truly create

something of worth, and one cannot rally

a team to create said worth without the

ability to empathize and connect deeply

with others. University is a great place to

practice the art of connecting.

What’s the most creative project you’ve taken on recently and what inspired you?I recently started my own television

network, New Music Channel, with

the aim of exposing top independent

musicians to a nation-wide audience.

After graduating from Sauder, I released

an album, titled Secret Lives, and spent a

year working as an independent musician,

quickly realizing how diffi cult it is to make

it as an artist in today’s market—so I set

out to create a new market. The channel

is on track to air in the near future; it will

be the fi rst network of its kind and I am

ecstatic to see all my hard work come

to fruition.

How do you see creativity changing your profession in the future?I don’t see creativity changing my

profession in the future. Instead, I see it

guiding my profession, every step of the

way. Being creatively stimulated is the

most fulfi lling and worthwhile part of

my day. I cannot imagine a career that

doesn’t allow me to think outside

boxes and step over lines—where’s the

excitement in that? ■

JENNY DUFFY IS THE OWNER OF Jenny Duff y Dance Services, which

off ers choreography, dance lessons

and coaching. She is also the

choreographer for the BC Lions

Felions Dance Team, and the

artistic director of Endangered

Dance Co., which is based out

of Harbour Dance Centre in

Vancouver. Duff y graduated

from Sauder in 2004 with

a Bachelor of Commerce

degree.

How did your time at UBC/Sauder help to shape your creativity?As a Sauder student, I learned that some

of the world’s greatest innovations were

created when someone saw opportunity,

where others had only seen failure. Coca-

Cola, originally invented as a treatment

for patients with morphine addiction, is a

great example of this. As a professional

choreographer, when faced with a

challenge I always ask myself, “How can

I use this to my advantage? Is there a

feasible workaround that can be reached?”

I have learned to be adaptable and search

for unconventional solutions in the face of

adversity. I just love the cross between the

two worlds of arts and business.

How do you apply that in your current profession?When working with dancers on a television

set, the conditions are often changing. The

amount of space you have to work with,

props on set, costuming, and special eff ects

are often not exactly as you expected them

to be. So I constantly have to be prepared

to modify choreography to meet the needs

of the client.

What’s the most creative project you’ve taken on recently and what inspired you?Right now I am working on the music and

choreography for the Grey Cup routine,

which will be performed by the BC Lions

Felions Dance Team at the 102nd Grey

Cup Cheer Extravaganza in Vancouver, BC

this November. The routine will be nearly

eight minutes long, showcase a variety of

dance styles including jazz, hip hop and

acrobatics, and will explore the concept of

the BC Lions as the “winning machine” that

has earned them the moniker of the Best in

the West.

How do you see creativity changing your profession in the future?As the dance industry moves towards

greater fusion, for example contemporary

jazz, lyrical hip hop, Afro-Cuban jazz,

etc., I think choreographers are going to

need to use their creativity to create new

and exciting styles while still respecting

tradition. ■

PETER LEITCH IS PRESIDENT OF FILM company North Shore Studios/Mammoth

Studios and Chair of the Motion Picture

Production Industry Association of BC.

He graduated from Sauder in 1979 with a

Bachelor of Commerce degree.

How did your time at UBC/Sauder help to shape your creativity?My business degree helped me get into a

creative industry. It was very unexpected,

but even creative industries need fi nance

people. While I have been engaged in the

fi nance side for a portion of my career, I’ve

also been involved in government policy,

which has impacted the fi lm and television

Selfi e: Jenny Duff y, BCom 2004, Jenny Duff y Dance Services.


industry. The skills I learned at UBC

were very helpful from an administration

standpoint, but also for problem solving

and meeting and negotiating with diff erent

levels of government.

How do you apply that in your current profession?I work in a creative industry, but I’m not

an actor or performer or in front of the

camera or building the sets. That said,

my job does require me to fi nd creative

solutions to business problems that may

arise. That’s is a diff erent type of creativity,

but also important for its own purposes.

Part of my role also includes marketing

British Columbia as a fi lm and television

production destination.

What’s the most creative project you’ve taken on recently and what inspired you?We’re in the infrastructure business, so

building studios and expanding upon that is

always a creative process. We also need to

make sure that we keep up to date with the

technology that helps to advance creativity

in this business. Our clients are our inspira-

tion as we build facilities to accommodate

their needs, which are diff erent from 25

years ago when we started out.

How do you see creativity changing your profession in the future?Film and television is an extremely

competitive business, and the technology is

constantly changing. We need to be on top

of these changes. At the end of the day, it’s

about storytelling. All of the ideas that go

into keeping this industry moving forward

are in someone’s head, so the creative

talent we develop—and how we help tell

those stories—will determine how this

industry changes in the future. ■

TOM DOBRZANSKI IS A PIANIST WITH

the indie rock band The Zolas, as well

as a producer, engineer, composer and

founder of Monarch Studios. He graduated

from Sauder in 2005 with a Bachelor

of Commerce degree, with a focus on

accounting and fi nance.

How did your time at UBC/Sauder help to shape your creativity?Sometimes pursuits into creative industries

present a more ambiguous career path than

traditional professions. The foundation from

my Sauder education made it easier to do

what at the time seemed like the bigger

risk, knowing there was always a traditional

business job waiting for me if I didn’t end

up fi nding a path in music. While doing my

degree I also attended a technical school

to study sound engineering and started a

small recording studio business. When I

graduated in 2005, my small studio was

already booked up for months ahead of time,

so I decided to put off applying for jobs and

focus on building that business.

How do you apply that in your current profession?By 2010, I had come to the realization

that being a music producer/studio

owner was not a temporary departure,

and actually “what I do.” It was time to

go all in, and take a big leap to expand

the studio and launch my new business,

Monarch Studios. At a time when the

music industry was changing, album

sales and album recording budgets were

shrinking, and big studios around the

world were closing, my intuition was

telling me that Vancouver was missing a

mid-size professional recording facility.

Having the fi nancial background from

Sauder allowed me to model diff erent

scenarios, create fi nancial forecasts, and

confi rm my intuition that the business

would work.

What’s the most creative project you’ve taken on recently and what inspired you?The most creative project I’ve taken on was

designing and building the new studio. It

was incredibly complicated and required

a lot of creativity and balancing. I needed

to balance the mathematical side of the

physics of sound, marry that design with

the city requirements for permitting and

building codes, choose the right mix of

modern and vintage recording equipment,

and create an aesthetic that would be

unique and inspiring to musicians.

How do you see creativity changing your profession in the future?As modern music is evolving, the producer

and engineer are becoming an increasingly

important part of the sound of a band. It’s

all about creating combinations of sound

that people haven’t heard before. As a

result, bands are leaning on the engineers

who have more technical know-how on

manipulating audio to help shape their

sound. To be successful going forward

requires a unique mix of having a wild

creative vision for something new, an

appetite for being analytical, and the

technical skill to make it happen. ■

Selfi e: Tom Dobrzanski, BCom 2005, Monarch Studios.

Selfi e: Peter Leitch, BCom 1979, North Shore Studios/Mammoth Studios.


Paul Cubbon, lecturer in

marketing and behavioural science at

the Sauder School of Business, says

“[We] learn to play safe.”

”We might be very creative, in

our private lives, as musicians or

poets or cooks or whatever, but

at work we play it safe because

we have seen people fi red or

reprimanded or not get bonuses

because they didn’t just do what

they were told.” According to Cubbon,

while CEOs may wish for creativity, the

incentives in corporations are often not

aligned to reward creativity.

Fuzzy pictures not allowedCubbon points out that managers “often

want you to be creative, but not in a random

way, and only on focused areas.”

Cubbon’s colleague at Sauder, Darren

Dahl, Senior Associate Dean, Faculty and

Research, in a 2011 paper published in

the Journal of Marketing, said that no one

right way exists for a company to foster

creativity. Dahl and colleagues found that

companies were “all over the map” when it

came to inculcating a creative culture.

Dahl and his colleagues did fi nd

corporate creativity benefi ts from both

training programs and incentive programs.

However, they found organizations

successfully used diff erent forms of

programs.

“The incentive can be cash, but

does not have to be,” says Dahl. “There

just needs to be some awareness and

acknowledgement to tell people creativity

is valued and rewarded, whether through

social recognition, monetary recognition or

whatever.”

SOMEWHERE BETWEEN KINDERGARTEN and grade 1, we started to colour inside

the lines, and random LEGO contraptions

started to take on more structure. While

stern Mrs. Jones handed out gold stars

for better crayon management, and our

parents were happy to not need to ask

what it was they were looking at, there is

an unfortunate edge to this turning point in

our lives: it generally signals the end of the

kind of creative thinking the business world

will later crave.

And, although schools are now placing

an increased value on creativity in the

curriculum, those alumni long past the

recess-and-assembly stage of life would do

well to act on the data presented by many

credible sources.

In an oft-cited study by IBM, creativity

was listed as the most important leadership

quality, according to CEOs. And this wasn’t

just in North America; these fi ndings were

announced after interviewing more than

1,500 senior managers in 60 countries.

Creativity was prized by 60% of the CEOs

interviewed, ahead of integrity and global

thinking.

Enter the Conceptual AgeIn discussing his book, Drive, zeitgeist

author Daniel Pink argues that “the

Industrial Age gave way to the Information

Age—the age of left brain, white collar

workers doing relatively routine work—

and that has given way to the Conceptual

Age—the age of right brain workers

doing non-routine work.”

So the question every person in

business needs to ask is, How well

equipped am I, or my organization, for

the Conceptual Age?

The playdough resuméCreativity as a workplace skill

BY ALLAN JENKINS AND JENNIFER WAH

But Cubbon, who believes creativity,

innovation and entrepreneurship are

inextricably linked, encourages companies

to give people permission to rediscover their

creative selves. Certainly companies known

for service that feels fresh and authentic

off er high rewards for creativity. The airline

industry off ers many examples of creativity

at work: Delta Airlines won awards for their

approach to boosting call centre satisfaction

by off ering revenue sharing to call centre

employees, and anyone who has fl own

WestJet or Southwest Airlines experiences

fi rsthand a culture shift based on creative

problem solving.

