Alberta’s 50 Most Influential: The List

“I don’t think you can have a great post-secondary academic institution without having a strong business school,” says Elford. But at the same time, she’s quick to point out the new degree isn’t about competing with larger institutions. “This is different than what you find in a research university,” says the dean of seven years. Classes are small, professors are free of any responsibilities beyond teaching and the institution is positioned to quickly adapt to the needs of students and ideas of the incoming instructors Elford, with the help of associate dean Mike Henry, has recruited from around the world.

And thanks to the advisory team of industry and education leaders Elford assembled to help guide the program’s implementation, it already means more choices for the Alberta business community. This June, MacEwan sent out its first batch of B.Comm. grads, about 50 in all. – Scott Messenger

ARTS
Marina Endicott
Celebrity Storyteller
Thanks to her bestselling second novel, Good to a Fault, Marina Endicott has become one the leading characters of Alberta’s literary scene. After making the 2008 Scotiabank Giller Prize short list, the University of Alberta’s Augustana Campus writing professor took the 2009 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for best book in Canada and the Caribbean. Consider it all part of rebuilding Alberta’s book publishing industry; Good to a Fault is the product of Calgary’s Freehand Books.

POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
Iris Evans
Teflon Finance Minister
It’s not that the provincial minister of finance and enterprise tabled Alberta’s first deficit budget in 15 years on April 7 (projecting the largest deficit ever, at $4.7 billion), but that she did it to little more than a shrug from an electorate that endorsed balanced-budget legislation back in 2000. Who else in cabinet has that kind of political capital?

BUSINESS
George Gosbee
Young Global Leader
For the fifth consecutive year, Tristone Capital Inc. founder George Gosbee has proven himself a force to be reckoned with. In May he concluded a deal to sell Tristone to Australia’s Macquarie Group for $116 million. Gosbee will chair the multinational investment bank’s Northern Hemisphere energy group, which now encompasses some 400 employees and has access to a deeper capital pool with strong Asian ties. One suspects, though, that the sale will help free Gosbee, who also serves as vice-chair of AIMCo and hasn’t yet celebrated his 40th birthday, for more wide-reaching projects. In March, he was chosen as one of just seven Canadians for the 200-plus-member World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders panel, elbow-rubbing with the likes of golf legend Tiger Woods, YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley and Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg.

ARTS
Jean Grand-Maître
Crack Choreographer
Since becoming Alberta Ballet’s artistic director in 2002, Jean Grand-Maître has not only grown the company into Canada’s third largest but endowed it with significant celebrity cachet. After Joni Mitchell worked with the group in 2007, Sir Elton John – a considerable fan of the artful songwriter – approached the company with his own proposal. Elton, Grand-Maître’s collaboration with the English hit machine, takes to the stage May 2010.

POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
Stephen Harper
Prime Minister
Though pundits will decry Stephen Harper’s failure to secure a majority in last fall’s election and perilous game of chicken with a coalition of opposition parties, the bottom line is the federal Tories enjoy the best parliamentary position they’ve had in 16 years. Harper continues to pursue a recession-softened Conservative agenda while solidifying his residency at 24 Sussex Drive after an unlikely three and a half years.

COMMUNITY ACTIVISM
Mike Hudema
Persuasive Protester
“The truth is on our side and I think that goes a long way with people,” says Greenpeace Canada climate and energy campaigner Mike Hudema. Regardless of whether you take the NGO’s “truth” about the perniciousness of the oilsands as fact, Hudema has shared it with journalists, politicians and investors worldwide, making the “dirty oil” stain currently marking the industry an increasingly tough scrub.