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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_01: This podcast is brought to you by Schneider Electric,
[00:09] SPEAKER_01: supporting Canadian businesses with innovative energy management and automation solutions.
[00:15] SPEAKER_01: Schneider Electric, your digital partner,
[00:17] SPEAKER_01: sustainability and efficiency.
[00:21] SPEAKER_02: So Dennis, welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:24] SPEAKER_02: It's really great to meet you.
[00:27] SPEAKER_02: As we usually do,
[00:28] SPEAKER_02: why don't you give everyone some kind of idea about your entrepreneurial journey today,
[00:35] SPEAKER_02: how it started, where it started, where it is today,
[00:39] SPEAKER_02: and where its future might be, if you like.
[00:43] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, excellent.
[00:44] SPEAKER_00: Well, very nice to meet you.
[00:45] SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me on today.
[00:47] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I cut my teeth, if you will,
[00:50] SPEAKER_00: growing up in marketing agencies.
[00:53] SPEAKER_00: And originally it was an automotive placement,
[00:57] SPEAKER_00: and in fact, way back at Ford Motor Company,
[01:00] SPEAKER_00: was kind of where I first started in the space.
[01:03] SPEAKER_00: And then I worked for a company called Marits.
[01:06] SPEAKER_00: Marits is a $2 billion performance improvement company that has a client list,
[01:13] SPEAKER_00: 70% of the world's super 50.
[01:16] SPEAKER_00: And so I'd really fortunate to have a pretty diverse role across the broad,
[01:22] SPEAKER_00: you know, portfolio of brands.
[01:25] SPEAKER_00: And there was a point to the entrepreneurial question,
[01:28] SPEAKER_00: where you realize that, you know,
[01:30] SPEAKER_00: all of these agencies are based on, you know,
[01:33] SPEAKER_00: a value exchange that's related to, you know,
[01:36] SPEAKER_00: my labor, translated into projects,
[01:39] SPEAKER_00: are really to mark that up and invest the agency world.
[01:43] SPEAKER_00: And what I found, there's sort of an all moment where I describe you,
[01:48] SPEAKER_00: you know, the only thing I offered front row seats on journeys,
[01:51] SPEAKER_00: a few time in your life.
[01:53] SPEAKER_00: And that's when I realized I wanted to pursue something more entrepreneurial,
[01:57] SPEAKER_00: which broke the rules of giving an hour,
[01:59] SPEAKER_00: getting hours worth of compensation.
[02:02] SPEAKER_00: And so that was important to me, you know,
[02:06] SPEAKER_00: I went on and, uh, through head,
[02:08] SPEAKER_00: headhunter was given an opportunity to start an automotive company called Zed Motor Company.
[02:13] SPEAKER_00: And then it was an electric car company.
[02:16] SPEAKER_00: And that was really a fascinating way to get public market experience,
[02:20] SPEAKER_00: grow a company, you know, sit on a leadership team,
[02:24] SPEAKER_00: and drive this fascinating, you know, value exchange,
[02:29] SPEAKER_00: as they said, but that wasn't related to do this and get an hours worth of labor.
[02:34] SPEAKER_00: So, all that said, I kind of continued along,
[02:37] SPEAKER_00: and I was eventually started my own marketing agency,
[02:41] SPEAKER_00: and was servicing clients,
[02:44] SPEAKER_00: and was given an opportunity to do some consulting work with Mountain Valley.
[02:48] SPEAKER_00: And early on, I started down this path with this company,
[02:52] SPEAKER_00: and was asked by the leadership team here,
[02:55] SPEAKER_00: I would you come in and run this,
[02:57] SPEAKER_00: given my prior public market experience.
[03:00] SPEAKER_00: And basically, my self-proclaimed ability to take complex ideas off a whiteboard
[03:05] SPEAKER_00: and get them into motion.
[03:07] SPEAKER_00: That's probably something we'll talk about today a little bit,
[03:09] SPEAKER_00: but entrepreneurship is more than just dreaming and ways to make money,
[03:14] SPEAKER_00: the ability to execute, build the right team, and all of those things.
[03:18] SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
[03:20] SPEAKER_02: You know,
[03:23] SPEAKER_02: but you had a nice job with Merit, who I know, by the way, you know,
[03:30] SPEAKER_02: what kind of spot you to step out of that comfort zone, you know,
[03:36] SPEAKER_02: one of the top guys in the business,
[03:40] SPEAKER_02: you were earning good money,
[03:41] SPEAKER_02: and I'm pretty certain of that.
[03:46] SPEAKER_02: Why step out of that and make things awkward for yourself?
[03:49] SPEAKER_02: Why become an entrepreneur?
[03:51] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's an awesome question.
