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.
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this concept of leading by serving." While the concept can cause confu- sion—bringing to mind a leader who seeks happiness by letting everybody do what they want—Falotico and Ono (who don't know each other) say that's far from the case. Falotico says ser- vant leaders, rather than just trying to please everyone, push them to grow— by telling them what's going wrong and, if necessary, by saying no. "A servant leader who's committed to the growth of others has to give feedback." Ono is even more vehement about what servant leadership is and is not. "Servant leadership is in no way, shape or form in conflict with being a vision- ary or transformational leader," he says during our interview, sitting upright in his chair. "I would argue that a servant leader can be a more transformational leader than one focused on his own career. Because the vision should not be about yourself; the vision should be about the institution." The new vision for UBC—which Ono promises he will develop in col- laboration with everyone on campus—is something many will be waiting for. It's been a decade since the last vision was devel- oped under Stephen Toope and almost 30 years since UBC began to redefine itself as not just the hometown university for Van- couverites but a world-ranked institution. It started with David Strangway, who turned UBC into a place renowned for research during his tenure from 1985 to 1997. UBC's upward climb con- tinued with Martha Piper, president from 1997 to 2006, who became a nationally visible representative for UBC—someone renowned for her ability to connect with federal politicians and granting agencies. She spearheaded an effort to recruit students from the rest of Canada and emphasized the role of students as global citizens. Toope, in place from 2006 to 2014, took that further, expanding the number of international students at UBC, and building strong real estate and fundraising capabilities. No one knows quite what to expect of Ono—in part because his time at the University of Cincinnati doesn't offer completely clear indications of what he might do here. "His time there was a little too short a time to have done enough to judge him," says Paul Fain, the Washington, D.C.-based news editor of Inside Higher Ed, a publication that chronicles university life in the U.S. The aver- age tenure for a university president, and the usual time needed to assess their records, is six or seven years, says Fain; Ono was president for four. Inside Higher Ed named him, in a light-hearted end-of-year list, as its up-and-coming college president in 2015. But that was based more on anecdotes from insiders, along with Ono's 73,000-Twitter- follower hipness factor. Ono was clearly popular in Cincin- nati, for a number of rea son s. A s a long-time professor and researcher, he appealed to academ- ics who felt like he was one of them. Students loved him because he was so willing to connect, replying to their tweets that their rooms were too hot or that they didn't know how to replace a ripped diploma. That's key in a climate where post-secondary institutions are hustling to attract students and where those students view a good president as someone who is "responsive and engaged," says Fain. Ono, a guy whose main hobby is tropi- cal fish, became an enthusiastic cheerleader for the university's football team, the Bearcats, to the point that many of their fans and players are still sending him mournful messages months after his departure. As the first Asian-American president at the University of Cincinnati, Ono was also a visible symbol for minority students there. He was willing to talk about his own suicide attempts. "To show that vulnerability is very unusual. Most college presi- dents don't go there. They're risk averse," says Fain. Univer- sity enrolment grew by 2,000 while Ono was there, and he was increasingly seen as a player and voice in national discus- sions. Most importantly, he handled a potentially catastrophic event—where a campus policeman shot an unarmed black man in July 2015—with none of the ensuing riots or protests that have marked similar incidents in the States. "That shooting episode, that's pretty much the worst nightmare," says Fain. "That one resolved better than one might expect"—with a $5.3-million payout and many apologies—"and he was visible there in an appropriate way." While that gives informed observers a sense of his emotional intelligence and his ability to handle a crisis, what's less clear COURTESY OF UBC; (GUPTA) BRIAN HOWELL NOVEMBER 2016 BCBUSINESS 35 BONUSES DUE TO HIM (IN 2015, SOME US$200,000) AND PUTTING THE MONEY INTO STUDENT SCHOLARSHIPS THE PREDECESSORS (Clockwise from left) UBC's former presi- dents include David Strangway, Martha Piper, Arvind Gupta and Stephen Toope T