Business in Vancouver’s “How I Did It” feature asks business leaders to explain in their own words how they achieved a business goal in the face of significant entrepreneurial challenges. In this week’s issue, Shelia Bouman, a teacher-turned-entrepreneur, talks about change and how embracing it has been good not only for her own career, but also for the companies she has helped work through major transitions, including Peer 1 Hosting, which was acquired by Cogeco Cable last year.
“I started my career as a high school teacher. Even while teaching I had that entrepreneurial mindset. I am more of a risk-taker, probably, than most teachers are. The work I liked was around complex change. I was on a team, and we were the first school in Canada to introduce a program called computer immersion where all 200 of our Grade 8 students had laptops in the classroom.
“I left teaching 16 years ago. I was looking for more autonomy and more earning potential and more change work. When I left teaching, I joined a consulting firm in Vancouver and then became a senior partner of it. … Then a couple of years after that, I started a consulting firm [Navigo Consulting and Coaching] that specializes in organizational strategy and organizational change and Peer 1 was one of my clients.
“[Companies] would hire us if they were trying to make a big change – so if they were trying to implement a big piece of technology, or if they were trying outsource a big part of their business or for a merger or acquisition.
“As a consultant, I probably worked with 50 different organizations. You learn a lot about what makes a business work and not work. About six years ago, Peer 1 was going through a big growth stage and brought me in to work with their executive team around strategy, culture and leadership.
“I worked for them for three years. I would plan and facilitate executive team retreats, trying to build a really strong executive team, working with the executive team to think about their growth strategy. They had just opened up their U.K. office, so that was a question: ‘How do you go global?’
“When their VP of human resources left, the CFO and CEO asked if I would join the company as a replacement [as chief people and performance officer]. I had been with Navigo for almost 10 years. The idea of being part of something new and something growing was really appealing. As chief people and performance officer, that means I worked really closely with the CEO and CFO on strategy.
“When I joined we had maybe 425 employees and this year we’ll end this next fiscal at 600. Most of our growth has been in the U.K. Four years ago we built a new data centre there. We also did and acquisition while I was here of a UK company so that just accelerated the growth also.
“Almost a year and a half ago, Peer 1 was sold to Cogeco Cable. We’re an independent subsidiary under this parent company. About a year later, the CEO decided he would leave the organization, and then [CFO] Gary Sherlock and I were pretty much running the company. Then last April, Gary left the organization and the parent company asked if I would stay and take on this more senior role.