[03:54] SPEAKER_00: And I think a little bit of it is in your, you know,
[03:57] SPEAKER_00: if you feel held back, there's sort of this innate,
[04:01] SPEAKER_00: there's a risk for a word for sure inside all of us,
[04:04] SPEAKER_00: and often entrepreneurs are defined by that ability to take the leap into something
[04:10] SPEAKER_00: that is a little less known, a little less control on one hand,
[04:14] SPEAKER_00: but in the other hand, you have all the control,
[04:16] SPEAKER_00: as you make the decisions and as I said earlier,
[04:19] SPEAKER_00: you have these front row seats to influence it.
[04:23] SPEAKER_00: You know, you make me think of a funny story.
[04:25] SPEAKER_00: When I, the day I had resigned from Merit,
[04:28] SPEAKER_00: it was sort of a long dance.
[04:31] SPEAKER_00: I was on the CEO's calendar, and of course, I had a, you know,
[04:35] SPEAKER_00: a sector that was pretty important to the company,
[04:37] SPEAKER_00: and we had got to, to point where we had scheduled a golf game,
[04:42] SPEAKER_00: and we were several weeks out,
[04:43] SPEAKER_00: and I tried to talk to Z.A.
[04:45] SPEAKER_00: And meeting that canceled, and you know,
[04:47] SPEAKER_00: long story short, as I got to the point where we're both on the T-block.
[04:51] SPEAKER_00: And I said, you know, I feel terrible.
[04:53] SPEAKER_00: He came racing in late, and I said,
[04:55] SPEAKER_00: I feel awful that, you know, we're here.
[04:58] SPEAKER_00: He's like, how are you, Ben?
[04:59] SPEAKER_00: And I said, I'm doing great.
[05:00] SPEAKER_00: I had tried many times before today,
[05:03] SPEAKER_00: but I'm actually resigning from the company.
[05:06] SPEAKER_00: And on that very first block, I hit this amazing teacher.
[05:10] SPEAKER_00: You know, I like to golf, but it was just, you know,
[05:13] SPEAKER_00: you know, how he said, you know,
[05:14] SPEAKER_02: just roll it in, okay?
[05:15] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[05:16] SPEAKER_00: And he started duck hooks one off into the fest,
[05:19] SPEAKER_00: and it was just this irony of, you know,
[05:22] SPEAKER_00: how we got to the point,
[05:23] SPEAKER_00: but he said something really, really cool.
[05:26] SPEAKER_00: You know, he was, first of all,
[05:28] SPEAKER_00: complimentary of the decision.
[05:30] SPEAKER_00: And to your question, he said, you know,
[05:34] SPEAKER_00: I know for sure you'll be running this company,
[05:37] SPEAKER_00: or a company of your own someday.
[05:40] SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, that, that,
[05:41] SPEAKER_00: so it was very flattered and, you know,
[05:43] SPEAKER_00: honored that he would say that, especially in that circumstance.
[05:46] SPEAKER_00: But he's kind of right.
[05:47] SPEAKER_00: Like, there's this, everyone we interact with has leadership skills.
[05:51] SPEAKER_00: And you can sort of see leaders in a room.
[05:54] SPEAKER_00: And there's that confidence, there's that ability,
[05:57] SPEAKER_00: you know, to fail fast, learn hard, you know,
[06:00] SPEAKER_00: and pick up and know that you're,
[06:02] SPEAKER_00: you're solely responsible for that.
[06:04] SPEAKER_00: And I think I've always had that deep inside me.
[06:07] SPEAKER_00: But as you said, you get comfortable, like you've got mortgage payments,
[06:12] SPEAKER_00: like everyone else, you incurred debt based on,
[06:15] SPEAKER_00: you know, great paying jobs and good years and,
[06:18] SPEAKER_00: and sales leadership, you also have commission based thesis
[06:21] SPEAKER_00: of your, your compensation.
[06:22] SPEAKER_00: And so, at some point, I think there is just this little butterfly in you
[06:28] SPEAKER_00: that you're like, you know, I, I want to do more.
[06:30] SPEAKER_00: I think exponential comes from taking exponential risk.
[06:35] SPEAKER_00: And usually it's financially driven initially.
[06:38] SPEAKER_00: But I've learned so many more rewards to the entrepreneur,
[06:43] SPEAKER_00: you know, that entrepreneurial side,
[06:45] SPEAKER_00: beyond finances, although finances is a really, you know, cool outcome.
[06:50] SPEAKER_02: You actually say, I think people come,
[06:52] SPEAKER_02: the people that become entrepreneurs become entrepreneurs,
[06:54] SPEAKER_02: because they can't stop asking why, you know,
[06:58] SPEAKER_02: why are we doing it this way?
[07:01] SPEAKER_02: Why not this way kind of thing?
[07:02] SPEAKER_02: I think there's a lot, a lot of that goes on.
