Jarislowsky fellows open the 2021-22 academic year

The Jarislowsky Fellows in Business Management Program held its first event of the new academic year on October 6, 2021. This program is offered by the Canadian Centre for Advanced Leadership (CCAL) and provides students the opportunity to interact with the two Jarislowsky Fellows.

This year CCAL welcomed back co-Fellows Heather Culbert, Vice-Chair of Export Development Canada (EDC), Director on the Board of Whitecap Resources and the Fraser Institute, and co-founder of Board Ready Women and Axis Connects (Calgary), and Patrick Lor, Managing Partner at Panache Ventures and partner at 500 Startups Canada.

When Haskayne MBA and EMBAs learned about the Jarislowsky theme of the year, the year of transformation, it was met with both curiosity and excitement. The virtual event allowed the two co-Fellows to dive deeper into the 2021-22 Jarislowsky theme for the year.

As expected, they delivered a top-tier event where they took us on a journey of transformation and how change would look like in our new normal. Heather spoke about the current state of COVID-19. She explained that with change always comes transformation, and how organizations need to transform as well as pivot to thrive in times of change.  She also focused on the huge reliance on technology, and on the need to build trust and flexibility.

Patrick focused on the importance of having a mindset shift: to transform our mindset we need to have both confidence and the right attitude. He stated that you cannot learn to be a great leader simply with an MBA but rather through developing this shift in your mindset, which has allowed him to climb higher mountains in his career.

The co-Fellows engaged with the MBAs in an open and candid conversation using their life experiences and life lessons to answer student questions. They advised students to align themselves with someone with similar experience and to declare their mission (their why). CCAL offers Haskayne business students similar opportunities like with the BMO Mentorship program, which gives students the chance to be paired with established business professionals and gain insight and knowledge relating to their future endeavours.

Patrick challenged the students to ask themselves “Why would you sacrifice two years of your life and two years of income to do an MBA?” His advice was to make the most of it, make the change and adopt a mindset of confidence and the right attitude. Heather adding that “If you don’t like change, it will be difficult for you to transform”. She also advised students to know when to take a break and take care of their mental health.

The Canadian Centre for Advanced Leadership in Business would like to thank the Jarislowsky co-Fellows, dean Jim Dewald and all the MBA students in attendance for being such engaged participants. Learn more about the  Jarislowsky co-Fellows, Heather Culbert and Patrick Lor

For more information, contact leadership@haskayne.ucalgary.ca or visit our website.