According to Cubbon, if the creative

process matters to a company, leaders

must make space for it. You cannot simply

tack it on to a job.

Stop. Then start.“Everybody’s lives are full,” says Cubbon. ”So

if it matters, it is about stopping doing some

things and starting doing others.”

Some companies frame it internally

as professional development so that

employees are focused on being given an

opportunity to develop professionally and

enhance their job satisfaction.

IN THE WORKPLACE

Professor Paul Cubbon is focused on creatvity as a foundation for innovation.

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Sauder courses help students focus creativity on resultsSauder’s focus on creativity in its

curriculum has shifted signifi cantly over

the past few years. In 2002, Dahl, an

expert on creative crowdsourcing himself,

was approached by a UBC engineering

prof. about a class on creativity, and the

school’s much-admired New Venture

Design course was born. Off ered at both

the undergraduate and graduate level, the

course not only attracts students from all

of UBC’s faculties, but also the interest

of management consulting fi rms such as

McKinsey, who have recruited from class

alumni for the fastest-growing area of their

business—creative problem solving in

business.

More than a decade

later, a suite of courses and

content are fi rmly

entrenched in

the way the school

prepares graduates for

a business world that

values this skill at the

top of the list. ■

For those looking to bring creativity into their

business, Sauder professor Paul Cubbon and

others off er a few practical solutions:

• Hold a workshop or brainstorming session where you provide people with inspiration, some specifi c creative tools, and a clear challenge or outcome. Silicon Valley-based Ideo can lay claim to

some very innovative products, including

Apple’s fi rst mouse. Rather than waiting

for good ideas to pop into their heads

formalized, idea-generation exercises

are “practically a religion,” says one

creativity author.

• Frame challenges or opportunities diff erently at work. Ask “What if?” consider role playing, provocation (rejecting a truism) or disruption. In his course work, Dahl cites an example

of disruption: “elBulli was a famous

restaurant in Barcelona, Spain. Chef Ferran

Adria was always seeking new ways to

come up with innovative dishes, such

as a 35-course meal and other one-of-

a-kind tasting experiences. From his

innovative approach, elBulli became the

highest-ranking restaurant in the world

for two consecutive years, yet it didn’t

make money. The notion behind the

restaurant was purely creative: to deliver

an experience like no other and at that it

succeeded. elBulli closed in 2011, simply

because the owner had been there,

done that and wanted to try something

diff erent.” Fittingly, the space will reopen

as a creativity centre this year.

• Consider a physical workplace reorganization to increase places where people can bump into one another, or exchange creative thoughts. In one infamous example, apparently

the Cambridge University mathematics

department has white boards

in the toilet stalls. At Swedish

telecommunications giant Ericsson,

a technology-free “green room” has

been set aside for contemplation and

refl ection, a crucial element gone

missing from too-busy days. ■

OPENIDEO IS AN OPEN-INNOVATION platform that relies on crowdsourcing to try

to solve social problems. Sponsors, such as

the Clinton Global Initiative, the European

Commission, and Amnesty International,

present challenges and invite the world to

brainstorm ideas for solutions. Anyone can

participate. The crowd develops research and

ideas, then refi nes the ideas, winnowing them

down to the most innovative.

OpenIDEO off ers these tips to its

brainstormers on openidea.com, but they are

applicable to any brainstorming process.

1. Defer judgment Creative spaces don’t judge … You never

know where a good idea is going to come

from … make everyone feel like they can

say the idea on their mind and allow

others to build on it. This still means we

pose questions and provocations so that

the ideas can get to a better place.

2. Encourage wild ideas Wild ideas often give rise to creative leaps.

In thinking about ideas that are wacky or

out there, we tend to think about what we

really want without … constraints. We say

embrace the most out-of-the-box notions

and build build build...

3. Build on the ideas of others Being positive and building on the ideas of

others takes some skill. In conversation,

we try to use and instead of but...

4. Stay focused on the topic Keep the discussion on target, otherwise

you can diverge beyond the scope of what

you’re trying to design for.

5. One conversation at a time Of course on OpenIDEO, there’s lots of

conversations happening at once, which

is great! Always think about the challenge

topic and how this could apply.

6. Be visual We love visual ideas as the images make

them memorable. In live brainstorms, we

use coloured markers to write on Post-its

that are put on a wall. Nothing gets an

idea across faster than drawing it. Doesn’t

matter how terrible of a sketcher you are!

It’s all about the idea behind your sketch.

7. Go for quantity Aim for as many new ideas as possible.

In a good session, up to 100 ideas are

generated in 60 minutes. Crank the ideas

out quickly. ■

Seven brainstorming tips from OpenIDEO



Let’s talk about itIn fact, a growing body of research suggests

that creativity is now one of the most

important qualities in a leader and crucial

for companies to remain competitive.

“Creativity has become something

that people can talk about in a business

and leadership context,” says Liz Starbuck

Greer, Director of Marketing & Business

Development, Executive Education, at

THE ABILITY TO TRANSFORM a traditional idea into something

new—whether it’s a product

that becomes a best-selling

brand or a subtle tweak within

an organization that improves

how it operates—is what propels

business and the economy

forward.

Still, creativity’s contribution

to the bottom line isn’t

always obvious. Especially

during tougher economic

times, more emphasis may

be placed on execution over

allowing employees time and

space to stand back and try to

approach products or problems

diff erently.

But thanks to innovation and

constantly changing technology,

not to mention some well-

known success stories such as

Apple and Google, creativity

continues to gain credibility in

the corporate world.

Why more leaders are looking for ways to tap into their creative potentialCreativity is a key ingredient for success in business

BY BRENDA BOUW

UBC’s Sauder School

of Business. “We’ve

seen a real increase in

organizations that are

willing and able to talk

about creativity as a core

skill.”

It’s not just in the

technology space either,

where the results of

creativity often receive the

most attention. Creativity

and creative problem

solving are increasingly

being recognized as a

requirement in a wide

range of industries,

from fi nancial services

and manufacturing to

government and Crown

corporations.

To help cultivate

creativity, more business

leaders are trying to create

a corporate culture that

inspires employees to

come up with new and

innovative ways to do their jobs and run the

operation.

Many are starting by fi rst trying to

unlock their own creative potential.

“Leaders are looking to become creative

role models,” says Elizabeth Newton, a

registered psychologist and faculty member

in Entrepreneurship & Innovation at Sauder.

“They are looking for new ways to inspire

and support innovation in their staff . If a

IN LEADERSHIP

Liz Starbuck Greer champions creativity in Sauder’s Executive Education program.

“Creativity has become something that people can talk about in a business and leadership context. We’ve seen a real increase in organizations that are willing and able to talk about creativity as a

core skill.”– LIZ STARBUCK GREER

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leader is seen as a pencil pusher or a suit,

he or she will also have a hard time gaining

the trust of highly creative employees.”

Newton teaches a two-day, interactive

course called Creativity and Innovation for

Business, through Executive Education,

which helps managers explore their

creative style and help bring it out in others

in the workplace.

It’s seen as a step in the right

direction, given studies that show

many workers don’t believe creativity

is in their job description.

Wanted: productivity and creativityIn 2012, Adobe released the “State of

Create” global study that showed eight in

10 people felt that unlocking creativity was

critical to economic growth. However,

75 per cent of those surveyed felt they were

under pressure to be productive, rather

than creative at work.

What’s more, only 39 per cent of

the 5,000 respondents from the US,

Europe and Japan described themselves

as being creative.

Newton says it’s a common

misconception in society that only

some people are creative. There’s also a

misunderstanding that creativity relates

only to artistic pursuits such as drawing,

painting or playing music.

“Creativity is a mindset. It is not about

some narrowly defi ned set of outcomes,”

she says.

It’s a stereotype Newton and other

Sauder faculty are trying to break through

their creativity and leadership courses.

“There is creativity at every step in the

innovation chain—from generating and

refi ning the idea to testing products and

processes, bringing new off erings to market

and staying current after that fi rst big

success,” Newton says.

Her course helps to show leaders that

creativity comes in diff erent forms and from

various people across all divisions, not just

the marketing or advertising departments,

for example.

“It’s about redefi ning and tapping into

creativity, for everyone,” she says. “We also

consider the context in which people are

creating—team, organization and market.

What are the organization forces that

stifl e and encourage creativity and how

can leaders maximize innovation in their

particular working environment.”

How to succeed in businessAt Sauder, the faculty believes there is a

spectrum of creativity, all of which can have

a positive impact on business.

“To our clients, creativity is about

fi nding alternative solutions to problems,

new ways to build their business, and to

deliver value to their clients,” says Starbuck

Greer. “There is an understanding that

companies that have embraced creativity

and innovation have been more successful.”

Many leaders who enroll in Sauder’s

creativity courses are looking for ways to do

things diff erently.

“They are trying to fi nd some kind of

competitive advantage in their marketplace.

That’s where creativity comes in.”

More companies are trying to embed

creativity across the workforce, not just in

the corner offi ce, embracing the idea that

anyone within the organization can be a

creative leader.

Luova: Found in translation“Part of the challenge is to fi nd your

creative champions and leverage them,

wherever they are in the organization,” says

Starbuck Greer.

Elizabeth Newton, a registered psychologist and faculty member in Entrepreneurship & Innovation at Sauder.

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“Leaders who empower all their people

to be creative will benefi t far more than

those who try to limit creativity to a certain

function or level in the organization,” says

Harri Sivula, the CEO at Finland-based

hotel and restaurant chain Restel Ltd. Like

Sivula, executives from around the world

are signing up for Sauder’s creativity in

leadership courses.