[07:06] SPEAKER_02: But, you know, I want to get back, you know,
[07:09] SPEAKER_02: to where you are now, I'm not involved because I'm interested
[07:12] SPEAKER_02: just doing a little bit of thing.
[07:13] SPEAKER_02: I love, I mean, really the social enterprise side of it
[07:18] SPEAKER_02: and the business model that you're building there of, you know,
[07:23] SPEAKER_02: you know, you're obviously in the biotech business,
[07:26] SPEAKER_02: but you've got this mission of, you know, more life less death.
[07:31] SPEAKER_02: And, you know, we've all seen through this,
[07:36] SPEAKER_02: through the pandemic, you know, the kind of,
[07:42] SPEAKER_02: let's say uneven spread of vaccines.
[07:46] SPEAKER_02: And I would like to talk a little bit about that,
[07:49] SPEAKER_02: because I think it's something that's really close to it
[07:54] SPEAKER_02: to everyone at the moment.
[07:56] SPEAKER_02: And it's still part of the enterprise,
[07:58] SPEAKER_02: so it's still, you know, entrepreneurial in a different way
[08:02] SPEAKER_02: of approaching, you know, in this case,
[08:05] SPEAKER_02: the biotech industry with some maybe some different,
[08:09] SPEAKER_02: a different model, a different motivation kind of thing.
[08:14] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, you all tell you, you bring up a really,
[08:16] SPEAKER_00: the way I would segue into the answer.
[08:19] SPEAKER_00: There's also, you know, so I just turned 50 this year,
[08:22] SPEAKER_00: which is a big sort of lock-in-zig one.
[08:25] SPEAKER_00: I don't remember.
[08:25] SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's powerful.
[08:28] SPEAKER_00: But it's also interesting, the way you frame that question
[08:31] SPEAKER_00: and I want to get into legacy here,
[08:34] SPEAKER_00: as you think about, you know, the empathy that you have,
[08:37] SPEAKER_00: within a 10 years ago, I would not have been the right person
[08:40] SPEAKER_00: for this job.
[08:41] SPEAKER_00: And as you reflect back on, you know, your wisdom
[08:45] SPEAKER_00: and the things you learn, you know, each five years
[08:48] SPEAKER_00: paired in your career,
[08:50] SPEAKER_00: the emotional intelligence that's required in a leadership role,
[08:55] SPEAKER_00: you know, you define, I love to, you sort of
[08:58] SPEAKER_00: ended the last question by, you know, this curiosity.
[09:01] SPEAKER_00: People that know me, this everything frustrates me
[09:05] SPEAKER_00: about process and how things are done.
[09:07] SPEAKER_00: And my mind only works with improving things.
[09:10] SPEAKER_00: I see something, and I immediately have eight steps to fixing
[09:14] SPEAKER_00: it's a blessing and a curse.
[09:17] SPEAKER_00: It drives my wife crazy because, you know,
[09:19] SPEAKER_00: we're standing on a line at a restaurant,
[09:20] SPEAKER_00: I haven't figured out what they might have done different.
[09:24] SPEAKER_00: But, you know, it's interesting as, you know,
[09:26] SPEAKER_00: back to the question about, you know, why now,
[09:30] SPEAKER_00: what is mountain valley trading,
[09:31] SPEAKER_00: and why am I putting that DNA of,
[09:35] SPEAKER_00: in a sort of empathy and more life and helping the world's,
[09:40] SPEAKER_00: you know, most disadvantaged.
[09:41] SPEAKER_00: There's something really cool as you mature.
[09:43] SPEAKER_00: You realize, you know, you evolve from the quest of money or power.
[09:47] SPEAKER_00: You go through these phases where you really are
[09:51] SPEAKER_00: inspiring, you know, change makers.
[09:54] SPEAKER_00: I talked often in interviews about, you know,
[09:57] SPEAKER_00: we learn from those that have gone before us.
[09:59] SPEAKER_00: People that surround us are motivated to change.
[10:03] SPEAKER_00: No one's the smartest in the room.
[10:06] SPEAKER_00: Ten years ago, 20 years ago, those are much harder things
[10:09] SPEAKER_00: to realize that as a leader, you know,
[10:11] SPEAKER_00: your job is not to, you know, solve every problem
[10:15] SPEAKER_00: with the room, it's to bring the right talent together
[10:17] SPEAKER_00: and create an ecosystem where we can thrive.
[10:20] SPEAKER_00: And, you know, when you now relate it back to the work mountain
[10:23] SPEAKER_00: valley is doing, it's been a real honor to be at this age,
[10:28] SPEAKER_00: thinking of my legacy, I have three children.
[10:30] SPEAKER_00: I want them to be able to say, well, my dad's doing something
[10:34] SPEAKER_00: that enables, you know, the best drugs and vaccines in the world
[10:38] SPEAKER_00: to reach those most disadvantaged,
[10:41] SPEAKER_00: where through cold chain restrictions and the drug supply chain
[10:44] SPEAKER_00: or efficacy or drug delivery, or simply just getting drugs
[10:49] SPEAKER_00: more cost effectively to where they're needed,
[10:53] SPEAKER_00: what an awesome thing.
