Unique leadership exchange program celebrates grads
Rick Colbourne, 778.782.5133 (w), 604.721.4354 (cell), rick_colbourne@sfu.ca
Carol Thorbes, PAMR, 778.782.3035, cthorbes@sfu.ca
Graduates of Canada’s first program aimed at helping aboriginal and non-aboriginal business people directly experience each other’s corporate and communal world will celebrate their accomplishments at Celebrate the Journey, a ceremony on Thursday, March 25.
Simon Fraser University’s Segal Graduate School of Business will host the 5:30 to 8:00 p.m. event, featuring speaker Steven L. Point, the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia and a Skowkale First Nation member.
Six senior community and business leaders have completed the inaugural offering of the Leadership Exchange Program. The Learning Strategies Group (LSG) at SFU Business and the Industry Council of Aboriginal Business (ICAB) launched the program in Nov. 2009.
Aboriginal and non-aboriginal leaders were paired up so that they could follow each other into their respective worlds of community and business relationships. The program encouraged knowledge exchange and supported students’ learning in business environments that were free of politics and business pressures.
Graduates will share stories about how this unique approach to building mutual cross-cultural respect and understanding has helped them.
“This program will help support business and aboriginal partnership development,” says Rick Colbourne, LSG executive director at SFU Business. “We are confident that understanding each other’s work and cultural environment will result in better business relationships and help remove barriers to economic and social success.”
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Backgrounder: Business leadership program celebrates first grads
The following pairs of aboriginal and non-aboriginal senior leaders are graduating from the inaugural offering of the Leadership Exchange program, an SFU and ICAB collaboration:
Chief Kim Baird, Tsawwassen First Nation; Ian Anderson, President, Kinder Morgan Canada
Chief Willie Charlie, Chehalis First Nation; Donald McInnes, Vice-Chairman and CEO, Plutonic Power Corporation
Chief Harold Aljam, Coldwater Indian Band; Graeme Barrit, President, Coast Hotels and Resorts
This is the first university-based business relationship development program in Canada to bring aboriginal and non-aboriginal senior leaders together to learn from each other.
“I participated in this program because it provided the opportunity to experience first-hand the challenges aboriginal communities face, while at the same time helping aboriginal leaders see the pressures and demands stakeholders place on corporations,” says Graeme Barrit, president of Coast Hotels and Resorts.
A documentary, to be aired at the ICAB’s annual conference in June, will feature the graduates talking about their expectations and benefits from the program.
Examples of what the participants gained from the program and how that may be changing their success/accomplishments in the business community:
- experienced each other’s work and cultural environments and decision-making processes – this encouraged understanding of what constrains or facilitates decision making in each other’s communities/corporations
- gained direct insights into how individuals lead on both sides by witnessing leadership in each other’s environment and sharing information in unique ways
- described the program as transformational and leading to change because it fostered mutual respect for the differing and similar roles, responsibilities and values of aboriginal and non-aboriginal senior leaders
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Dean Billy
This sounds like a great experience. Are you offering this again next year? What are the criteria for participating? Do they have to be lower mainland first nations communities? Mine is located 3 hours drive up the fraser canyon.