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Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1484213
66 BCBUSINESS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2022 I t's not often in a career that a person is able to reach the very top of one of the most influential companies in their industry. It's even rarer that they'd get to do it twice. John Coleman is currently on the precipice of such an achievement. Coleman was born and raised in Deep River, Ontario, a town two hours north of Ottawa that was essentially built around Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories, a research facility and the workplace of Coleman's father. "It was this nerdy little science town where one of your parents had a PhD," he recalls. Coleman ended up getting his own PhD in chemistry from UBC after originally coming west for a tree-planting gig. He went on to work for a handful of govern- ment organizations, including the Centre for Drug Research and Development, before co-founding cannabis testing and research firm Anandia Laboratories with Jonathan Page. Starting with a skeletal staff working out of a UBC lab, Page and Coleman quickly earned a reputation for being leading experts in cannabis genomics (the study of the plant's genetic makeup). In 2018, after building the company up to some 90 employees, the pair sold Anandia to Edmonton-based cannabis giant Aurora for $115 million. Anandia continued to run as a subsid- iary under Aurora, and Coleman served as president until just after COVID hit. "COVID was a bit of a perfect storm for the cannabis market in general, and it was just a logical parting of ways—I left very amicably with Aurora," he says, before admitting that "it was hard to see." In the fall of 2020, Coleman met up with UBC professor and long-time acquaintance Steve Withers, who told him about technol- ogy from a startup at the university called ABOzymes that's able to change a person's blood type. "I was pretty blown away be- cause the dogma is that blood types are absolute—there's nothing you can do about it," Coleman remembers. He and his wife decided to invest in the company's seed round, and Coleman was eventually asked to join the team. He officially started as CEO in January 2022. Blood Diamond AFTER MAKING SOME GREEN IN THE CANNABIS MARKET, JOHN COLEMAN IS SEEING RED L E A D E R S H I P WHO ARE YOUR ROLE MODELS TODAY? WHO WOULD YOU LOOK TO FOR INSPIRATION? [AbCellera CEO] Carl Hansen and I used to do a talk with fourth-year chemistry students to explain to them that, yes, there is a future for your degree. People like Carl and [Precision Nanosystems founders] Euan Ramsay and James Taylor. The guys who have a vision and doggedly continue to pursue that vision because they fully believe in it. WHAT IS YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE? Be as fair and transparent as possible. And I give people rope to experiment and do things and learn. Many aspiring political leaders these days seem to be either long-time backbenchers or corporate leaders. Appadu- rai is neither, but stresses that her time serving at or near the top of influential organiza- tions has pushed her to lead collaboratively. "I believe that we have the expertise we need to bring even the most transformative vision to life, and so my leader- ship style is really about build- ing really strong coalitions," she says, citing leaders like former NDP premier Dave Bar- rett and Rosemary Brown—who became the first black woman elected to a provincial legisla- ture when she won Vancouver Burrard for the NDP in 1972—as "brave politicians" in whose footsteps she hopes to follow. "That's the skill that's prob- ably strongest from my time in activism—coalition building and recognizing the gifts and expertise that folks can bring and allowing them the space to bring their best to our collective effort. It's a de-centralized and collaborative approach that sees the leader not as the person on top, but rather the person who connects everyone and brings out the best in them." Again, it feels like this isn't the last time you're going to hear from Appadurai. A win in Vancouver Granville would have been a first for an NDP candidate, and a big upset. She almost did it. Beating a sitting minister with widespread MLA support as a party outsider would have been historic. Many say she was about to do it. But one thing is clear: stop- ping isn't an option. "Before last year, my plan wasn't to enter electoral politics, but the experience made me feel like it was a good fit for the coalition building I've done," she says. "I don't see this as my last attempt at electoral politics." —N.C.