[10:54] SPEAKER_00: And when we find partners that are like-minded,
[10:57] SPEAKER_00: the start of those meetings are usually defined by where they had
[11:02] SPEAKER_00: and are there missions aligned with our,
[11:04] SPEAKER_00: there are values aligned.
[11:06] SPEAKER_00: And we do that to, of course, attract talent,
[11:09] SPEAKER_00: but it's also how we go to market and partnerships.
[11:13] SPEAKER_00: And I think it's a really awesome thing at this age
[11:15] SPEAKER_00: to reflect on how to go.
[11:17] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's not only kind of a cool slogan,
[11:21] SPEAKER_00: but it becomes foundational of everything that we do
[11:23] SPEAKER_00: and how we measure our success in the end.
[11:27] SPEAKER_02: You know, let's move away from sort of the business side of it.
[11:32] SPEAKER_02: I'm big on mentorship.
[11:35] SPEAKER_02: And so one of the questions that I usually ask is,
[11:39] SPEAKER_02: you know, on the mentoring side of it,
[11:42] SPEAKER_02: you know, what's the best piece of advice that you've received
[11:46] SPEAKER_02: from a mentor that, you know, can you send your pocket
[11:50] SPEAKER_02: and you use it all the time.
[11:52] SPEAKER_02: You know, it's just, you just carry it with you.
[11:57] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that question.
[11:59] SPEAKER_00: And, you know, the answer is just instantly comes in my mind.
[12:03] SPEAKER_00: The best mentor I ever had, a lady by the name of Michelle Ybel,
[12:07] SPEAKER_00: in fact, I work with her at Mara,
[12:10] SPEAKER_00: she was a tremendous leader.
[12:12] SPEAKER_00: And every time, you know, I had my one-on-one sessions,
[12:16] SPEAKER_00: you know, coaching and her inspiring, you know,
[12:18] SPEAKER_00: what was possible.
[12:20] SPEAKER_00: She always made you feel capable of more.
[12:24] SPEAKER_00: And, you know, there's this really interesting style
[12:26] SPEAKER_00: that I think it relates really, really wonderfully to the song's
[12:30] SPEAKER_00: entrepreneurial thing because, you know, it's pretty lonely, right?
[12:34] SPEAKER_00: You know, you have to reconcile each day,
[12:36] SPEAKER_00: like, where are you going to get energy from?
[12:38] SPEAKER_00: What are you going to do?
[12:38] SPEAKER_00: What are you going to pursue?
[12:39] SPEAKER_00: Where do you want this team to grow?
[12:43] SPEAKER_00: Often people lead by, you know,
[12:45] SPEAKER_00: they're really mentor and coach people from, you know,
[12:48] SPEAKER_00: they did this wrong, you did that wrong,
[12:50] SPEAKER_00: you need to fix these things until you're more capable.
[12:55] SPEAKER_00: When, what I love about Michelle,
[12:57] SPEAKER_00: and she always started with, you know,
[13:00] SPEAKER_00: inspiring you about, you're not even halfway
[13:02] SPEAKER_00: to what's possible with your skill and your,
[13:05] SPEAKER_00: your, your psyche and, you know, your leadership talent.
[13:09] SPEAKER_00: And then you can share a thing,
[13:10] SPEAKER_00: a few of the things that are holding you back from that vision.
[13:13] SPEAKER_00: And I love it.
[13:15] SPEAKER_00: And I think it's such a, it's thing I've transformed into how I lead people.
[13:20] SPEAKER_00: We're going to make mistakes.
[13:22] SPEAKER_00: Everyone makes mistakes.
[13:23] SPEAKER_00: It's important not to make them twice as sort of my,
[13:26] SPEAKER_00: I don't dwell a whole lot on that,
[13:28] SPEAKER_00: but if people are inspired to
[13:30] SPEAKER_00: dreaming where they're truly capable of,
[13:33] SPEAKER_00: then you'll end up having to do the work for them.
[13:35] SPEAKER_00: And she, she's imparted that early in my career.
[13:38] SPEAKER_00: And she definitely,
[13:40] SPEAKER_00: it's something that's, that's very impactful to me today.
[13:45] SPEAKER_01: At Schneider Electric,
[13:48] SPEAKER_01: we empower Canadian businesses to utilize energy and resources efficiently.
[13:53] SPEAKER_01: Schneider Electric, the future of energy.
[13:58] SPEAKER_02: You think we are wired differently?
[14:02] SPEAKER_02: Do you think anyone can be an entrepreneur or is there something,
[14:07] SPEAKER_02: you know, that, that not everybody has?
