Debra Hewson, CEO, Odlum Brown

Debra Hewson, CEO, Odlum Brown | BCBusiness
Debra Hewson, a 21-year veteran of Odlum Brown, fell into the investing world due to a lucky investment in a small mining company.

After netting 1,000 per cent on her first investment, Debra Hewson had found her calling. Today the president and CEO of Odlum Brown does her best to make sure the returns keep rolling in.

The glass-and-wood accented reception area of the Odlum Brown Ltd. offices is quiet, but a string of suited professionals coming and going hints at the hive of activity beyond the lobby. 


Dressed in turquoise and purple, Debra Hewson doesn’t fit Hollywood’s version of a suit-and-tie broker, but if a corner office is the mark of success, Hewson has hit the big time; hers has a sweeping view of the Vancouver harbour. “When I first came here, this building wasn’t even built,” she reminisces, glancing out one of the floor-to-ceiling windows of her corner office. The Vancouver head office houses more than 50 financial advisors, and from here Hewson oversees a firm with six offices in B.C., handling about $7 billion in client assets.


A 21-year veteran of Odlum Brown, Hewson became president and CEO in 2007. Her working habits have changed slightly – she now comes in at 8 a.m., rather than the brokers’ starting time of 6:30 – but Hewson still loves the thrill her industry provides. “It has days where it’s crazy,” she says. “But then it’s over and you think, ‘oh, that was really fun.”’ 


After she finished a bachelor’s degree in political science at UBC, Hewson’s first taste of the financial world came as a teller at the Bank of Montreal. “I hated it,” she says. “I knew enough about myself to know that I liked the more collegial atmosphere of a smaller place.” Her introduction to investing was something of a fluke: on a tip from a friend, she made her first stock investment in a local mining company and saw $1,200 turn into $12,000. She describes it as “really just luck,” but she was hooked. She secured a junior clerk position at Canarim Investment Corp. before moving on to Pemberton Securities Ltd., then a fixed-income desk at Dominion Securities Inc., then landing at Odlum Brown in 1991.


For three years running the Winnipeg native has been named to the Women’s Executive Network’s list of Canada’s Most Powerful Women. While she appreciates the recognition, Hewson admits to being a bit tired of discussions about the rarity of women reaching the upper echelon of the investment industry: “The conversation is not just about diversity in gender, but diversity everywhere. To me it’s about focusing on who’s the right person for the job.” Hewson embodies a quiet confidence, casually mentioning that she believes her firm to be “the best independent investment dealer in the country,” then, in the next breath, emphatically stating that her goal for the company is “not to be bigger; it’s certainly to be better.”


Odlum Brown’s 90-year anniversary in 2013 is an impressive milestone, but more remarkable is that the firm remains unaffiliated with a larger corporation, and independence has benefits: the firm is employee-owned and its stock is shared throughout the company. Furthermore, “it means we can offer un-conflicted advice,” Hewson notes.


Many Odlum Brown clients fared better than most during the recent recession: the firm’s hypothetical “model portfolio” has notched compound annual returns of 1.8 per cent since 2007 – modest, yes, but better than the loss of 1.2 per cent for the S&P/TSX Total Return Index. Nevertheless, Hewson says close client relationships enjoyed by Odlum Brown’s advisors made 2008’s financial meltdown hard to swallow. “It’s very difficult to see your clients upset,” offers Hewson. But while she describes current conditions in the investment industry as uncertain, the recession forced a pause for reflection, allowing the firm to “look at how we do things, how we evaluate risk, how we position ourselves. That’s not a bad thing,” she notes.

Beyond her professional career, Hewson proudly divulges that the eldest of her three children is moving across the country to begin university in a month “to the day,” she says, with a quick laugh. The stress of multi-million-dollar deals has nothing on the first step toward becoming an empty nester. “It’s just sort of hit me: I don’t think I’m ready for this.”