Most Respected

Who Are Alberta's Most Respected Corporations?

The Standouts

Aretha Franklin demanded it. Rodney Dangerfield couldn’t beg, borrow or steal it. The rest of us try to earn respect the old-fashioned way, by paying our bills, standing up for the occasional principle and just plain doing the right thing. But it can’t be bought or sold.
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Most Respected Corporate Leaders: Irene Lewis

It’s not an exaggeration to say Irene Lewis has transformed SAIT Polytechnic. Under her leadership, the Calgary-based post-secondary institution has undergone a $178-million expansion that’s helped deliver more skilled workers into Alberta’s strained labour market. After taking over as president and CEO in 1998, Lewis talked to industry leaders to determine their future needs. With that knowledge, she set out to ready the institution for the future, re-branding it to better reflect the changing nature of technical education and leading a fundraising campaign that exceeded its $80-million goal a year ahead of schedule.

To improve rural access to education, Lewis later spearheaded eCampusAlberta, a collection of 15 Alberta colleges and technical institutes that provides online study opportunities for students across the province. When the program started in 2003, 460 students had registered. Enrolment has since jumped to 3,541, and a goal of 10,000 has been set for 2008-09. Lewis’s vision has also been put to use through the Alberta Economic Development Authority, where she’s chaired and co-chaired committees that have offered government advice on how to manage the province’s megaprojects and labour shortage. A high-energy person, Lewis, 62, jokes about what endeavour will warrant her attention next. “I take things from my ‘to do’ and put them over on my ‘have done’ list,” she says, “And I’ve still got a few of those left to do.”

Most Respected Corporate Leaders: Clive Beddoe

“We’re not judged when things go well, we’re judged when things go badly,” says Clive Beddoe when talking about matters that are out of his control, such as inclement weather and mechanical failures. But Beddoe’s quote could be an apt comment about the intense media coverage of WestJet’s embarrassing two-year dispute with Air Canada over corporate espionage. Oddly, the affair has done nothing to tarnish Beddoe’s or WestJet’s reputation with consumers or the investment community. The skies remain clear, as they have for much of the company’s 11-year ride.

The Calgary-based carrier has outlived rival low-cost carriers, fluctuating fuel costs and the now forgotten Air Canada affair to become Canada’s second largest airline, representing 35% of the country’s domestic market. Beddoe credits the company’s accomplishments to its 5,990 employees, but it’s clearly his leadership that charted WestJet’s path to success. Beddoe took on hero status for shaking up old-established rules of doing business in an industry that is unforgiving. He dared to offer low-priced airfares and pushed his employees to have fun, winning the admiration of customers and the investment community. A humble man, Beddoe talks more about his employees’ successes than that of heading a company that posted record net earnings of $114.7 million last year. “I think it’s great to see how people have evolved, developed professionally and achieved things they never believed they could,” he says.

Most Respected Corporate Leaders: Art Price

Art Price looked like an opportunist in 1995 when he ditched a 22-year career in the oil and gas business, culminating in the CEO suite at Husky Oil Ltd., to helm an upstart Internet service company called Axia Netmedia Corporation. Twelve years later, a better description might be survivor or Renaissance man. Under Price’s leadership, Axia survived first the technology bubble’s collapse, then a legal scrap with Bell Canada over their contract to build the Alberta SuperNet, a 14,000-kilometre broadband network bringing high-speed Internet service to 429 rural communities, which saw Axia’s shares bottom out at 40 cents apiece in 2003.

But Price stuck with the company, the SuperNet was completed in 2005, Axia made up with Bell (Bell West president Charles Brown recently joined Axia’s board of directors) and the company expanded its markets to France. Last year Axia posted net income of just under $20 million on revenues of $52 million. As of late April, its shares topped $6 (for a market cap of $344 million) and four out of six analysts covering the stock rated it a “strong buy.” In the midst of all this Price, 55, helped get Alberta’s newest, $40-million beef processing plant off the ground as chair of Rancher’s Beef Ltd., which is affiliated with his family’s meat and grocery company, Sunterra Group. In addition, Price sits on the boards of steelmaker Ipsco Inc. and broadcaster Rawlco Enterprises Ltd. and the national council of the World Wildlife Fund.