[14:10] SPEAKER_02: I mean, I struggle with that, with giving an answer.
[14:14] SPEAKER_02: So if you can't do it, that's fine.
[14:16] SPEAKER_02: But, but, I think it's very interesting.
[14:20] SPEAKER_02: I mean, I meet a lot of entrepreneurs.
[14:23] SPEAKER_02: Some, some would say that we're not,
[14:26] SPEAKER_02: some would disagree, say anyone can do it.
[14:31] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's really interesting.
[14:34] SPEAKER_00: You know, originally,
[14:35] SPEAKER_00: I think everyone inside themselves has that ability
[14:39] SPEAKER_00: or this desire, if you will, to have a bit of autonomy to make.
[14:44] SPEAKER_00: But I, but my clear answer is I don't think everyone's an entrepreneur.
[14:49] SPEAKER_00: I think entrepreneurship is, sort of, as the sexy title of a lot of successful business people
[14:55] SPEAKER_00: are often held up for their entrepreneurial spirit.
[14:59] SPEAKER_00: But I do think there's something innate, and you know,
[15:02] SPEAKER_00: this is another story that I think of that frames back to this answer is,
[15:07] SPEAKER_00: if you even assume everyone in the company wants to be a president,
[15:11] SPEAKER_00: that's usually a mistake, you know, if you start managing everyone,
[15:15] SPEAKER_00: that everyone needs to be promoted, and they're always fighting and applying.
[15:18] SPEAKER_00: There's many people that are just incredibly comfortable, skilled,
[15:23] SPEAKER_00: and confident to do the same job for 10 years, 20 years.
[15:26] SPEAKER_00: And, you know, that overlaying, you know, this, you know,
[15:29] SPEAKER_00: you should do more and grow more.
[15:31] SPEAKER_00: And then I think there's a second trap of entrepreneurship,
[15:34] SPEAKER_00: even if it's innate inside us.
[15:37] SPEAKER_00: We have this economic system that's introduced very early on.
[15:42] SPEAKER_00: And so what I mean by that is, and it's why I even find it,
[15:46] SPEAKER_00: it's just graduating from the Tetrager School of Management,
[15:49] SPEAKER_00: and we have conversations about, you know, labor,
[15:52] SPEAKER_00: transfer, entrepreneurship in a different way.
[15:55] SPEAKER_00: And it's really interesting.
[15:57] SPEAKER_00: Early on, we graduate, you start a job,
[16:00] SPEAKER_00: and then immediately you start, you know, accumulating debt.
[16:03] SPEAKER_00: You get a mortgage, you know, you might get a credit card,
[16:07] SPEAKER_00: you get a, you know, you have a car payment.
[16:10] SPEAKER_00: These normal engines actually restrict your ability to be coming on,
[16:14] SPEAKER_00: entrepreneur, because there's forever this risk-reward exchange.
[16:18] SPEAKER_00: And so my advice to someone that is young,
[16:22] SPEAKER_00: that is unsure if they have the chops to go and start their own business
[16:27] SPEAKER_00: and pursue, you know, some new change,
[16:30] SPEAKER_00: which I think is a fantastic thing to pursue.
[16:34] SPEAKER_00: It's 20 times easier to do that before you start an economic engine,
[16:39] SPEAKER_00: that handcuffs you to, you know, your ability to add weight,
[16:42] SPEAKER_00: rather, if I had to do over,
[16:45] SPEAKER_00: I've lived five years longer in my parents' basement,
[16:48] SPEAKER_00: and started earlier.
[16:50] SPEAKER_00: But instead, you know, we get drawn into this economic cycle.
[16:54] SPEAKER_00: And so it's a little bit of, you know,
[16:56] SPEAKER_00: to part-answer to that question.
[16:57] SPEAKER_00: But I don't think everyone has it.
[17:00] SPEAKER_00: And of those that everyone, you know,
[17:02] SPEAKER_00: if I classify only half can truly start,
[17:05] SPEAKER_00: because they have the financial freedom to do it, you know.
[17:10] SPEAKER_02: You know, just getting away from that kind of stuff.
[17:14] SPEAKER_02: Well, books, what books are you reading now?
[17:18] SPEAKER_02: And what book really, you know,
[17:24] SPEAKER_02: has been your, you know, one of your guides, you know.
[17:29] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's really interesting.
[17:32] SPEAKER_00: This kind of goes back to the legacy.
[17:34] SPEAKER_00: Like there's a few,
[17:36] SPEAKER_00: Hacker told, he books right now that,
[17:38] SPEAKER_00: that just, again, this, this idea of emotional intelligence.
[17:43] SPEAKER_00: Nothing I've been come very aware of.
[17:45] SPEAKER_00: There's a maturity,
[17:47] SPEAKER_00: and maybe it's just hitting this milestone age,
[17:49] SPEAKER_00: but, you know, being incredibly intentional
[17:53] SPEAKER_00: about understanding yourself,
[17:56] SPEAKER_00: and the way you react in your triggers.
