With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1071224
10 BCBUSINESS FEBRUARY 2019 PORTRAIT: ADAM BLASBERG J ust so you know, the alarming question on this month's cover wasn't my idea. Nor was the bloodshed; for that vivid touch, thank creative director Cathy Mullaly. The question? It began with Val Litwin, president and CEO of our partner the BC Cham- ber of Commerce. As Litwin likes to say, his job is to know what's on B.C.'s mind. Through its annual Collective Perspective survey and MindReader online community, the BC Chamber takes the pulse of its 36,000-plus members. When Litwin told me that confidence in the province as a place to do business is flagging—a sentiment borne out by his latest survey—I decided to investigate. The result, "Is B.C. Losing Its Edge?" (p.28), delivers bad news and good. After interviewing businesses large and small, from Vancouver to Kelowna to Canal Flats, and talking to experts on our competitiveness, I've concluded that there's some heavy lifting to do. High on the list of weaknesses is B.C.'s dearth of corpo- rate head offices. Fixing that problem would bring the investment and high- paying jobs the province needs to boost its productivity, along with a host of other economic and social benefits. But I also heard plenty of optimism about B.C.'s future, from innovators like Kamloops-based Mastermind Studios, which aims to build a film industry hub in the Interior. Thank you to Litwin and his team for introducing me to Master- mind and other BC Chamber members. Of course, we never know what tomorrow will bring. I started the story before Canadian authorities arrested Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou in Vancou- ver at the U.S. government's bidding—an incident that could affect local indus- tries ranging from agriculture to tour- ism as Beijing seeks to even the score. B.C. may need work as a business location, but our philanthropists keep outdoing themselves. In "Giver" (p.40), Guy Saddy delves into what some call impact investing, the marrying of business and char- ity to tackle social problems. Although this approach has its critics, there's no denying that staffing agency and venture capital provider EMBERS, for example, has helped give thousands of disadvantaged British Columbians a much- needed edge. If BCBusiness has kept its own edge, it's largely thanks to contributors like Saddy and Lucy Hyslop, whose final back-page column for us appears in this issue. The many entrepreneurs, leaders and thinkers who have shared a meal with Hyslop over the past seven-plus years know that she's great company, a fine journalist and, above all, a good sort. Thanks for everything, Lucy, and we hope to work with you again soon. Nick Rockel, Editor-in-Chief bcb@canadawide.com / @BCBusiness ( editor's desk ) From CFOs to money managers, meet B.C.'s most influential women in finance I N M A RC H Blunt Assessment C ON T R I B U T OR S After 92 meals, Lucy Hyslop is bowing out of her Lunch With Lucy column with this month's interview ("Overnight Sensation," p.70). The Brit/ Canadian is now curating talks at Heckfield Place in Hampshire, U.K. "I feel privileged to have sat down with so many leaders of B.C. industries," Hyslop says. "I just hope I never gave anyone indigestion." Vancouver photographer Clinton Hussey shoots mainly for advertising agencies, but he just squeezed in two BCBusiness jobs ("Is B.C. Losing Its Edge?" on p.28, and "Choc Wave," p.64). The biggest challenge was finding an affordable straight razor for our cover photo— Hussey got an old one from a prop house. "It's still sharp enough, though you've got to be careful that [the model] doesn't cut his face off," he notes.