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/1498118
R U N N E R - U P Wendy Hurlburt P R E S I D E N T A N D C E O , L I F E S C I E N C E S B C WHEN WENDY HURLBURT took over the top chair at Life Sciences BC, the nonprofit that represents the life sciences industry of the province, reactions from those in her circles landed at both ends of the spectrum. "I either had people say, Wow, how obvious that you're there, or Hmm, that's weird, what are you doing there?" Hurlburt recalls of her 2019 appointment. The truth might simply be that it's hard to have a binary reaction when someone's had such a varied career. Born in Toronto, Hurlburt earned an MBA from Queen's University and served as the CFO for both corporate and nonprofit organizations, in- cluding the Heart & Stroke Foundation and pharmaceutical multinational Johnson & Johnson. After leaving the latter because there were no jobs for her in Canada and she was done working away from her family in places like Philadelphia and Hong Kong, she consulted for a couple of years before taking on her current role. "This is the culmination of everything I've worked on—tech, medical devices, digital health, research around improving the health-care system, economic devel- opment," Hurlburt says. "I want to see better patient outcomes and want to be part of the solution of delivering amazing benefits of health care to everyone." Asked how she runs her team of just under a dozen, Hurlburt doesn't hesitate. "I'm very collaborative—I like to encour- age others to experience the joy of learn- ing," she says. "I tend to be a forest and the trees person, which quite honestly is a good and bad thing, depending on what's happening with the forest and the trees." –N.C. MAY/JUNE 2023 BCBUSINESS.CA 25 K im Barbero hadn't heard much about the Mechanical Contractors Association of BC before a friend tipped her off about an opening at the organization. "They said there's a position that's been on the market for a bit and it just sounds like you," Barbero recalls at a coffee shop on Vancouver's west side. "I said, How so? And they said, Well, there's issues." That perked the interest of Barbero, who had spent much of her career work- ing in issues management, including at Teekay Corporation, where she served as the director of corporate communica- tions and brand management for the Vancouver-based shipping giant. After a lengthy interview process ended with Barbero becoming CEO of the MCABC in 2019, she quickly discovered that her friend was right. The association, which represents 10 of the 39 trades, including plumbing, heating and air con- ditioning, has been around since 1905. Old boys' club doesn't really begin to describe it. "When I came in, we had lost a signifi- cant number of members," says Barbero. "Financially, they were struggling—didn't have a vision. The members were really honest about how challenging it was and the turnaround that needed to happen." Barbero made an effort to meet the 200 or so representatives from member companies face-to-face or by phone and took all the information she gathered to a meeting of the membership at a Burnaby hotel. There, she promised a shift based on a framework of pillars that included electrification, technology and a focus on battling the skilled trades shortage, especially when it comes to women in the field. By 2027, says Barbero, around 27,000 people are expected to retire from skilled trades in B.C. "We're trying as hard as we can to work with high schools, get in at the ground floor—we need to take a strategic look at why underrepresented groups, in particular women, aren't com- ing into trades," she says. "I think 5.7 per- cent of construction workers are women. Why? We need to change that." In April, the MCABC announced a partnership with She Summits, an organization that empowers and supports the personal de- velopment of women, to promote careers in skilled trades. Barbero is also working to help the industry move forward when it comes to climate action. She argues that the MCABC and its members are "the key" to the province and the city of Vancouver hitting their respective greenhouse gas emissions targets, whether it's through building new structures or retrofitting older ones. "The role our association plays is in influencing our members who maybe don't understand how important that is, or what steps need to be taken to get there," she says of her team of six em- ployees and 11 board members. The constant theme for Barbero is that, even in an industry she knew noth- ing about going in, she's tried her best to continue to be herself as she adapts to the new challenge. "Who you see is who you get," she explains with a smile and eyes that look poised to burst out of their sockets at any moment. "Never in a mil- lion years would I have thought I'd be so passionate about this industry...I think that if you were to speak to the staff, they would say, She has a lot of energy, she's very passionate, direct, goal-oriented, strategic and a lot of fun." —N.C. L E A D E R W I N N E R Kim Barbero C E O , M E C H A N I C A L C O N T R A C T O R S A S S O C I A T I O N O F B C