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/347582
August 2014 BCBusiness 31 bcbusiness.cA c raig Richmond was taking ying lessons before he was old enough to drive and became an Air Force pilot by age 20. He spent 11 years in operations at YVR before taking over the running of airports in Liverpool, Cyprus and the Bahamas, returning to YVR last summer. Every airport is a gateway from here to there, and Richmond has been pushing the idea that YVR needs to capitalize on its geographic location in a di er- ent way. There's money to be made in being a so-called "holding pen" for transit passengers. A Chinese airline has already committed to keeping two jumbo jets in Vancou- ver as a base—which means hundreds of jobs for mainte- nance, support and ight crew, if his idea comes to pass. sao Paulo to Vancouver to Shanghai—it's almost a per- fectly straight line. We are in a very fortunate geographic place. There's mining in Santiago. Who needs to get there? Everyone, especially the Chinese. Break it down this way: 200 people arrive from China, 75 get off here, 125 continue down to Chile and 40 people from Vancouver get on board. Transit without visas has been around for a long time but it used to be a horrible experi- ence. Also, there were concerns that people would claim refugee status when they landed—but do you know how many we've had? Zero. They're not here to jump ship; they're here to get to a place where it's convenient to have a stop in Canada. Middle Eastern hubs have taken 15 per cent of the traf c, and you learn that the transportation business is like water: people go wherever it's easy to go, and we've been losing out. craIg rIcHMonD CEO, Vancouver Airport Authority YVR should be a transit hub between China and South America. M Y B I g I D e a c raig Richmond was taking ying lessons before he was old enough to drive and became an Air Force pilot by age 20. He spent 11 years in operations at the running of airports in Liverpool, Cyprus and the Bahamas, returning to YVR last summer. Every airport is a gateway from here to YVR last summer. Every airport is a gateway from here to YVR there, and Richmond has been pushing the idea that needs to capitalize on its geographic location in a di er- ent way. There's money to be made in being a so-called "holding pen" for transit passengers. A Chinese airline has already committed to keeping two jumbo jets in Vancou- ver as a base—which means hundreds of jobs for mainte- nance, support and ight crew, if his idea comes to pass. craIg rIcHMonD CEO, Vancouver Airport Authority D ebra Hewson started in the investment industry at the age of 22 and became the president and CEO of Odlum Brown Ltd. in 2007. When she started her career, it was all about building relationships with clients through personal interac- tions.Then, in the late 1990s, the rise of online transac- tions and cable business news networks opened up the eld of investment knowledge to everyone. But Hewson, 55, still believes that despite these changes, some things have remained constant over 30 years of doing business. We need to have a relationship with our client that doesn't solely rely on communicating via technology. Technology has changed dramatically over the last 20 years. And yes, we have made changes to leverage these developments, but that doesn't replace sitting down with a client and having a frank and honest conversation about what their goals are and what they want to achieve. For us, it's simply about building trust in a very basic way. As a society, we have become so reliant on technology that we forget there is a person with a life and unique goals behind that email. To me, nding the right balance between personal contact and leveraging technology is the real magic. In the investment business, personal client relationships trump all else. M Y B I g I D e a DeBra HeWson CEO, Odlum Brown Ltd.