Andrea Shaw finds herself one floor below where her desk was during her days as the Vancouver 2010 Bid Corp.’s communications head, reflecting on a career that has gone full-circle with peaks and valleys along the way.
“Every day is an opportunity to bring colour into other people’s lives, personally and professionally,” Shaw said, surveying her busy Twentyten Group team on the northeast corner of the Landing’s fourth floor, where a couple of familiar blue VANOC workforce jackets hang on the coat rack by the reception area.
Hers is not a typical journey in the world of sports marketing.
The Chatham, Ontario-native gained a nursing degree from McGill University in 1979 and added an education degree four years later. On the verge of moving across country for a job at the Whistler Village medical clinic in 1986, Shaw instead took an out-of-left field offer from CIBC to be the consumer promotions manager handling the Blue Jays account. She won over the bank recruiters with a simple interview pitch.
“You’re marketing and communicating with your customers, the absolute necessary skill set you need is someone who can listen well and respond to the needs of others,” she said. “I’ve been a teacher, I’ve been a nurse and there’s no better listeners and therefore no better person to deliver on the need.”
The Blue Jays were Toronto’s No. 1 sports property and moved into the SkyDome in 1989. That’s when Shaw got another chance to go west. Elliott Kerr, head of the Landmark Group sports marketing agency, convinced her to open a Vancouver branch from scratch. After many lean months, she landed the Vancouver Sun Run as her first contract.
“Doug and Diane Clement [are] the most fantastic people to work with, and I never looked back,” Shaw said. “Once I got one account, the business continued to grow.”
Shaw helped clients capitalize on the Molson Indy Vancouver, 1994 Victoria Commonwealth Games and the Vancouver Canucks’ move to General Motors Place. She bought Kerr’s interest in the Vancouver office and, in turn, sold to international giant API in 1998. Heading API’s Canadian operations prepared her for the Olympics.
Victoria 1994 marketing vice-president Linda Oglov recruited Shaw to join the bid in 2001. Shaw was determined to go independent after Vancouver won the International Olympic Committee vote in 2003. Then she got a call from VANOC CEO John Furlong and executive vice-president of marketing, revenue and communication Dave Cobb in November 2004.
“John carried on with the vision that we had created in the bid. The higher calling of the Games was about people,” she said. “If his vision had been about a two-week sporting event, I would not have gone back.”
As vice-president of sponsorship sales and marketing, Shaw led VANOC’s early surge that resulted in a record $760 million in cash and goods and services, despite the recession.
“We turned it around and tried to find the opportunity in the difficulty,” she said. “We elevated sponsorship to true partnerships. It wasn’t about being a property and going out and securing X amount of dollars so we could fund the Games. It was about bringing the best and brightest companies with aligned vision. They understood what we were trying to achieve; we understood what they were trying to achieve.”
“There’s no one quite like Andrea on the Canadian landscape,” said Bell corporate and Olympic marketing vice-president Loring Phinney. “Not only is she one of the most recognizable women in sport, but she’s one of the most enthusiastic people in business. There’s nothing that Andrea can’t accomplish if she puts her mind to it. It’s pure work ethic. She never slows down; her brain is always working.”
With the Games rapidly approaching, Shaw pondered her post-Games future.
“That ‘a-ha’ moment was sitting about a year out from the Games thinking these people are too great to let go. I knew they’d all be offered jobs and be taken in a minute. I needed to make a commitment, jump off the cliff, Andrea, and make it happen!”
She hired four VANOC “stars” – Bill Cooper, Rob Mullowney, Breedon Grauer and Catherine Locke – with six months to go and opened the Twentyten Group in June 2010. A Toronto office followed last November to be closer to the Canadian Olympic Committee; Shaw is helping it ink post-London 2012 deals with many of the sponsors she helped sign for Vancouver 2010.
But the biggest challenge of her life and career suddenly came as she prepared for 2010’s last quarter. An unscheduled, but seemingly routine, checkup detected colon cancer. She briefly toyed with the idea of closing the business. That was not her style.
She remembers telling son Ryan, daughter Leah and her Twentyten Group staff: “The bad news is I have cancer; the good news is cancer doesn’t have me, and I’m going to beat it. I couldn’t afford to think any differently.”
Furlong, she said, was her “greatest coach” through the turmoil. She didn’t want her children to see her suffer, so she immersed herself in work at home, galvanizing energy for the battle.
“These guys [at the office] went to the front line and showed what they are made of, and they won business without me, they delivered the business without me,” she said. “They showed up. Olympic-calibre bench strength.”
Then came a January 17, 2011, checkup. She hoped her doctor would simply tell her she was making progress. But the news was better. She was cured.
Shaw said the company nearly broke even after its first year of business. Staff left a July company retreat in Whistler with bonuses and a vision for the company’s next five years.
“I said to these guys when we left Whistler, 2010 was supposed to be the greatest year of my life, and it was the worst year of my life, and now, 2011 has been that much better. And they’re just going to get greater.” •