Sivula enrolled in Sauder’s one-week

Strategy and Innovation course in the

summer of 2013, looking for a diff erent

perspective from Canada on innovation

and a refresher on strategic thinking and

formats.

From the course, and discussions

with other executives who participated,

Sivula says he picked up a more global

perspective on creativity in business.

Since then, Sivula has applied some of that

thinking to his own company, including in

development work and improving customer

service across the company’s 49 hotels and

240 restaurants in Finland.

He was also reminded in the Sauder

course that all people have a creative side,

which comes out in diff erent ways. It’s up

to leaders to help foster that creativity,

Sivula says.

“There is a lot of potential in all people.

It’s only a question of which level and how

to get it out in a productive way to our own

business and lives,” he says. “It’s a question

of where do you learn and get new ideas

and thoughts?”

For Sivula, it’s often when travelling, on

holiday, or while playing sports.

“Just getting away from workplace and

home” can do wonders for creativity, he

says.

His advice to others seeking to express

their creativity: “Get out there!” ■

“Some people come in with the idea that they are creative or not creative, or they fear that they’ve become seen as suits and want

to change that image.”– LIZ NEWTON

The creative context

Drawing from diff erent creativity and innovation philosophies and research, Sauder

faculty member Elizabeth Newton has pulled out four common threads:

1. There is a world of ideas out there waiting to be connected

2. Individuals need to be cognitively and emotionally open to seeing and building

new connections

3. People need to have access to the relevant expertise to fi nesse the idea

4. The environment in which people are thinking and doing needs to allow for

their creative process

The state of create

In 2012, software giant Adobe commissioned a study looking at global creativity. It

surveyed 1,000 people in each of the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany,

France and Japan and found there was a “global creativity gap.” Below are some of

the key fi ndings from that survey:

8 IN 10 PEOPLE FEEL THAT UNLOCKING CREATIVITY

IS CRITICAL TO ECONOMIC GROWTH

TWO-THIRDS OF RESPONDENTS

FEEL CREATIVITY IS VALUABLE

TO SOCIETY

PEOPLE SPEND AN AVERAGE

OF ONLY 25% OF THEIR TIME

CREATING AT WORK

75% OF RESPONDENTS SAID THEY ARE UNDER PRESSURE

TO BE PRODUCTIVE RATHER THAN CREATIVE AT WORK

ONLY 1 IN 4 PEOPLE BELIEVE THEY ARE LIVING UP

TO THEIR CREATIVE POTENTIAL

25%

75%

25%67%


-answer problems. The Sauder School,

and other leading global academic

institutions such as Stanford University

and the Copenhagen Business School,

have established transformative learning

experiences to bring the practice into

business education.

Transforming business models“The d.studio is about

kindling a passion in

students to get out

there and change the

way we do business,”

says Quayle. “It’s

about looking at

the business world

in a diff erent way and

bringing the designer

mindset into how we ask

questions, how we fi nd solutions. It’s very

much student-based and very collaborative

in its spirit and essence.”

As someone who has brought her own

education and professional background in

urban design and landscape architecture

to bear on a variety of leadership positions

(she is British Columbia’s former deputy

minister of advanced education, research

and innovation, and former dean of the

UBC Faculty of Land and Food Systems,

for example), Quayle brought the d.studio

to life at Sauder in 2010 because of her

profound belief that business students,

and business people in general, have

the greatest capacity to change the way

MOST PEOPLE WOULD AGREE THAT innovation requires creativity. But

increasingly, many would say it also

demands critical thinking, collaboration

and human values.

All these elements come together in

the strategic design process, an emergent

business discipline that

can lead to original and

often unexpected

ideas and solutions.

“Strategic design

is a way of expanding

your world view

and how you think

about and address

complex problems,”

says Professor Moura

Quayle, who teaches

Design Strategies for

Business Innovation through

the d.studio at the Sauder School of

Business. “To think we can use the same

tools we used a decade ago just isn’t

realistic.”

Once the domain of designers

producing products or services, strategic

design is increasingly being used by

business to help solve systemic challenges

and wicked, diffi cult-to-defi ne, no- “right”

Designing business to change the worldAt Sauder’s d.studio, the challenge is to think diff erently in full

BY ERICA SMISHEK

we operate as a society, with respect to

achieving a low to zero carbon economy.

“With the d.studio we strive to inspire

students to transform business models to

keep businesses alert and responsive to

their customer needs, to improve service

delivery and business processes to better

serve customers, and to build eff ective

organizations to serve society,” she explains.

Real. Life. Experience.Sauder’s d.studio is an interdisciplinary

and action-focused experiential learning

initiative and environment where students

create business value founded in real-world

problems, opportunities and contexts.

Students get direct contact with local,

national and international business,

government, and not-for-profi t clients that

have included Climate Smart Business, Arts

Umbrella, Concert Properties, Pacifi c Press

and Lululemon.

Through experimentation with various

tools, processes and activities, individual

and teams defi ne, research, ideate,

prototype, choose, implement and learn.

Students come away with a new and critical

component to enrich their business toolkits

as well as a better understanding of how

human-centred strategic design (which

starts with the people for whom others

are designing and want to aff ect with their

solution) can be used, particularly to foster

business innovation, sustainability and

change leadership.

“I really appreciated the collaborative

process,” says Daniel Draper, a BCom 2014

IN THINKING

“The d.studio is about kindling a passion in students to get out there and change the way we do

business.”– MOURA QUAYLE


graduate who specialized in fi nance. He

was part of the project team tasked with

growing Lululemon’s men’s line.

“Right from the start, we spent a lot

of time discussing ideas, brainstorming,

having productive arguments, and sharing

personal experience and perspectives. It

was particularly valuable because there

didn’t have to be an immediate outcome or

solution. We all wanted to make the most

of the process and could’ve landed on a

variety of outcomes. I learned techniques

and activities that will be useful in any

circumstance.”

Alexandra Lam, a BCom student

entering her fi nal year of studies, says the

course was one of the most enriching and

unconventional learning experiences she

has ever had.

Dialogue to design“Almost everyone in the class was a ‘type

A’ leader. Sometimes ideas clashed. But

we had the chance to listen to each other,

share ideas, and give each other really

constructive feedback,” Lam explains. “It

makes me aware not only as a business

student but also a future business person

of how I need to engage with a team, how

we can learn to reach for the potential in

ideas and work through barriers, and learn

to be comfortable with the grey, with the

not knowing how to do something, with the

uncertainty.

“Anyone who wants to be a powerful,

infl uential business leader should take this

course,” she says.

Quayle notes that the

strategic design process and

studio environment need to

be designed for each unique

project, problem, opportunity

or organization.

“It is strongly guided by its

co-creative nature, by having

all the stakeholders in the

room,” she says. “This means

comfort with ambiguity and

not really knowing precisely

where the process is going, or

where it is going to take us.

This is hard for people who like

‘right and wrong’ or ‘correct or

incorrect’ answers.”

While it is a tremendous

tool, she says it won’t always

be the appropriate one.

“Sometimes strategic

design isn’t the right

methodology. It really

depends on the problem

and the context. For some

simple endeavours, you

want a simpler method. And you have to

be prepared for failure—and for starting

again.”

Quayle, in a sense, is also starting

again. Recently named director of UBC’s

Liu Institute for Global Issues, she will

remain a professor at Sauder and hopes to

bridge gaps between policy and business

by strengthening the bond between the Liu

Institute and the Sauder School. She plans

to increase the business community’s voice

and engagement in policy work going on at

the Liu Institute, and envisions a d.studio at

Liu for teaching policy and tackling policy

problems. ■

For Moura Quayle, the key creative canvas is the mind (in this case, colleague Jim Southcott’s) and the thoughts it holds.

At Sauder’s d.studio, individuals and teams defi ne, research, ideate, prototype, choose, implement and learn through experimentation.

action research studioin strategic design

To learn more about the d.studio

visit www.dstudio.ubc.ca or contact

[email protected].

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http://www.dstudio.ubc.ca



marketing (program promotion; stakeholder

needs and segmentation) to facilities

(creating a more engaging lobby space).

The organization is now evaluating

and implementing some of the ideas

fi rst presented by the students. Pacey

also notices a diff erence in employee

engagement for those who were part of the

studio practice.

“I am seeing on an everyday basis

and hearing comments from people that

reinforce for me how useful and important

a learning experience it was,” says Pacey.

“The penny has dropped for many of them,

and I sense it could be a real turning point

in the culture of the organization.”

Clients acknowledge that for

newcomers to the process, strategic design

can be quite abstract.

ANGÈLE BEAUSOLEIL NEVER MET A complex problem she didn’t like to tackle.

“‘What’s the problem?’ We don’t

like that question. Everyone sees

‘opportunities.’ We’ve grown to dislike

and distrust problems—we associate

them with negativity. We have had three

generations of leaders who say ‘don’t

bring me your problems—bring me

solutions,’” Beausoleil explains.

Having spent the last two decades

working with digital agencies, technology

companies and brands to ensure

companies are well positioned for the

future, the admitted “right/left brain

thinker” has turned her attention to

doctoral studies at UBC, researching the

innovation process and teaching Design

Strategies for Business Innovation through

the d.studio at the Sauder School.

“We need a safe, neutral space for

learning, a space to explore and identify

the right problems. The solutions are

the easy part—you will have more than

enough. What you will discover is that you

have to explore the many small problems

that lie beneath the big messy ones—

these are the ones you have to focus on,”

she explains.

Beausoleil brings the strategic design

process to industry by engaging partners

in the classroom to work with students

on real world business challenges and

delivering workshops to executives in

Vancouver and around the world.

Getting past “can’t”She says the framework developed by

Sauder’s d.studio is particularly eff ective

for creating both opportunities and clarity

when the way forward is not obvious or

when the system is simply stuck. Industry

partners agree it’s a compelling and

generative approach.

