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/1477631
I t was at one of his older brothers' field hockey games that John Smythe remembers getting really lucky. He watched with the kind of eagerness and wonder that only a four-year-old could possess as somebody, in a fit of rage, threw their stick in the garbage. "I went over to my mom and dad and asked if I could have that stick," Smythe says with a laugh. "It was the very first thing that I owned. I was at- tached to it from there on out." That attachment is what led Smythe to his first game action at the age of seven. He now fol- lows a strict regimen that sees him training and playing four to six times a week with the Canadian national team, but it's all a balancing act with his role as business development executive for local regtech company Trulioo. W E E K E N D WA R R IOR WARRIOR SPOTLIGHT Vancouver-based regula- tory technology com- pany Trulioo acts as the middleman for its clients to confirm whether the people signing up for their digital services are legit. With partnerships around the globe, Trulioo verifies identities and addresses of people and businesses online. "The way we do that is through an [applica- tion programming inter- face]," explains business development executive John Smythe. "We send a signal to our data partners, and they'll tell us whether or not it matches their records." With investors from the likes of Goldman Sachs to American Ex- press, the global verifica- tion outfit scaled from less than 10 people in 2011 to over 400 employees today. It currently offers real-time verification of five billion consumers and 330 million businesses worldwide. –R.R. NET GOALS Global verification company Trulioo's business development executive John Smythe works hard and plays even harder Playing the Field Olympian John Smythe talks penalty shootouts, Tokyo 2020 and the connection between hockey and business By Rushmila Rahman O FF T H E C LO C K ( quality time ) YAN HUCKENDUBLER SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 BCBUSINESS 71 "Teamwork is a huge part of my life," he maintains. "Being with a club for 11 years now, I've just learned the different dynamics of how to work on a team. It taught me the impor- tance of diversity and inclusion and effective communication, as well as when to ask for help from your peers." A few years after earning a psychology degree from UBC— where he became the captain of the school's varsity field hockey team—Smythe joined the RBC Olympians Program in 2017. The program helps athletes gain career experience and learn business fundamen- tals while on a vigorous travel and training schedule. As an RBC Olympian in branding and communications, Smythe facili- tated partnerships and events like the RBC GranFondo and RBC JCC Sports Dinner. "Each athlete has a really unique story to tell and it's very inspiring," Smythe notes. "I did my fair share of events as well." However, it was his interest in all things tech that drew him