[17:58] SPEAKER_00: And this is kind of was my, my description of, you know,
[18:01] SPEAKER_00: the 10 and 5 year bands in your career.
[18:04] SPEAKER_00: The way you handle a situation at 30 versus 40 versus 50
[18:09] SPEAKER_00: is an incredibly different skill set.
[18:13] SPEAKER_00: And I'm on a journey right now about understanding emotional triggers.
[18:19] SPEAKER_00: Because emotional triggers are very dangerous in business.
[18:23] SPEAKER_00: Because they almost always,
[18:27] SPEAKER_00: you lose your upper end in a negotiation
[18:29] SPEAKER_00: because something's triggered you.
[18:31] SPEAKER_00: The way you coach or mentor someone if there's a trigger,
[18:34] SPEAKER_00: the way you receive feedback,
[18:37] SPEAKER_00: attacks on the business, unnecessary praise.
[18:40] SPEAKER_00: So it's, it wouldn't surprise you and your audience
[18:43] SPEAKER_00: to realize at this stage.
[18:45] SPEAKER_00: I get a lot of business.
[18:48] SPEAKER_00: I understand I'm not looking for, you know, inspiration to get out of bed
[18:52] SPEAKER_00: and all of those things.
[18:53] SPEAKER_00: I'm looking to really make sure that I optimize my team and their energy.
[18:58] SPEAKER_00: And I've often said, you know, a Canadian story.
[19:02] SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm coaching Wayne Gretzka,
[19:04] SPEAKER_00: top scientist in the world on innovative breakthrough technologies.
[19:09] SPEAKER_00: My job is to make sure that they get on the ice at the right time.
[19:11] SPEAKER_00: They have the right team around them.
[19:13] SPEAKER_00: I don't have to pretend to be more in that relationship
[19:17] SPEAKER_00: except, you know, making them the best that they can be.
[19:20] SPEAKER_00: So I'm very sensitive.
[19:22] SPEAKER_00: And I'm not a biotech guy as you alluded to,
[19:25] SPEAKER_00: my job is to transform science and technology into, you know,
[19:32] SPEAKER_00: impacts every animal and human on Earth.
[19:35] SPEAKER_00: That's our vision about more life and less death.
[19:39] SPEAKER_00: And then it comes from, you know, understanding that.
[19:41] SPEAKER_00: The only other final point about, you know,
[19:44] SPEAKER_00: books that have had a big impact.
[19:46] SPEAKER_00: Growing up in the marketing space,
[19:48] SPEAKER_00: I'm a huge fan of Seth Godden.
[19:51] SPEAKER_00: He looks practical.
[19:53] SPEAKER_00: He's one of the few daily emails that come into my box.
[19:58] SPEAKER_00: There's a simplicity that I love about, you know,
[20:01] SPEAKER_00: these little nuggets that you can just be,
[20:03] SPEAKER_00: you're reminded of the little things.
[20:05] SPEAKER_00: And so that's my other question.
[20:07] SPEAKER_00: I think of the most impactful books.
[20:09] SPEAKER_00: They always are short reads, impactful chapters,
[20:12] SPEAKER_00: very, you know, translatable.
[20:14] SPEAKER_00: And the two or three that come to mind are all written by him
[20:17] SPEAKER_00: in their simplicity of, you know, even Lynchpin is one that I think of,
[20:22] SPEAKER_00: you know, your role, what you can control,
[20:25] SPEAKER_00: because you can't control everything.
[20:27] SPEAKER_00: And so how you manage the things you learn,
[20:29] SPEAKER_00: the questions you have.
[20:30] SPEAKER_00: Again, he's, he's pretty big on triggers as well.
[20:34] SPEAKER_00: But it's, it's cool.
[20:36] SPEAKER_00: It's, it's, it's pretty neat to see someone.
[20:38] SPEAKER_00: And it just understands, you know, brands are marketing,
[20:42] SPEAKER_00: consumer connection, because that's one of my, my, you know,
[20:45] SPEAKER_00: growing up in a company like Meritz,
[20:47] SPEAKER_00: it's all about value exchange, right?
[20:50] SPEAKER_00: So every relationship as a value exchange can't only like brands
[20:54] SPEAKER_00: to their customers, employees to boss, team to team.
[20:59] SPEAKER_02: If you had to pick one word to describe yourself,
[21:03] SPEAKER_02: what would it be and why?
[21:06] SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's a, that's a really interesting question.
[21:11] SPEAKER_00: And I would say driven is a, is a word, you know,
[21:15] SPEAKER_00: it's, it's probably an obvious word in an interview like this.
[21:18] SPEAKER_00: But the reason, you know, I don't rely on anyone for my emotional energy.