“Even though we’re a creative

organization, we still needed help in

thinking in diff erent ways about what we

were doing,” said Lucille Pacey, President

and CEO of Arts Umbrella, a Vancouver-

based not-for-profi t arts education centre

for children and youth ages two to 19. “We

had to get past the ‘we can’t do this’ way of

thinking and get to ‘what would it look like

if we did this?’ approach.”

Beausoleil conducted two workshops

with key staff and board members. Arts

Umbrella also worked with students over

a semester to examine challenges from

Sauder PhD candidate Angèle Beausoleil mixes mediums both at work and play.

“We had to get past the ‘we can’t do this’ way of thinking and get to ‘what would it look like if we

did this?’”– LUCILLE PACEY

PRESIDENT & CEO, ARTS UMBRELLA

Have you got the right problem?

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MORE THAN 40 BUDDING “DESIGN

thinkers” gathered at the Vancouver

offi ce of Briteweb, a communications,

branding and digital strategy agency, on

June 25 to learn more about the strategic

design process. Hosted in partnership

with Sauder’s d.studio, the event was

led by Briteweb’s strategist

Marica Rizzo (BCom 2010)

and creative director

Samantha Langdorf,

and included

Sauder students

and alumni, and

other business

and community

members.

“The strategic

design process allows

me to be my strategic

self and my creative ‘out

of the box’ self. We need to

nurture both sides of our brains,” says

Rizzo. “We want to hire more people who

think this way. It’s defi nitely an asset.”

In an interactive session, participants

worked with partners to create a solution

to a specifi c challenge—Design a Solution

for your Partner to Adopt Solar Energy.

They conducted in-depth interviews with

their partners, surveyed industry experts in

the room, and did some rapid research by

text messaging fi ve friends. Following the

ideation session, the Briteweb offi ce was

covered in Post-it notes with ideas ranging

from overseas investment structures,

through coff ee shop incentive programs for

charging laptops using solar, to business

models for basement suite dwellers to sell

solar energy to their parents upstairs.

“I think that expanding my knowledge

in business and strategic thinking will be a

great benefi t in my work,” says participant

Katie Mah, a graduate of Emily

Carr University of Art

and Design who now

works at Arc’teryx,

an outerwear and

apparel design and

manufacturing

company. “The

greater the

context you have

on a problem, the

lesser your chances

of designing based on

assumption, and the more

attentive you’ll be to the users’

needs. Then, the rest of the process

is art—creating something that is elegant,

beautiful and enjoyable to use.”

Mike Cancilla, a biomedical engineer and

co-founder of Arbutus Medical, sees the

strategic design process as a way to foster

his business and social innovation skills.

“I will continue to be aware that there

are multiple ways to approach a problem,

and stepping out of the ‘engineering’ box

is a great way to inspire creativity. During

the workshop I felt free to be creative and

dream up things that I might have not done

otherwise.” ■

“It’s tough for some business people

to see the impact of these creative

approaches,” says Marisol Cruz Aguirre,

who guides Strategic Management

and Corporate Legal Aff airs at TechBA

Vancouver. “But once they dig deeper,

there are lots of methodologies and tools

that can ignite business development and

product development.”

From a diff erent angleTechBA Vancouver, formerly a business

acceleration program of Mexico’s Secretary

of Economy and the US-Mexico Foundation

for Science, has now evolved into an

integrated services offi ce that assists in

the international expansion of small- and

medium-sized technology-based Mexican

companies. They provide managerial

and technological resources as well as

facilitate access to dynamic global markets

and highly entrepreneurial business

ecosystems. With locations in eight cities

around the world, including Vancouver,

TechBA turned to Beausoleil to deliver

d.studio workshops in Mexico for three

digital media companies.

“They started to visualize their

vision and goals in a very diff erent way,

considering every aspect of their team

and diff erent perspectives,” says Federico

Goroztieta, CEO of TechBA Vancouver.

“The companies now feel they need

to learn more,” he continues. “They are

very interested in following up and having

another session with the d.studio in order

to cultivate and grow their skills. They

are generating this new knowledge into

something very practical for innovation. It

is quite transforming.”

Interested in learning more about the

d.studio? Visit dstudio.ubc.ca or contact

[email protected]. ■

Taking d.studio to the people


http://www.dstudio.ubc.ca


RONNA CHISHOLM, BCOM 1989 (Finance, PMF), is the President and Co-

founder of Dossier, a Vancouver-based

design company specializing for more

than two decades in brand and innovation

services. Working with entrepreneurial

minded corporate clients and start-

ups, their brand creations number in

the hundreds and include Mike’s Hard

Lemonade, Naked Grape Wines, Coast

Capital, Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods and several

smaller food and beverage companies.

RICK HART, BCOM 1991 (MARKETING), is the Director of Brand & Marketing

Communications at UBC. With more

than 20 years experience in advertising/

marketing including six years as senior

vice-president and director of strategy with

MacLaren McCann Vancouver, Rick has

worked on numerous strategic enterprises

requiring innovation and imagination,

including Hyundai, Labatt, Vancity and BC

Children’s Hospital.

MIKE PARKER, BCOM 1994 (MARKETING), is the Global Chief Digital Offi cer of

McCann WorldGroup, the world’s largest

advertising and communications company.

Mike lives in the Silicon Valley in California,

and works to bring together technology,

innovation and creativity for the agency’s

clients including Nestle, L’Oreal, Coke,

MasterCard and Microsoft. Mike got his

start in advertising at Palmer Jarvis DDB in

Vancouver where he became President of

Tribal DDB Canada and later for the US.

The enduring creative genius of advertising slogans from the 1960s like Coke’s “It’s the Real Thing” and “The Best Part of Wakin’ Up Is Folgers in Your Cup” has become part of our common consciousness in large part thanks to the compelling characters of TV’s Mad Men set in that era. Today, as it was then, creativity is all important in the billion dollar advertising/marketing industry, and a Sauder education has laid the foundation for many of the best and brightest in that profession. To learn more about creativity and how successful executives tap in to it, Viewpoints spoke with some Sauder alumni who are leaders in the fi eld.

Inventing inspiration: how seeds of creativity are planted and encouraged to grow

Mad wo/menBY SUE BUGOS

Who was your biggest creative infl uence and why?MP: Early in my career at DDB, I had the

chance to work with legendary creative

leader Keith Reinhart, who was CEO of the

agency and wrote the famous “two all beef

patties…” song for McDonald’s. He was truly

an inspiring creative leader. Keith has an

amazing ability to connect with people on a

very human level which, if we are going to

make a diff erence with our work, is exactly

what we need to remember every day.

RC: Milton Wong, a mentor in fi nance to

me was surprisingly also one of my biggest

creative infl uences. Milton was greatly

infl uenced early in his career by Edward

de Bono, the “father of lateral thinking.”

Milton saw things others did not see and

thought radically diff erently than most in

the fi nance industry. Early in my career,

his belief in the importance of creativity

in business was a huge infl uence and

encouragement to me.

“ Creativity takes courage.”

Henri Matisse, artist


When you are facing a creative dilemma, where do you do your best thinking? How does this place inspire you?RC: When I’m at the gym or after a

workout; where I’m away from email,

getting oxygen to the brain and breathing.

RH: When I’m walking. It doesn’t really

matter where as just the process of moving

helps me think.

MP: I’ve been fortunate to work at

some agencies with very creative work

environments, but I always do my best

thinking outside of the offi ce. These days

I’m into road biking and do good thinking

when I’m in the saddle. Our family cabin

on the Sunshine Coast is also a place

where I get inspired and do my “bigger

picture” thinking.

What natural talent are you most proud of possessing?RC: I’ve always easily embraced

diff erences, and this is so critical for

collaboration and the creative process.

RH: According to StrengthsFinder I am

a strategic thinker and that fi ts with my

career path to date.

MP: I work hard on being a good

listener. In the business world, everyone

is quick to talk, show their ideas, and

try to score points, but real success in

the communications business starts by

listening—to what consumers want, to

what our clients are trying to achieve.

Only then can you have something

valuable to say.

“ Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try.”

Dr. Seuss, writer

“ You came here because we do this better than you, and part of that is letting our creatives be unproductive until they are.”

Mad Men’s Don Draper,

on managing creative people

Where do your daydreams usually take you?

RH: Daydreams show what is possible.

In advertising and marketing generally,

there are so many deadlines and so many

details to track it can be hard to fi nd the

free time to think freely and in the abstract.

When you can let your mind wander, it can

really do wonders. In fact, some of the

most creative people I have worked with

spend a good part of their day staring out

the window.

MIKE PARKERBCOM 1994


When you are at your creative best, what contributes to that inspired state?RH: Two extremes—either in a group

setting where I am helping to build ideas

through collaboration or completely on my

own with no noise or distractions.

MP: It’s when I am able to push away all of

the day to day stresses or preoccupations

of life and let my mind be free. I think you

also need to remove the fear of failure and

be willing to ask “what if?”

The television show Mad Men has had an impact on how people view creative industries lately and it seems like everyone watches the show. Which character do you most identify with and why?RC: I have to admit that I identify somewhat

with both Lane and Joan; Joan particularly

in how she has expressed at times feeling

like the only responsible adult in the room.

Play is important in the creative process,

as is the non-linear process. So this can

produce tension in business—but it’s

this tension inherent in operating at the

intersection of creativity and commerce

that is essential for innovation.

What tools for being creative did you learn at Sauder that you use now?RH: Commercial creativity (vs. fi ne art)

needs to be rooted in typical business

constructs such as goals, objectives and

strategies. The framework for strategic

thinking was ingrained in me during my

time at Sauder.

MP: Creativity is a team sport. In agency life

you need to collaborate with copywriters,

designers, strategists, technologists and

producers to solve client challenges and

get ideas made. At Sauder, I learned some

good lessons on working in teams and on

collaborative projects that have been truly

helpful in my career.

When you think of the most creative person you know, what three words would you use to describe him/her? RH: Visionary. Driven. Obsessive.

MP: Interesting. Wise. Fearless. ■

“ Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”

Scott Adams, cartoonist

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”

Albert Einstein, physicist

“ That’s the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you.”

