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Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1365499
W I N N E R JILL SCHNARR C H I E F S O C I A L I N N O V A T I O N + C O M M U N I C A T I O N S O F F I C E R , T E L U S C O R P. IT'S FAIR TO SAY that Jill Schnarr has always worked at Telus. During her holidays while earning a business administration degree from Western University, Vancouver- born Schnarr pulled shifts as a phone operator for its prede- cessor, BC Tel. "It was such a great job," she says of her time on the front lines. "You would get calls for 411 or long distance or emergency. You would get people who were lonely who just wanted to talk to someone." Schnarr now handles two key roles at Telus, leading social innovation and com- munications for the telecom giant. To get there, she held a variety of posts, from her first full-time job as a marketing analyst with BC Tel Mobility in 1992 to stints in everything from business development to customer service. Before being promoted to her current position last fall, Schnarr led community investment and corporate social responsibility as vice-president, community affairs. "Our social purpose is to leverage the power of our technology and compassion to deliver remarkable human out- comes," Schnarr says of Telus. To advance what it calls social capitalism, the company focuses on four areas: connecting Canadians digitally, innovat- ing in health care, caring for the environment and giving back locally. All told, programs launched by Schnarr have seen Telus give the equivalent of $1.3 billion to charities and com- munity organizations since 2000. Last year alone, the company donated $85 million, 5 percent of its pretax profit. Under Schnarr's leadership, it also redirected $150 million to COVID-related efforts that included offering free smart- phones and subsidized rate plans to 2.2 million seniors. Schnarr oversaw the launch of the Telus Friendly Future Foundation, a $120- million vehicle that donates as much as $10 million to local communities annually; and the new Telus Pollinator Fund for Good, which over the next decade will invest $100 million in innovative startups con- fronting the nation's biggest social challenges. On the communications side, Schnarr says that starting four years ago, Telus created a unified narrative for its various business units. "At a high level, 18 BCBUSINESS MAY 2021 R U N N E R - U P KARIMAH ES SABAR C E O + P A R T N E R , Q U A R K V E N T U R E WHEN KARIMAH ES SABAR TURNED SEVEN, her father gave her a chemistry set as a birthday present. "Ever since then, I've been in love with science," says the B.C. biotech pioneer. Es Sabar left her native Kenya for England, where she earned a master's in neurochemistry at the University of London. She switched to the male-dominated pharmaceuticals industry by joining Boots Co. as a product manager with its industrial division. Es Sabar went on to run Boots' ethical pharmaceuticals arm for Africa and the Middle East, then co-founded her first startup, a pharma marketing and distribution company, at age 26. Immigrating to Toronto, she became director of the inter- national division at what is now Sanofi Pasteur before moving to Vancouver in 2002. She soon found herself recruited to lead advocacy group BC Biotech, transforming it into business develop- ment organization LifeSciences BC. "We were able to attract many Big Pharma [players] to come to B.C., to invest not only in the companies but in our world-leading research centres," she says of her tenure from 2005-10, which saw $1.5 billion in investment. Es Sabar also helped build the Centre for Drug Research and Development, now called adMare BioInnovations. As president and CEO, she established partnerships with all of the pharma titans and 57 universities across the globe. She then became one of Canada's first female life-sciences fund managers by co-founding Quark Venture in 2016. With Chinese investment bank GF Securities Co., the Vancouver-based venture capital firm runs a US$500-million fund focused on disrup- tive and innovative health-care technologies worldwide. "We're driven by the science, the team and the impact opportunity," Es Sabar says of Quark, which recently made its 26th investment. we want to be known for digi- tally enabling Canada, driving our economy, having the best networks in the world, provid- ing the best customer service and having a social purpose." That's a lot to convey, admits Schnarr, who also holds an MBA from UVic's Peter B. Gustavson School of Business. "So you need to be simple in your communica- tions, and you have to be really purposeful, and you can't come across as noisy." Schnarr, who founded Connections, Telus' women's network, recently promoted a female colleague to VP. She's mentored more than 100 women at the company, she estimates. "I am very much trying to help and support a number of women who report to me to also be elevated in the organization." –N.R. CORPORATE LE ADER