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/1514012
48 BC BU S I N E S S .C A F E B R U A R Y 2 0 24 Illu s t r a t i o n : i S t o c k / b a g o t aj Born in a village near Biarritz, in the southeast corner of France, the CEO of Bench Accounting Services grew up in Africa, where his father worked for a French bank. "Mostly in Western Africa," Durrios says. "Congo, Cameroon, Kenya." That Durrios is also fluent in Japanese is a clue that his academic and profes- sional journey has been peripatetic. Posts in Tokyo, Seoul, San Diego, Pasadena and Virginia preceded his current position at Bench's corporate headquarters near Rob- son and Seymour. Durrios is among those for whom Vancouver is the latest stop in a nomadic career. Bringing international experience and vision to a local operation, he believes, is both useful and necessary. "I think it's about different perspectives," he says. "People who are coming from a different cultural background or heritage have had different experiences. And it allows us to take into consideration the needs of our diverse customers, because we're serving entrepreneurs coming from all different cultural heritages and locations. That is a strength, in my opinion." But while Vancouver has a wealth of people from all different backgrounds, it doesn't currently host a large cohort of international CEOs. Civic strengths aside, Vancouver is not renowned as a major corporate centre, a fact of which potential international job candidates will surely be aware. Might ambitious CEOs be reluctant to relocate to a city that, for all its charms, is sometimes viewed as an outpost? And what are the particular challenges a freshly appointed international CEO might face in British Columbia? Durrios first came to Bench as its chief financial officer before taking over the top job in 2022. Bench, a startup that began life as 10sheet in New York before moving to Vancouver in 2013, provides bookkeeping and tax preparation tools, software and human support, mostly aimed at small independent businesses. "Our mission is to help every business owner thrive by pro- viding financial insight and peace of mind in one seamless platform," Durrios says. Durrios's first startup job was at Over- ture Services, a pioneer in the field of paid search. That job took him first to South Korea and later to Tokyo. In 2003, Overture was acquired by Yahoo and Durrios joined the company's media division, later leaving to join the startup Market Share. Durrios also worked for Virginia-based Neustar, Service Titan, and DISQO before joining Bench. He wasn't sure what to expect from Vancouver, but he did have his West Coast experience in San Diego to draw upon. "Vancouver is far more developed," he says. "It's different." Relocating to a different country can be disorienting, even for someone who is mov- ing in on the top floor. Jeff Zabudsky has experience that cuts both ways. In 2016, he left a position as president and vice-chan- cellor of Sheridan College to become CEO of Bahrain Polytechnic and, later, provost for the American University of Bahrain. Since July he has been president of the British Columbia Institute of Technology. Vancouver was terra incognita for him, but relocating to Bahrain represented a greater challenge. "Bahrain is probably the soft- est landing you'll find in the Middle East, because there's a lot of expatriates that come together and build friendships and forge relationships," Zabudsky says. "But nonetheless, you're part of a group that's really from outside the locals, outside the norm. And I think the thing that it taught me is what it must feel like for a lot of new Canadians, or new international students who come to Canada. What was most pro- found for me was understanding what it's like to be the other, to be someone who is not from there. You don't understand all the ins and outs of how people speak—not just the language but idioms and intrica- cies of culture that you simply can't grasp within the first few years. In many respects, you do feel like an outsider." Zabudsky concedes that arriving as a professional helped ease the transition. "I was treated well and respectfully," he says. "But you do go into a context that is entirely new culturally with some trepida- tion. You don't want to put your foot in it. You don't want to make mistakes. And so there's always a sense of nervousness in your interactions with people, both per- sonally as well as professionally." Durrios feels that Vancouver has the advantage of offering a global perspec- I N T E R N AT I O N A L C E O S VANCOUVER WAS ALREADY A MULTICULTURAL PLACE BEFORE J.P. DURRIOS SHOWED UP. BUT HIS ARRIVAL IN JANUARY 2020 MAY HAVE MOVED THE NEEDLE ALL ON ITS OWN.