Canadian Government Executive - Volume 21

November 2015 //

Canadian Government Executive /

The interview

Those legacies are already happening

— people of all ages are enjoying these fa-

cilities, our Games volunteers are trained

and motivated to continue helping their

communities and Canadian athletes

— athletes born right here in Ontario —

are already excelling. Wait until the Rio

Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2016

— our athletes are going to wow people!

You had a freedom as CEO of

this entity (it could only be de-

scribed as a non-share capital

corporation that was funded in

part by the Government of Can-

ada, the Government of Ontario

and the private sector) that public

sector executives would envy What

part did you most enjoy? How did

this change your views of manage-

ment for you?

I don’t know of a circumstance where a

leader must not and should not under-

stand and represent the interests of his

shareholders. In this circumstance, instead

of providing leadership and advice to one

level of government, I had the opportunity

to do so with four levels of government.

While challenging in terms of building

and maintaining the trust and support of

these shareholders, the benefits that were

derived were substantial: unparalled lev-

els of cooperation and an unwavering sup-

port of our shared goal to successfully de-

liver the Pan Am and Parapan Am Games.

The part I enjoyed the most is something

most public sector executives don’t get to

experience: closure — in this case, it was

the Games themselves. It was the moment

when everything the team had been work-

ing towards finally happened. You see

people your team push themselves to the

limit, find incredibly creative solutions to

problems and then get to witness athletes

achieve their dreams as a result of those

decisions and people behind the scenes.

It’s the most amazing feeling in the world.

Achieving that feeling was dependent

on regaining the trust and support of our

shareholders, which not only included

government but also members of the

general public living in the 16 communi-

ties that made up our Games footprint. To

demonstrate in all our activities that we

were transparent, accountable and open

to listening to their advice.

The obvious need to have that trust

was something that I witnessed from the

public service side of a relationship with

countless agencies of government through

my career. That provided a foundation for

demonstrating to our shareholders that

we would act in the best interests of tax-

payers.

Did you learn something new

about accountability in this

experience?

Accountability has many parents. The

Organizing Committee had an intense

light shone on it from the beginning and

at times that light became even more

intense. With accountability comes in-

creased scrutiny and with such a public

endeavor that scrutiny manifested into a

number of interactions with media.

It is inherent in a public servant’s experi-

ence to be someone who is not in the pub-

lic eye. Going into this role, it was clear to

me that I would have to be out in front and

speaking about the Games in order to have

people interested in them, their values

and the impact they were going to have on

the region.

How did you adjust your

approach to risk management

in this job?

My position on risk management was de-

veloped through various experiences in

the public sector and I brought this expe-

rience to my role at TO2015.

When I arrived, I was heartened to see

there were strong project management

and effective risk management methodol-

ogies already in place, which were a credit

to the previous leadership.

What happened the first

morning you showed up for work?

What was your first surprise?

Candidly, my previous office had walls

ten feet high. My new office had four-foot

baffles and no door, which brings true

meaning to an open-doors policy. But seri-

ously, the office accommodation was em-

blematic of the work culture and high en-

ergy demographic of the team at TO2015.

What I saw immediately was an energetic

team of people who wanted to showcase

the Region to all of the Americas and the

Caribbean. Given the predominance of

taxpayer funding to put on the Games,

given the fact that the public sector and

governments embrace risk rather than de-

risk their decisions. I was happy to see this.

You inherited a situation that

seemed to cause a lot of concern,

both at the board level and in

political circles. What were your

first moves?

The approach I took would not be foreign

to your readers. I met one-on-one with

senior executives, studied the “letters

patent” of the organization, understood

what was expected from the board chair,

and quickly familiarized myself with the

processes of the organization for effective

decision making. I then assessed the ef-

fectiveness of those processes in order to

deliver on the end goal, which was a brief

18 months away.

After digesting and evaluating those ar-

eas, I did what I think any leader must do:

make decisions to position the organiza-

tion for success.

There are many moving parts

in organizing an international

meet such as this. What was a

constant source of concern for you

over the time you served as CEO?

My understanding of the motivation for

pursuing an event of this nature was to

drive transformational change in the sup-

port of high-performance amateur sport,

to act as a catalyst to accelerate needed in-

frastructure in Ontario and to leave lega-

cies for the region.

In addition, there were other compo-