Ray Bradbury, writer

RICK HARTBCOM 1991

RONNA CHISHOLMBCOM 1989


Earning InterestBY ALLAN JENKINS

Five most creative Canadian cities

Seven tools and apps to spark ideas

Richard Florida is an author, professor and urban studies specialist who believes cities require a “creative class” to reach their full potential. According to Florida, the Canadian “creative class” numbers more than fi ve million people, or about 30% of the workforce. However, the creative class is unevenly distributed: here is Florida’s ranking of Canada’s most creative cities according to his Creativity Index Score.

1 Ottawa-Gatineau (87 points)

T2 Vancouver and Victoria (83 points)

4 Montréal(82 points)

5 Québec City(81 points)

MindMeister (mind mapping; Android, iOS): Lets you create mind maps to plan projects, manage meetings and sketch business plans. MindMeister mind maps can be shared, collaboratively edited, and exported to Word, PowerPoint and PDF.

iMindMap (mind mapping; Windows, Mac, Android, iOS): Created by Tony Buzan, the inventor of mind maps. Lets users brainstorm, plan, organize and present mind maps. Pricey, but rich in features.

Idea Sketch (mind mapping; Windows, iOS, Windows Phone): A basic but easy-to-use app. Quickly convert concept maps, fl ow charts, or mind maps to outlines, or vice versa.

Brushes (drawing, painting; iOS): Reportedly used by David Hockney, Brushes gives you a basic paintbox of colours, brushes and layers, and also lets you record each brush stroke. Designed exclusively for iOS; paintings can be seamlessly transferred between iPhone and iPad.

Notability (note taking; Mac, iOS): Take notes while synching the notes to audio recordings of the meeting. Notes can include text, drawings, imported documents and web pages, all time-stamped against the recording. Notes can be shared on the cloud and exported to various formats.

Brainsparker (brainstorming; iOS): Brainsparker appeals to your right brain by letting you pick a card from a deck of 52 (more available with the paid version). Each card has a simple image or question (what does your heart say?) aimed at sparking new trains of thought. The app can be set to “spark” you at least once a day.

The Brainstormer (brainstorming; iOS): Another right-brain tool, addictively tactile, aimed at combining a plot, a subject and a setting or style, the Brainstormer tries to prompt the elusive moment of inspiration for writers, painters, or any kind of creative endeavour.


Designing for Growth: A design thinking tool

kit for managers

by Jeanne Liedtka and

Tim Ogilvie (2011)

A guide to understanding the

ability to turn abstract ideas

into practical applications for

maximal business growth.

Where Good Ideas Come From

by Steven Johnson (2011)

Ordinary things—the pencil,

fl ushing toilets, the battery—

seem perfectly obvious. But what

brilliant thought sparked their

invention?

101 Design Methods: A Structured approach

for driving Innovation in your organization by Vijay Kumar (2012)

The practice of creating new

products, services and customer

experiences as a science, rather

than an art.

Everything is Obvious: How common sense

fails us by Duncan J. Watts (2012)

Creativity needs to be properly

framed to be useful.

The Act of Creation by Arthur Koestler (1964)

Koestler believes we are our

most creative when we suspend

rational thought.

The Ten Faces of Innovation

by Tom Kelley (2005)

IDEO’s strategies for defeating

the devil’s advocate and driving

creativity throughout your

organization. (See page 20

in this issue of Viewpoints for

brainstorming tips from IDEO.)

The Creative Habit: Learn it and use it

for lifeby Twyla Tharp (2005)

Lessons from the celebrated

dancer/choreographer on how

to infuse creativity in your

day-to-day life.

The Opposable Mind: Winning through

integrative thinkingby Roger Martin (2009)

Don’t blindly follow the advice

of successful leaders. Instead,

try to understand how they

think.

Design Driven Innovation: Changing

the rules of competition by radically innovating what things meanby Roberto Verganti (2009)

How to create innovations that

customers do not expect, but

that they eventually love.

Nine books on creativityAs recommended by Sauder faculty Paul Cubbon, Darren Dahl and Moura Quayle, sorted by publication date

Eight top toysJust in time for Christmas last year, one sales and marketing blog, Blitz Lead Manager, listed the top-selling toys of all time. Not surprisingly, most involve creative play, which we now know to be an essential activity for grownups of all ages.

1 Barbie While sales of Barbie dolls have declined in recent years, with more

than one billion dolls living their make-believe lives, worldwide, this

50-year-old popular culture icon has been a leader in creative play.

2 The yo-yo While the concept of the yo-yo dates back 2,500 years, in the US,

their commercial popularity began after the Yo-Yo Manufacturing

Company in Santa Barbara, California, began producing millions of

yo-yos a year. “Walk the dog,” anyone?

3 Easy-Bake Oven There is no mid-life crisis in sight for this get-creative-in-the-

kitchen toy. Launched a half century ago, a reported 30 million

Easy-Bake Ovens have been sold.

4 Radio Flyer While a wagon might be more about careening than creativity,

one need only picture the decked out, modifi ed wagons of one’s

childhood to know they are both. And hey, 100 million wagons on

gravel hills everywhere can’t be wrong.

5 Transformers A worthy leftover from the 1980s? With more than $2 billion in profi ts

from just three live-action fi lms alone, not to mention the immensely

popular toy line, Transformers are the most current entry on this list.

6 G.I. Joe With somewhere around 10 million a year sold, this male military

action fi gure featured 21 moving parts when it was fi rst launched in

1964 as foot-high soldier. Reduced to half its size in the 1980s, the

product has held its own in creative doll play.

7 Hot Wheels These classic die-cast toys from Mattel were introduced in 1968,

4 billion cars, 11,000 variations and more than 800 models ago.

Apparently, the average child between the ages of fi ve and 15

owns about 41 cars. Racetracks not included.

8 LEGO “Everything is awesome,” must be how the LEGO folks feel this

year, with The LEGO Movie grossing $468 million at box offi ces

worldwide; surely evidence of the staying power of the endlessly

interlocking brick toy. Named for the Danish phrase “leg godt” (“play

well”), LEGO has produced more than 400 billion blocks and almost

as many structures. According to TIME Magazine, just six blocks can

be combined in 102,981,500 ways.


A home for UBC graduates

The Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre

A NEW $18.5-MILLION ALUMNI CENTRE WILL OPEN AT THE University of British Columbia in spring 2015 named in honour

of Robert H. Lee, a prominent member of the Sauder School of

Business community whose leadership and support led to the

naming of the Robert H. Lee Graduate School.

Located at the centre of UBC’s Vancouver campus, the naming

of the Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre honours the many contributions

the BC business leader and philanthropist has made to the life

of the university. The centre will serve as a resource for UBC’s

300,000 alumni, providing a welcoming place to network, meet

with students, and participate in intellectual, cultural and social

programs.

“My experiences as a commerce student laid the foundation

for my career. I feel privileged to have been able to give back to

my university,” says Lee, who is the Founder & Chairman of The

Prospero Group, a leading Canadian real estate company. “My

family and I are deeply grateful for this honour. I hope that other

alumni and friends will understand the importance of UBC to

future generations, and will fi nd ways to support this university

and its students.”


The building will include a centre for

innovation, a large celebration venue,

classrooms, social spaces and high-tech

meeting rooms, plus a café and library.

“The Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre will

become the heart of campus,” said immediate

past UBC President Stephen Toope at the

time of the announcement. “When we fi rst

imagined its creation, Bob was the obvious

person to name it after. He brings people

together, and we thought that was the perfect

symbol for the alumni centre.”

Lee has served on the UBC Board

of Governors and as Chancellor of

the University. One of his greatest

contributions was envisioning and

establishing the UBC Properties Trust of

which he served as chairman for more

than 20 years. The Trust was among the

fi rst in Canada to build market housing

on university land to fund its endowment,

which supports teaching, research and

community engagement. UBC Properties

Trust has added more than $850 million in

value to the university endowment.

The Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre is a

collaboration between UBC and alumni

UBC. It is a priority project for UBC’s start

an evolution campaign, the most ambitious

fundraising and alumni engagement

DONOR NEWS

campaign in Canadian history.

“I can’t think of a more appropriate and

deserving person to honour in this way

than Bob Lee,” said Judy Rogers, Member

at Large, Board of Directors, alumni UBC.

“The depth and duration of his involvement

in the aff airs of his university—and that of

his family—are remarkable to say the least.

The results of his eff orts will be evident for

the generations of alumni to come.”

ABOUT ROBERT H. LEE, CM, OBC, BCOM 1956, LLD 1996Born and raised in Vancouver, Robert

Lee graduated from UBC in 1956 with a

Bachelor of Commerce degree. He also met

his wife Lily (BSN 1956) at UBC. He co-

founded Wall Financial Corp. in 1966 before

setting off on his own to found the Prospero

Group in 1979, where he now serves as

chairman. He has built a strong real estate

presence in western Canada and the US,

including extensive real estate holdings in

the Lower Mainland.

Lee has not only left a mark on his home

city of Vancouver through a remarkable

career in real estate, but he has also set the

bar for community involvement through his

tireless commitment to numerous boards

and foundations.

He joined the UBC Board of Governors

in 1984 and served as chancellor from 1993

to 1996. He founded UBC Properties Trust

in 1988, served as chairman until 2011 and

is now chairman emeritus. He was chair of

the UBC Foundation and a member of the

Leadership Committee for UBC’s World

of Opportunity campaign. He received an

honorary degree from UBC in 1996 and was

appointed honorary chair of the current

start an evolution campaign. He was also

instrumental in creating the Robert. H. Lee

Graduate School at the Sauder School of

Business in 2006.

Lee’s four children (Carol, BCom 1981;

Derek, BCom 1982; Leslie, BCom 1984;

and Graham, BCom 1987) and his son-and

daughters-in-law all graduated from UBC.

There are nine alumni in his immediate

family, and three of his grandchildren are

currently enrolled at UBC.

