Career advice from B.C. business leaders

Managing director, Aquilini Investment Group Inc.
The best advice I ever heard was something that Einstein said: strive not to be a success, but strive to be of value. That’s always rung true for me.

Founder and majority shareholder, Wall Financial Corp.
When I was about eight or nine years old, my family emigrated from the Ukraine during the war, and we travelled all over Europe. We ended up in Austria because we were trying to…

Terry McBride

Founder and CEO, Nettwerk Music Group
I have to say, I owe my success to not listening to the advice of others. The music business is very central to Toronto, L.A., New York, Nashville and London. Vancouver is not really…

Chair, Goldcorp Inc.
I can’t remember where I first heard this, but it’s a great piece of advice: don’t try to solve tomorrow’s problems today. People sometimes get tied up in knots over what their problem might be tomorrow, instead of…

Managing director, CEO and chair, the Jim Pattison Group
My dad, when I was very young, told me always to be very honest. I never forgot it. I’ve lived by his words ever since, and if anybody asks me for advice,

Peter Busby

Founder and managing director, Busby Perkins+Will

Bramwell Tovey

Music director, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra
When I was 31, I was conducting a show in Aberdeen with the Scottish Ballet, and Peter Hemmings, the creator of the Los Angeles Opera, who was then general manager of the London Symphony Orchestra,

James Shepard

CEO, Canfor Corp.
I was a middle manager at Finning International in 1982, and the business downturn at that time was very severe; we went from 2,400 employees to 1,200. Our CEO at the time, Vin Sood, told us in…

Richard Jaffray

Founder, Cactus Restaurants Ltd.

Chancellor, UBC; chair, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority; chair, B.C. Women’s Hospital & Health Centre Foundation
Very early on in my financial-services career, we were assigned mentors who were more senior people in management. My mentor–and I’m not sure I should…

Gordon Campbell

Premier, British Columbia

Cindy Lee

CEO, T&T Supermarket

Chief, the Tsawwassen First Nation
Ultimately, the best advice is something I’ve heard from many places, which is to be yourself. Now they have a fancy word for it: authenticity. It just means that you can be effective without having to…

B.C. minister of state for intergovernmental relations
My dad used to say, "Always leave room for the possibility that you could be wrong." He also said, "The smarter you are, the more you allow for that possibility of being wrong." Society…

CEO, Richberry Group of Companies
A friend of mine told me a long time ago to never burn a bridge. There may be people that you meet at certain times in your life and don’t appreciate, but you may never know…

Kash Heed

B.C. minister of public safety and solicitor general