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Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1313659
36 BCBUSINESS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020 C L E A N T E C H A ltere d C ar b on Moon shots don't get bigger than what Carbon Engineer- ing has set out to do: remediate our increasingly heat-trapping atmosphere by pulling out the carbon dioxide. (Oh, and while we're at it, let's use the CO2 to create a renewable synthetic fuel.) The process is working on a small scale at a test plant in Squamish, part of the reason the World Economic Forum recognized Carbon Engineer- ing as one of 100 global Tech- nology Pioneers this year. Next, shareholders includ- ing Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates want to see it proven on a commercial scale. In August, Carbon Engi- neering signed a licensing deal with U.S. venture 1PointFive, owned by a subsidiary of Occi- dental Petroleum Corp. and a private equity firm, to finance and build the world's first such direct air capture ( DAC) facility, most likely in Texas. "It gives us a really good big brother to help us build that first plant, the most important milestone for this company," says CEO Steve Oldham. Because government incentives in the U.S. only apply to carbon capture and sequestration, this operation won't include an Air to Fuels component. However, Oldham holds out hope for upcom- ing national fuel standards in Canada that would favour his firm's low-carbon fuel. "My greatest wish would be that our next plant is built in Canada and is a fuels plant," he says. Meanwhile, Carbon Engi- neering broke ground in June on its own Innovation Centre in Squamish, to be completed in 2021. –M.M. Ryan Wong wants organizations to see the truth about themselves so they can create a better future. That means making data-driven decisions– the kind enabled by Visier, the cloud-based people analytics and workforce planning platform he founded with John Schwarz in 2010. "Everything an organization needs to know about their people, we touch it," Wong says. "Whether it's recruiting, whether it's performance management–in short, the whole life cycle of an employee in that organization–Visier will provide you that insight." Before he launched his Vancouver company, that kind of information wasn't so easy for businesses to find, Wong maintains. He was previously original author and chief architect of the business intel- ligence platform for Crystal Decisions, becoming VP of engineering with France's Business Objects after it acquired the Vancouver-based software maker in 2003 (only to be purchased itself by German multinational SAP four years later). Along the way, Wong noticed a problem: "We had been serving IT really well, but not the business user." Visier began building its client base by pitching a single value proposition to Fortune 500 companies, Wong recalls: "We want to help you understand how your workforce impacts business outcomes." Every CEO and chief human resources officer wanted to know if they had the talent to win, he says. Visier offered them a ready-made product: "If you don't understand your workforce well enough, this is how we can make you a hero." Today, customers include the American division of Spanish bank BBVA, German science and technol- ogy giant Merck, and U.S. hospital and clinic operator Providence St. Joseph Health. Visier's top three sectors are financial services, health care and tech, which tend to invest more in people than other industries because they have a talent shortage, notes Wong, who was named CEO this year. (Schwarz, previously chief executive of Business Objects, serves as chair.) Business intelligence titans SAP, Oracle and Workday, as well as a growing number of startups, want a piece of the people analytics market, Wong says. He welcomes the competition. "We like to think that we have created a space, a segmentation, where we need to have enough players to help us to promote the importance of people analytics." Pitches aside, Visier is more product- than sales-driven, Wong stresses. About 180 of its 400 staff work in research and development, and recent events have kept them busy. Although Wong is quick to underscore its grav- ity, he calls the pandemic a blessing in disguise for his business. "If you think about the COVID situation, it's really a people problem," he says. "Organizations are trying to figure out, What does that mean for my workforce?" Diversity and inclusion is also helping drive innovation at Visier. "The whole D&I issue, the whole Black Lives Matter issue actually forces organizations at the board level, at the CEO level, to look at company diversity challenges," Wong says. "Again, this is a people problem." –N.R. n H U M A N R E S O U R C E S Pe o p le D ri ven Visier co-founder and CEO Ryan Wong Carbon Engineering plans to build the first direct air capture facility