ABOUT THE ROBERT H. LEE ALUMNI CENTREConstruction of the 3,870 square-metre

facility is underway at the corner of

University Blvd. and East Mall, next to the

new Student Union Building. The architects

are Hughes Condon Marler Architects

(Vancouver) and Kuwabara Payne

McKenna Blumberg (Toronto).

The Centre will feature:• A new centre for innovation that will be

the home for entrepreneurship@UBC

• Two multi-purpose classrooms

designed for academic and intellectual

programming for alumni

• High-tech boardrooms for the UBC Board

of Governors and the Alumni Association

Board of Directors

• A 300-person celebration space for

alumni and community events

• Interactive storytelling elements will

show the global impact of UBC alumni

and donors

• A café and library on the main fl oor for

informal networking ■

Family Legacy Series Sauder’s Business Families Centre will honour the Robert H. Lee

family of Vancouver at its Family Legacy Series gala event on

February 26, 2015 at the Hotel Vancouver. Philanthropist and

real estate developer Robert H. Lee is recognized as a signifi cant

contributor to the local community, and the event will explore

the genesis of his philanthropic values and how they have been

passed to the next generation. Contact Mischa.Ragona@sauder.

ubc.ca for sponsorship opportunities.

The Family Legacy Series has been running for 12 years and is now a signature event

in the Vancouver business community. Last year, the Family Legacy Series honoured the

remarkable success story of the Graham Family, founders and owners of Graymont Ltd.,

the second largest producer of chemical lime in North America. ■

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Business motto or philosophy: Know thyself and lead by example.

In business today, it’s important to… Build your resilience and increase your

capacity to adapt to change. This requires

a growth mindset where you take full

responsibility for your success or failure

and follow through on the belief that hard

work is the foundation for moving forward.

Most valuable thing learned since graduation: Mindfulness and neurobiology. This combo

has been a total game changer as it enables

me to eff ectively manage my energy levels

throughout my day and ensures that I can

consistently perform at my best.

Eureka moment: This past year I was asked by a close

mentor, “What do you do for joy?” I was

stumped by that question because I didn’t

have an answer. I was always working on

something. Now I make time for joy as

often as I can.

Biggest risk you’ve ever taken: Starting my own business after graduation

rather than taking a job. I have always had

an appetite for risk so the decision seemed

somewhat natural at the time, despite the

leap into the unknown.

Greatest achievement to date: Every time I hear a student or mentee has

an “aha” moment due to my direct support

or guidance, especially when I see them

take action on those insights.

Alter ego:Yoda. A few friends have called me an “old

soul.” I think it comes from my appreciation

for deep thought and wisdom.

Greatest extravagance: My breakfast smoothie. I buy the best

ingredients I can fi nd, and it’s worth every

penny.

Person you admire most and why (living or historical fi gure): The late Daniel Inouye, US Senator, Medal

of Honor recipient. Daniel was a part of

the 442nd US Infantry in WWII comprised

mostly of Japanese American citizens.

While they fought, their families were in

American internment camps. The 442nd

US infantry was the most decorated unit

in US military history. I’m continuously

inspired by Daniel’s story as he acted with

unimaginable courage and bravery despite

all odds.

Trait you admire most in others: I’m going to share two as they are

connected like time and space: integrity

and authenticity. And a bonus—deep

compassion for self and others.

Talent you would most like to have: Being able to run extremely long distances.

I was given the gift of fl at feet.

Last book you couldn’t put down: Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely.

Most listened to: I love electronic dance music. Bonn Smith is

my favourite local artist.

Gadget of choice: My meditation mat and my phone.

Your best-kept secret (what most people don’t know about you): I can consistently solve a Rubik’s Cube in

less than two minutes.

Favourite journey: I completed a Vipassana 10-day silent

meditation. It was one of the most

challenging journeys that I have ever

experienced and by far the most fulfi lling.

Where will you be in 10 years? I will be building a business that solves

a problem I deeply care about with an

amazing team of purpose-driven people. I

will be facilitating learning experiences that

empower participants to transform their

own mindsets from fi xed to growth.

Cole Nakatani Degree and Grad Year: BCom 2011, Marketing and SustainabilityCurrent home city: Vancouver, BC.Sauder volunteer role: JDC West CoachProfessional ID: Entrepreneur, Ideahack Creative

Want to be profi led in our Sauder Alumni

Global Network feature? Contact us at [email protected]

and we’ll be in touch.

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DIRECTORY: Exclusively yours! Login, update

and publish your profi le to link

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business. www.sauderalumni.ca

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Sauder Alumni Global Network


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CLASS NOTES

Trade and Commerce, Ottawa; Director,

Multilateral Projects and Programs, Aid and

Development Division, Economic Bureau,

Dept. of Foreign Aff airs, Ottawa; Offi cer,

Asia, International Programs, Dept. of

Finance, Ottawa; Offi cer, NGO Multilateral

Programs, Canadian International

Development Agency, Ottawa; Analyst &

Reporter, computer-produced statistics,

Sask. Govt. Insurance Offi ce, Regina;

Economist, Dept. of Public Health, Govt.

of Saskatchewan, Regina; Analyst and

Adviser, industrial stocks and bonds,

Gairdner & Company Investment Brokers,

Toronto.

More personal activities include:

Marriage (1956) to James MacNicol (UBC

BCom 1955, Western MBA 1956), two sons

and daughters—daughter and son twins in

1958, a daughter in 1959 and a son in 1960.

Marriage (1980) to Gordon Keys

(BASc 1950 U of Toronto, MASc 1952 U of

Toronto).

Retired in 1988 and moved to Salt

Spring Island, BC.

Finally, for health reasons, moved to

Sidney, BC (on Vancouver Island) in 2010.

Bertrand Dusausoy, MBA 1971

Still remember Opening day in 1970, with

Greenpeace Festival.

Helen Keys, BCom 1956

It is hard to believe 58 years have passed

since our graduation, though I have been

retired for the past 26 of those years. I

retired as a Canadian Trade Commissioner

(employed by the Dept. of Foreign Aff airs)

following many years in public service with

various Ottawa departments.

My varied career frequently took me

abroad to diverse locations to undertake

interesting and varied assignments. For

example—representing Canada at meetings

of the World Bank, other development

banks, the International Monetary Fund,

OECD in Seoul, Manila, Kyoto or Paris; six

weeks in La Paz, Bolivia pursuing contracts

for Canadian companies to provide

upgrading of several airports and provision

of aircraft; evaluating NGO literacy

and health care projects in small rural

villages in India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan;

accompanying Federal Minsters on

diplomatic visits to Beijing, Rome, Tokyo.

My career included, in reverse order:

Director, Asia Business Development

Program. Asia-Pacifi c Foundation

(secondment); Director, China Trade,

Alberta Trade Department (secondment);

Commercial Counsellor, Canadian

Embassy, Beijing; Director, Review and

Development of a new Fishing Industry

Policy and Program (including regulations),

Government of New Zealand; Director,

Review and Development of New

Customs Import & Export Operations,

Government of New Zealand (on Executive

Interchange); Offi cer, Asian Projects, Offi ce

of Overseas Projects, Dept. of Industry,

1970s

1950s

Dear alumni,From Vancouver to Hong Kong and from London to Karachi, the Sauder community

includes more than 36,000 alumni in 77 countries. Our alumni hold a piece of the

school’s history as well as its future.

So tell us your story, and share your news. We want to hear from you! Whether

you just got the job of your dreams or are still fi nding your way, took a trip around the

world or have been enjoying the comforts of home, got married or became a parent—

fi ll us in on your family and career, accomplishments and interests. We want to hear

from you, and see your photos.

We’ll print your news in the Class Notes section of Viewpoints Magazine, which is

consistently ranked as one of the most popular segments of our publication. Through

the Class Notes, you can share your story with your fellow alumni and current

students, reconnect with old classmates, and stay connected as a vital part of the

Sauder community.

We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

Viewpoints Magazine


Lyall Knott, BCom 1971

In April 2014, I was appointed a Member of

the Advisory Board to the Canada Institute

of The Woodrow Wilson International

Center for Scholars. The Institute was

founded in 2001 to increase awareness and

knowledge about Canada and Canada-US

relations among US policy makers and

opinion leaders. The Institute is dedicated

exclusively to exploring emerging policy

issues between Canada and the US. The

Wilson Center was chartered by Congress

as the offi cial memorial to President

Woodrow Wilson.

I am a senior partner of Clark Wilson

LLP and the Honorary Captain of the

Canadian Fleet Pacifi c, Royal Canadian

Navy. I served as a Canadian Commissioner

on the International Joint Commission from

2009 to 2013.

Rosalie Tung, MBA 1974, PhD 1977

I am the President-elect of the Academy

of International Business, the largest

association of professors of international

business. Previously, I served as president

of the Academy of Management, the

largest association of professors of

management from around the world.

John Clark, BCom 1979

I am pleased to announce that I am

celebrating 20 years as President of Pacifi c

Spirit Investment Management Inc.,

Vancouver’s premier wealth management

fi rm. Along with the Pacifi c Spirit team,

I help our high net worth client families

achieve their fi nancial goals through

comprehensive planning and portfolio

management.

Ken Lassesen, MSc (Business

Administration) 1981

Joining Avalara.com, a world leader in

sales tax calculation, as the principal

software engineer for their core off ering.

Alternatively, welcoming Maurice, Angie

and Winston—a pack of corgis to the family.

Anne Wicks , BCom 1978, MSc (Business

Administration) 1982

I am now a spiritual director and retreat

leader. I have also co-facilitated pilgrimages

with high school students in both New York

and Mexico.

I have served in ministry leadership at

St. Joseph the Worker Parish in Richmond

for the past 25 years and am currently on

staff , serving as the director of ministry

with senior adults.

I am a life-long learner and my current

focus of study, with St. Francis Xavier

University, is the integration of new

cosmology with Christian theology and

spirituality.

