Knock Again. Louder

Dec 1, 2009

Symposium Roundup

Getting on Board

Luana Comin-Sartor, partner at Ernst & Young and chair of Calgary Professional Women’s Network, on how to succeed as a corporate director

1. Network, network, network
Headhunters only go so far. “You need to dial yourself into a network, whether that’s going to events, making calls or getting to know the people on the nominating committees,” Comin-Sartor says, adding that you “must be able to communicate your value” to your superiors.

2. Think long term
“You should have a 10- or 20-year strategy to get on a board. The reality is that a lot of planning should go into your choice of being on a board. Be thoughtful and think about your end goal.”

3. Focus on strategy
Women are often more focused on operations and performance rather than planning, says Comin-Sartor. “If you’re the kind of person who focuses on operations, try to focus more on strategy. Excellent execution is great, but that alone won’t get you to the next level.”

4. Get a second opinion
“I sense that a lot of women put their heads down and work hard and think they’ll be treated fairly. But the perception of people evaluating you may be different than you think, and that’s when you hit a glass ceiling. It’s important to check in and get feedback on what areas you need to develop.”

5. Don’t think of it as an Old Boys’ club
“That’s a huge myth,” says Comin-Sartor. The truth? “There hasn’t been enough growth of women through the ranks to become known as a commodity to pull from. It comes back to the question, what are we doing in corporate Canada to get women in those roles? We also need opportunities for women to develop skills and get to those levels.”

More than 50 women – and a few men – came together for the 2009 Ernst & Young Governance for Women three-day symposium at the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge.

While attendees filtered in Sunday afternoon from as far away as Whitehorse and Halifax, University of Alberta School of Business dean Michael Percy and oilpatch corporate director Dee Marcoux teamed up in a concurrent session to talk about how to get recommended for a board… Breakfast speaker Harry Schaefer, a corporate director and business adviser who heads the Institute of Corporate Directors’ education program, spoke about the value of non-profit boards as a training ground for future corporate directors and how important it is to start young…

Wearing brown leather loafers and a grey blazer, Percy paced around the room with the calm ease of a seasoned professor for his session on the key issues in corporate governance. Boards can make their best decisions by asking simple questions, he told the audience. “Many CEOs and individuals you see on the front of the newspaper are a result of the failure of boards to ask simple questions.” During networking breaks, participants such as Siobhan Chinnery, director of environmental and social issues management at Suncor Energy Inc., and Adeline Martin, interim chief financial officer of Canadian Phoenix Resources Corp., chatted with speakers and panelists.

Thomas W. Scott, vice-dean and professor of accounting at the University of Alberta School of Business, ran through the essentials of financial literacy for directors… During lunch, Ann Brockett and Meg Fricke, of Ernst & Young’s Climate Change & Sustainability Services Assurance department, explored sustainability trends in clean technology, carbon offsets and products and services.

“To create a sustainability plan for a company is not that different from creating any other business plan,” Brockett told the crowd… On day three, Luana Comin-Sartor, a partner at Ernst & Young’s Calgary office, moderated a panel with Mary Cameron of Cameron and Co. and chair of Habitat for Humanity Edmonton, Sheila Weatherill, a member of the Order of Canada and former CEO of Capital Health, and Dee Marcoux about how they got on boards.

At the end of the talk, one question from the audience sparked a discussion on strategies to avoid groupthink. Marcoux’s strategy: “I bring together people with differing opinions and then I practically demand that everybody at the table voices an opinion.”… Later, lawyer Kerry Day of Bennett Jones LLP gave a primer on legal and liability issues for boards, including risk management and how to create an enterprise risk assessment… During a keynote speech and gala dinner, Rebecca MacDonald, executive chair and founder of Energy Savings Group, told about her enormous success in the energy sector, how she took the company public and the importance of networks.

“This event is great,” she said in closing. “As women in business, we can’t blame men. We need to feed off one another, support each other. We must embrace each other and help each other along.”

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