[21:26] SPEAKER_00: You know, getting it up and it's something again,
[21:29] SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to teach my kids.
[21:30] SPEAKER_00: I've always been, been really in control of my work hard play hard.
[21:36] SPEAKER_00: And so when I think of being driven and, you know,
[21:40] SPEAKER_00: really understanding the value of a vision,
[21:43] SPEAKER_00: what are we building, where are we growing to?
[21:46] SPEAKER_00: I don't need any more than that to get a band and get on with my dad.
[21:49] SPEAKER_00: I don't need, I don't waste a lot of time.
[21:52] SPEAKER_00: So driven, I think is a good word.
[21:55] SPEAKER_00: I also have a very good sense of humor.
[21:57] SPEAKER_00: So some people, you know, that work hard play hard,
[22:01] SPEAKER_00: I think is such an important thing to have fun.
[22:03] SPEAKER_00: Like, in funny seed merits,
[22:06] SPEAKER_00: because I spent most of my career in merits,
[22:09] SPEAKER_00: had this amazing statement about like, you know, work hard,
[22:14] SPEAKER_00: have fun and get the job done, you know, as the sort of pillars of me.
[22:18] SPEAKER_00: And I just embody that.
[22:19] SPEAKER_00: We're not, you know, how you show up for work,
[22:22] SPEAKER_00: how you live your life, work life balance.
[22:24] SPEAKER_00: All of that comes out of being driven, but not so serious that you don't realize you have a family
[22:29] SPEAKER_00: and relationships and work and be fun.
[22:33] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[22:34] SPEAKER_02: What are you most excited about in business today?
[22:39] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so, you know, I, I, I'll answer that a little bit from mountain valley,
[22:43] SPEAKER_00: like what, you know, where do I get a bit of the energy?
[22:45] SPEAKER_02: Sure, I appreciate that.
[22:46] SPEAKER_00: Friends, especially right now in the midst of the pandemic and all that's happening.
[22:50] SPEAKER_00: You know, the vision, the path that we're on and the technologies.
[22:56] SPEAKER_00: Again, we're not inventing new drugs.
[22:57] SPEAKER_00: We're making world-class drugs and vaccines better.
[23:01] SPEAKER_00: And so we solubilize difficult to solubilize drugs as an example.
[23:06] SPEAKER_00: So a soluble drug, you know, is the whole degree on the industry.
[23:10] SPEAKER_00: The efficacy of it, so the way we do it, in fact,
[23:12] SPEAKER_00: the original intent of the drug, you know, can go up 10 acts.
[23:16] SPEAKER_00: And so we do a lot of cool stuff with solubilization techniques,
[23:20] SPEAKER_00: or taking complex molecules and, you know,
[23:24] SPEAKER_00: suspending them in a format that can ship outside of cold-ching.
[23:26] SPEAKER_00: And not to get technical for an entrepreneurial audience,
[23:30] SPEAKER_00: but why is that exciting?
[23:31] SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, for the first time, you can build a company that's not driven by profit alone.
[23:38] SPEAKER_00: Profits will come when you do the right things.
[23:40] SPEAKER_00: And so we're working with, you know, eliminating cost structures.
[23:43] SPEAKER_00: So in cold-ching, people don't realize that 35 billion a year of vaccines are wasted.
[23:50] SPEAKER_00: You know, just trying to get from a production environment.
[23:53] SPEAKER_00: And all of that is wasted in third-world countries,
[23:56] SPEAKER_00: where 90% of them don't have the electricity infrastructure.
[24:01] SPEAKER_00: And so I get really excited about it, man, isn't it?
[24:04] SPEAKER_00: If we, so one of our technologies is embedding a molecule
[24:07] SPEAKER_00: in a thin film that goes inside a vile.
[24:11] SPEAKER_00: So you're literally just laying inside a vile,
[24:13] SPEAKER_00: shipping inside of a temperature band, you know,
[24:16] SPEAKER_00: up to, you know, 40 degrees Celsius in a reactor,
[24:19] SPEAKER_00: that vaccine locally in the market.
[24:21] SPEAKER_00: That solves a 35 billion dollar problem,
[24:24] SPEAKER_00: cuts the 20 billion dollar shipment logistic bill in half,
[24:28] SPEAKER_00: and it gets vaccines of the people who need them the most.
[24:32] SPEAKER_00: And so, like, if that doesn't excite people about what's possible
[24:37] SPEAKER_00: with medical breakthrough and the pursuit of that, you know,
[24:41] SPEAKER_00: in our team, again, when I say we attract change makers,
[24:44] SPEAKER_00: they're always, they have this incredible energy of
[24:46] SPEAKER_00: to make a difference and, you know, pile on and share expertise.
[24:50] SPEAKER_00: No one's guarded or trying to be the smartest.