I have been married to Mike (BA

1965) for 38 years, and we have two adult

children and one granddaughter. Our son

David graduated from UBC in 2008.

My interests include reading, cooking,

contemplative photography, health &

fi tness, embodied prayer and spending

relaxing summers at Kootenay Lake.

1980s

SHARE YOUR NEWSClass Notes are easier than ever

to submit. Simply fi ll out the online form at www.sauder.ubc.

ca/alumni/classnotes

http://www.sauder.ubc.ca/alumni/classnotes/


CLASS NOTES




Margaret Buttner, BCom 1983

In August I joined the Vancouver Public

Library Foundation as associate director of

development. I am very excited about this

opportunity to combine my love of books

with my professional career.

Lindsay Ryerson, MBA 1985

I am now working in downtown Vancouver

as President and CEO of Contigo Systems,

a location-based information service

provider. I welcome hearing from any of

my classmates.

Anjili Bahadoorsingh, BCom 1990

After 15 years at the national law fi rm

of Heenan Blaikie LLP, I joined Terra Law

Corporation in 2013, a new commercial real

estate law fi rm in Vancouver, to continue

my practice in banking, real estate and

corporate/commercial law.

Edward Pereira, BCom 1990

After starting up and leading the

information security and audit departments

at Intrawest and then Lululemon, it was

time to change things up, leverage those

eight years of frontline experience in cyber

and information security, and venture out

to start up my own information security

and risk practice. And that I did in the fall of

2013! Year one has exceeded expectations

on so many fronts, and am very much

reveling in the change!

I also fi nished my one-year term as

President at ISACA Vancouver and enjoyed

being one of the founders of BC’s fi rst

public information security and privacy

awareness campaign back on February 6,

2014. Looking forward to contributing to

an even bigger and better event this

coming February.

I am also enjoying coaching my son’s

U11 select soccer team at Cliff Avenue

United Football Club, and being part of

that club as age coordinator, and as board

member.

Recently, my wife and I were very proud

to learn that our daughter would graduate

from her French immersion elementary

school with the highest academic award

and as co-valedictorian.

Looking forward to many more years

as an independent information risk

consultant and being able to contribute

more volunteer time to my profession

and to my community!

David Power, BCom 1990

I work in the Corporate Treasury at

RBC and this year I was pleased that my

funding and capital team was able to design

and launch the new forms of preferred

shares this past January, and subordinated

debt in July. These newly designed

instruments now comply with Basel III

and have set the precedent for all bank

hybrid capital issuance in Canada under

the Basel III regime.

1990s



Stephen Chun Pong Kwok, MBA 1993

I was recently awarded the medal of honour

by the chief executive of the Hong Kong

Special Administrative Region, as published

in the Government Gazette on July 1, 2014,

in recognition of my contribution to the

promotion of sustainable development of

small and medium enterprises in Hong

Kong. I have also been the President of

the Hong Kong Small and Medium

Enterprises Association since July 2010

and have been active in advising the

government on policies and legislation

that aff ect the small and medium business

community in Hong Kong.

Connie Linder, BA 1989, MBA 1993

This past year my team and I have

successfully relaunched our search

directory, greenpagesdirectory.net, which

is the leading source for sustainable

purchasing and healthier living. Our goal is

to help make decision-making for healthier

personal and professional procurement

more accessible.

Alexa Loo Goosen, BCom 1994

Four years after competing in the 2010

Winter Olympics here in Vancouver in the

parallel giant slalom snowboard event, I

have hung up the snowboard. My husband

and I are the proud parents of two boys:

Louie 2 1/2 and Sacha 1. I am loving being

a mom and I am loving my new business—

Alexa Loo Coaching: Providing Gold Medal

Coaching in Business and Sport. I am

excited to have found a way to combine

my Chartered Professional Accountant

(CPA, CA) designation with the mental

high performance aspect of Olympic

competition.

Tiff any Lee, BCom 1996

Time fl ies when you’re having fun and

when you’re a mom to two energetic and

playful little girls. Aside from my work as

a music theory specialist for accelerated

RCM courses, I’m also pursuing my

hobby of photography and now I’m just

two courses away from receiving my

certifi cation! Photography has always been

my passion, but it became a mission to

accelerate my skills after my fi rst daughter

was born. Here’s a photo of Alicia (now 5)

and Clarissa (2) from last October in their

ladybug and bumblebee costumes. Have

a happy autumn and take lots of photos

too! Keep in touch: mommymusicteacher@

gmail.com

Anne Lavack, PhD 1997

I have been appointed as Acting Associate

Dean in the School of Business and

Economics at Thompson Rivers University

in Kamloops.

Joyti Bharaj, BCom 2001

Western Canada Microsoft business

productivity specialist.

2000s


CLASS NOTES

Mark Nowostawski, BCom 2005

It’s been a turbulent year. My detour into air

traffi c controller training that started at the

end of 2012 ended in June, so it’s back into

the accounting world with renewed vigour.

Our two boys keep my wife and I motivated

and not taking the downs that life throws at

us too seriously.

Karmen Blackwood, DULE 1997,

MBA 2006

I moved from my previous role as a

director at the BC Council for International

Education to become Director of Continuing

Studies & Executive Education at Capilano

University in March 2013. I have rebranded

Continuing Education to Continuing Studies

and launched Executive Education at

Capilano University. We off er a range of

programming for learners of all ages though

Continuing Studies and open enrolment with

custom programs in all areas of business,

management and leadership through

Executive Education. I am also a director on

the Board of the North Vancouver Chamber

of Commerce (and the newly-appointed

chair of the membership committee),

and a Trustee of the York House School

Foundation. On the personal side, my

husband and I still live in Vancouver and

we continue to travel as much as possible!

I enjoy staying in touch and (re)connecting

with my friends/former classmates from

UBC. Please contact me if you would like

to reconnect!

Sally Kann, BCom 2007

The last two years have been professionally

and personally enriching for me. Last

year, I moved to Montreal to begin my

career in consulting and to work with a

top-notch team at Mercer. I attained the

Certifi ed Compensation Professional

(CCP) designation. I’ve travelled to China,

the UK, France, Spain, Israel, Jordan and

South Korea. Under the protection of the

United Nations Command, I visited the

Demilitarized Zone between North and

South Koreas and spent part of a day in

North Korea. None of this would have been

possible without many prayers throughout.

I’m grateful for the many occasions to

experience the Bible verse “... all things work

together for good to those who love God, to

those who are called according to His purpose.”

(Romans 8:28)

Ashley Palmer, BCom 2007

I’m taking a one-year sabbatical from

my position as an audit manager with

Ernst & Young, and am embarking on the

opportunity of a lifetime! At the beginning

of August I started a 10-month term

volunteering with Mercy Ships as an

accounting clerk. The organization operates

a hospital ship called the M/V Africa Mercy

that travels to diff erent countries on the

west coast of Africa. We provide medical aid

to those in need of treatment for everything

from cataract surgeries to repair of cleft lips

and palates. I met the ship in the Canary

Islands and was onboard for the voyage to

Cotonou, Benin, where we will be docked in

port for the duration of my volunteer term. I

expect it will be an incredible journey!

Matt Corker, BCom 2008

In June 2014 I held a launch party to

celebrate the release of my fi rst book: Getting

Over the Rainbow. After two years of writing,

editing and hustling, I was able to create

this collection of thoughts, situations and

perspectives that have allowed me to move

from a place of feeling alone and abnormal

to feeling loved and connected. It introduces

concepts like choice, responsibility and

forgiveness within the contexts of friendship,

family and dating for gay men. It was a labour

of love and I am so excited to fi nally be able

to share this with the world.






Warren Tardif, BCom 2008

2014 has had a lot of travel so far. I went to

visit my family in Spain and took a week to

venture into Morocco. When I got back I

was invited to give another conference in the

Caribbean. Now that I’m settled back in LA

I’m trying my best to juggle two jobs for two

diff erent startups. I only hope the year ends

as good at it started.

Peter Jones, MM 2009

I got laid off in January after passing the

UFE. I recently got a contract with EY in

their tax department. Through this contract

I was able to land a full-time job in tax at EY

starting in September. While waiting for this

to start, my wife and I went to Hong Kong,

Thailand and Vietnam for a month. What an

excellent trip that was.

Sean Toth, BCom 2009

This August I joined the legal department

at Palo Alto Networks, Inc. as corporate

counsel. I reside in San Jose, California and

enjoy surfi ng and biking.

Boris Remes, BCom 2010

It was a particularly exciting year! On May

1st I married Yuliya, the woman of my life.

Shortly after we bungee jumped in Whistler

with the entire family and threw The Great

Gatsby Party for friends on the weekend.

Career wise, everything is excellent. I

am working as an Assistant Director of

Admissions at a leading international

boarding school in Vancouver.

Parveen Shergill, BCom 2010

After graduating from business school I

moved on to pursue my goal of going to

law school. In May 2013 I graduated from

UBC Law. I’m currently clerking with the

Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench in

Regina for one year. After my clerkship I will

move back to BC to join a private law fi rm.

Most importantly, I married the love of my

life on June 14, 2013. We had a traditional

Sikh wedding ceremony with a full week of

festivities! We felt blessed to be surrounded

by our family and friends on the most

important day of our lives. We spent our

honeymoon in Europe, travelling through

Italy, France and Monaco. Feeling blessed

and looking forward to what lies ahead.

Esteban Dominguez Londono, BCom 2011

I went to the Brazil 2014 World Cup and

attended two Colombia games, one against

Japan and one against Uruguay. We won

both. An unforgettable experience!!!

2010s


CLASS NOTES

Terri Jonuk, EMBA 2011

I started in a new and exciting position

as regional manager, staffi ng services

for Northern Health in June 2014. I have

been with Northern Health since 2006.

I hold an Executive MBA in Health Care

Management through UBC and am

passionate for innovative approaches to

perform assessments and improve business

processes.

My previous positions include interim

manager, NI Staffi ng Services; manager,

project and business systems within

Workplace Health and Safety; and business

analyst and Northern Health lead for

patient-focused funding within fi nancial

planning and budgeting.

Bijan Ahmadian, MBA 2012

I started my own legal fi rm, Bijan Legal

Services, practicing in real estate and

corporate law, and have grown my client

base substantially since I moved downtown.

It’s been a great journey!

Nikita Arora, BCom 2014

Graduated from Sauder in May 2014

with a BCom in Finance and then moved

to Toronto to work as an analyst on the

trading fl oor of BMO Capital Markets. I

spent the vacation (after exams and before

starting work) travelling in London and

India where I went rafting in the Ganges,

bungee jumping and travelling in the

mountains.

Stefano Faedo, DULE 2014

I graduated from the DULE program at

UBC in May 2014. Before graduating

I was able to secure a job in the real

estate development industry. I’m proud

to say I work at one of BC’s largest

real estate development companies,

Solterra Development, as a development

coordinator. I fi nd my position very

demanding but satisfying!

Chris Neels, BCom 2014

In September I will be starting my career

at Deloitte Consulting in Toronto as a

business technology analyst. Over the

summer I had the opportunity to attend

SAP’s global conference in Orlando as

winner of their capital markets product

design competition. I have also gone

backpacking through Eastern Asia.

Contact usIs your information

missing or incorrect?

Just let us know by emailing

[email protected]

Become a Sauder School of Business alumni contact

Be a contact for the Sauder School of

Business and fellow alumni in your

city, country or region.

Help counsel prospective students,

advise new graduates, welcome summer

interns and arrange alumni events.

To volunteer, contact us today!

We can be reached at:

Tel: 604-822-6801Fax: 604-822-0592

e-mail: [email protected]

We always appreciate your feedback

on events and programs in support

of alumni activities.

a




The Sauder School of Business is sad

to announce that Dean Emeritus Peter

A. Lusztig died on January 26, 2014.

Peter Lusztig was an outstanding

professor, mentor and friend whose

life inspired and infl uenced many of

his colleagues and students as well as

members of the business community.

Born in Budapest in 1930, Peter

moved at a young age to Asia, where

his father practiced medicine in

Shanghai and Hong Kong. He came

to Vancouver in 1948 to attend

UBC, graduating with a Bachelor

of Commerce specializing in public

administration in 1954. Outside of

class, he was an active student as a

member of the Thunderbird swim

team and the Alma Mater Society

(AMS). After completing an MBA at

the University of Western Ontario in

1955, Peter began his career in fi nance

at the BC Electric Company (BC

Hydro). However, it wasn’t long before

he returned to his alma mater.

In 1957, Peter joined the Finance

Division at the UBC Faculty of

Commerce (now Sauder School).

Recruited by Professor Leslie Wong,

he taught for several years before

pursuing a doctorate in fi nance

at Stanford University. Once he

completed his PhD, Peter returned to

UBC as a professor and, in 1968, was

asked to chair the Finance Division.

Nine years later, in 1977, he was

named dean of the Faculty of

Commerce, a position he held until

1991. Peter continued teaching in the

Finance Division until his retirement

in 1995.

During his tenure, Peter helped

transform the Faculty of Commerce

into one of the top business schools

in the country. As dean, he was

instrumental in creating the Portfolio

Management Foundation program,

which provides undergraduate

students with real capital markets

experience; he assisted Shanghai Jiao

Tong University in launching business

courses alongside their engineering

curriculum; he helped raise funds for

MBA scholarships to attract more

women; he established the tradition

of named professorships and chairs

at UBC, and made fundraising to

cover salaries and research support

a priority—helping attract more

research-oriented faculty; and he

worked to develop an internationally

recognized PhD program. Under Peter’s

leadership, UBC joined the ranks of

the top research business schools in

the world.

Among Peter’s many

accomplishments is the establishment

of Canada’s fi rst business school

advisory council, a key component in

building bridges between the academic

and professional communities. Peter

felt strongly that faculty members

should contribute to their communities

and he practiced what he preached. In

the process, Peter made many friends

in the business community and sat on

numerous corporate and government

boards. His vision and engagement

had a powerful impact on many.

Following Peter’s passing in

January 2014, many of his friends and

colleagues sought a way to pay tribute

to his leadership. In recognition of

Peter’s passion for fi nancial education

as well as his tireless work to establish

a world-class PhD program at the

Sauder School of Business, the school

has created a fund to support doctoral

students in fi nance to celebrate and

honour Peter’s legacy. The Peter

Lusztig PhD Program in Finance will

ensure that Peter’s pioneering hard

work lives on through the eff orts of

UBC’s fi nance PhD students, our

future academic leaders. ■

Dean Emeritus Peter A. Lusztig

IN MEMORIAM


BCom 1984The BCom class of 1984 celebrated its

30-year reunion on May 23, 2014 at the

Big 4 Conference Centre. Seventy alumni

gathered to rekindle their friendships over

drinks and snacks, followed by a tour of

the renovated Henry Angus Building. The

event was organized by the class reunion

committee: Kelly Bourne, Wendy Christie,

Colleen Patrick, Yvonne Au Yeung, Andy

Shaw, Gina Holiday Jones, Leslie Lee and

Linda Kern.

MBA 1984

The UBC MBA Class of 1984 gathered for its 30-year anniversary on May 24, 2014 at the

Sauder School of Business and enjoyed a tour of Henry Angus Building. A small group of

alumni met again on Sunday, May 25, 2014 to conquer the Grouse Grind. Special thanks to

Sylvie Lefebvre, Janice Tye and Kathy Sainas for organizing the events.

AV

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Reunions


Upcoming reunionBCom 1965

The BCom class of 1965 is planning a 50-year reunion and would like to invite all

BCom 1965 alumni to join the celebration on Friday, October 2, 2015 at the Royal

Vancouver Yacht Club. The offi cial invitations will be sent in the spring of 2015;

in the meantime, please save the date. Robert Helsley, Dean, Sauder School of

Business and Grosvenor Professor of Cities, Business Economics and Public Policy

will be in attendance. Reunion committee: Byron Hender, Bill Earle, Robin Elliott, Jim

Evans, Dave Norton and Roy Rauser.

BCom 1994On July 5, 2014, alumni fl ew in from

the United Kingdom, United States and

Australia to join those in Vancouver to

celebrate their 20-year reunion. They

gathered at the Big 4 Conference Centre

for a lively celebration and ended the day

with a tour of the renovated Henry Angus

Building. Special thanks to Jason Mabee and

Ali Pejman for organizing the event.

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POINTS OF VIEW

as a top research business school in the

world. He also personally connected with

students to help them think about their

future to create their life paths. I have

met many alumni who speak about the

impact Peter had on their lives. Sadly,

Peter passed away earlier this year,

but as a testament to the impact of his

diff erent-minded thinking, his friends and

colleagues are commemorating him with

the establishment of a fund to support

doctoral students in fi nance.

We should all take the lead of Prof.

Lusztig; use our creative energies to do

good, improve the world around us, and

impact the lives of others.

As always, if you have questions or

comments on this issue of Viewpoints, or

on anything related to you as a valued

alumna or alumnus, please don’t hesitate

to contact me. ■

There is some notion that creativity

is a new management concept; I have a

diff erent view. Creative thinking is what

drives social evolution and innovation

in our society. What sector has not

benefi ted from creative thinking? Refl ect

upon indoor plumbing, refrigeration, the

automobile, the telephone, the computer,

technical fabrics, vaccinations, children’s

toys, bicycles, theatre, fi lm; the list is

virtually endless. Our ability to create has

always been with us and always will be.

At the core of the Sauder School of

Business is creativity; creating new ideas

through research, cultivating graduates

who can solve problems, and pushing

innovations in pedagogy. This has been a

long tradition at the school.

The late Peter Lusztig is a former and

well-loved dean, whose creative thinking

literally helped form the Sauder School of

Business as we know it today.

Professor Lusztig pioneered the

launch of initiatives such as the Portfolio

Management Foundation program, and

a PhD program that put UBC on the map

Creativity, n: the use of imagination or original ideas

WHILE WE TEND TO THINK OF creative work as that which involves

artistic expression or play—common

outlets such as painting, music, dance

or cooking—I believe that if you have

the opportunity to think, you have the

opportunity to be creative.

Alumni tell me all the time that what

they are called upon to do, more than

anything else, is to problem-solve. This

facet of intellectual creativity shows up

in everyday business and innovation;

seeing problems and opportunities

before others, and fi nding solutions no

one else does, is only part of it. The heart

of good strategy—the ability to envision

a destination and map out how to get

there—requires creativity.

For myself, organizational design—

what feels like (but shouldn’t) the

luxury to map out a long-term vision for

our work in Development and Alumni

Engagement—gives me as much creative

satisfaction as the joy I get from painting

or plunking away at my beginner piano

lessons.

“We can’t solve problems by using the

same kind of thinking we used when

we created them,” said Albert Einstein,

perfectly describing my own sense of

the creative process.

Sheila BiggersASSOCIATE DEAN, DEVELOPMENT AND ALUMNI ENGAGEMENT

604.822.0192

[email protected]


Save the Date

CELEBRATING THE

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2015 | HOTEL VANCOUVER THE FAMILY LEGACY SERIES 2015

FOR SPONSORSHIP & INQUIRIES CONTACT: [email protected], 604.827.4604

Limited individual tickets released November 15, 2014 at www.sauder.ubc.ca/ bfc

Robert H. Lee FamilyJOIN US FOR AN EVENING OF FINE DINING

AND INSIGHTFUL CONVERSATION


http://www.sauder.ubc.ca/bfc

PM

40

06

37

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THE CREATIVITY ISSUE

A MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF THE SAUDER SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AT UBCFALL 2014 • VOLUME 34 • NO 2

Documents

Viewpoints, Fall 2014 - Sauder School of Business