[24:53] SPEAKER_00: We're, you know, learning and growing.
[24:54] SPEAKER_00: And we're forging stuff into oncology.
[24:57] SPEAKER_00: You know, I lost my mother-in-law a few years ago to, you know,
[25:01] SPEAKER_00: aggressive cancer.
[25:02] SPEAKER_00: How cool is it to be able to get out of bed knowing we have projects
[25:06] SPEAKER_00: that are working towards, you know, solving the surge of that type of disease?
[25:11] SPEAKER_00: And so, I think it's pretty cool.
[25:14] SPEAKER_00: And so, that's exciting from a company standpoint.
[25:18] SPEAKER_00: And what's possible?
[25:19] SPEAKER_00: It doesn't, you don't have to be a, you know, a 5,000 person
[25:23] SPEAKER_00: pharmaceutical company to solve.
[25:25] SPEAKER_00: You just have to have the right ecosystem, you know,
[25:28] SPEAKER_00: to generate the pursuit of change.
[25:31] SPEAKER_02: That's very, very interesting.
[25:34] SPEAKER_02: One more fun thing before we call it, call it a session.
[25:39] SPEAKER_02: In business, specifically business.
[25:42] SPEAKER_02: What's your favorite word or sentence that you probably said
[25:47] SPEAKER_02: we should stop using that, but you do.
[25:51] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's an interesting, you know, I'll answer that two ways
[25:56] SPEAKER_00: because I wouldn't agree with the stop using it.
[25:59] SPEAKER_00: But the one thing I used to get accused of a lot here,
[26:02] SPEAKER_00: if you talked to anyone on my team,
[26:04] SPEAKER_00: I'm relentless about the value of time.
[26:07] SPEAKER_00: And this is a good thing for your entrepreneurs, the audience.
[26:10] SPEAKER_00: You could always raise capital.
[26:12] SPEAKER_00: You'll always find money.
[26:13] SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a lot of ways to find a business and create capital.
[26:18] SPEAKER_00: You can never buy time.
[26:20] SPEAKER_00: So I am relentless on the value of time and the value of exchanging,
[26:25] SPEAKER_00: converting time into real business,
[26:28] SPEAKER_00: and advancing it.
[26:29] SPEAKER_00: So that I don't want to stop using, but it is something I think
[26:34] SPEAKER_00: some people on my team would say,
[26:35] SPEAKER_00: oh yeah, we would finish that sentence.
[26:37] SPEAKER_00: But the one word in this business,
[26:39] SPEAKER_00: that mountain valley that I use a lot that some people
[26:41] SPEAKER_00: chime me about is, because we have so many lanes and lanes is the word.
[26:47] SPEAKER_00: You know, that are pursuing, we've got some incredible advancements
[26:50] SPEAKER_00: in husband or animals.
[26:53] SPEAKER_00: We've got incredible advancements again across cancer and delivery
[26:56] SPEAKER_00: technologies.
[26:57] SPEAKER_00: I think we see and we work with cannabinoids and drugs and vaccines
[27:01] SPEAKER_00: and interstitials.
[27:03] SPEAKER_00: So I often use the word lanes.
[27:05] SPEAKER_00: And I guess I overuse a little bit.
[27:07] SPEAKER_00: So some people have asked me to stop using it.
[27:10] SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it's a better word, but it's the second part of that.
[27:14] SPEAKER_00: That comes to mind.
[27:15] SPEAKER_00: A word that I see a lot.
[27:18] SPEAKER_02: That has been really terrific.
[27:20] SPEAKER_02: Really enjoyed the session.
[27:23] SPEAKER_02: How can people get a hold of you?
[27:24] SPEAKER_02: You know, people listen, we've got question.
[27:29] SPEAKER_02: What's the best way for them to get a hold of you?
[27:31] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so you can check more about our company just at mountain valley md.com.
[27:36] SPEAKER_00: In there, there's different ways to reach out to our organization.
[27:39] SPEAKER_00: If you wanted to reach me personally, it's Dennis D M N I S at mountain valley md.com.
[27:46] SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I'd be happy to answer.
[27:48] SPEAKER_00: I have someone get back to your audience with with whatever we can.
[27:51] SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of information, give them are publicly traded about what we do.
[27:56] SPEAKER_00: And all of that stuff's pretty accessible.
[27:59] SPEAKER_02: Well, thanks for coming on camera to this podcast.
[28:01] SPEAKER_02: Really good session.
[28:03] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks Bill.
[28:04] SPEAKER_00: It's really nice to meet you.
[28:04] SPEAKER_00: I appreciate your time.
[28:07] SPEAKER_01: This podcast is brought to you by Schneider Electric, supporting Canadian businesses
[28:12] SPEAKER_01: with innovative energy management and automation solutions.
[28:16] SPEAKER_01: Schneider Electric, your digital partner for sustainability and efficiency.
