Job Talks Podcast

Our guest this week is Mark Rector, a passionate public speaker, and recently retired Professor of Electronics Engineering with a speciality in telecommunications. Mark has written many technical articles, contributed to nationally published textbooks, and in the fall of 2018 released his first book, “OH CANADA! Our Home and Inventive Land.” His book is in its 4th printing and has sold more than 2000 copies to date. “OH CANADA,” contains more than 200 interesting and inspirational stories about innovative Canadian’s and their inventions.

This week’s guest is Andrew Pariser, Vice President of RESCON (Residential Construction Council of Ontario). Andrew is an expert in labour relations. He gained much experience working for the Ministry of Labour and has a Master’s in Labour and Industrial Relations (MIR) from Queen’s University. He negotiates agreements among groups of people with different needs and goals in diverse settings.

RESCON is Ontario’s leading association of residential builders. Their mission is to stay committed to providing leadership and fostering innovation in the industry.

This week’s guest is Dr. Robert Luke, Chief Executive Officer at eCampusOntario and "enabler of the innovation economy." He was previously the Vice President of Research and Innovation at OCAD (Ontario College of Art and Design) and at George Brown College. 

eCampusOntario is a provincially funded, non-profit organization that leads a consortium of the province’s 48 publicly-funded colleges, universities and indigenous institutions to develop and test online learning tools. Their mission is to promote accessibility, collaboration, and innovation in online and technology-enabled learning that will enhance learner experience, support faculty development, and extend Ontario’s global reach. 

This week’s guest is Melanie Drouin, the Regional Director and a Senior Consultant at Great Place to Work® Canada. She joined GPTW following a successful 20-year career in Marketing Research. Having personally managed, coached & grown people in fast-paced, high-stress, multicultural environments while working with clients from all industries, Melanie learned first-hand the value of people-centered leadership. 

She believes “that the success of an organization is based on its culture and leader’s ability to elicit the best out of people” and she has had the opportunity to train, coach, and mentor a wide variety of people from around the globe.

This week’s guest, Michael Landsberg, is a Canadian broadcaster and an avid mental health advocate. He has been working for TSN – The Sports Network (Canada) for over 31 years. Previously the host of SportsDesk and Off the Record, he now hosts First Up on TSN 1050.

Michael is the founder of SickNotWeak, which aims to help people “understand that mental illness is a sickness, NOT a weakness.” Via initiatives like his Daily Landsblog and Isolation Nation (video series), he hopes to “create a community of people who come to gain strength, and stay to give strength.” Michael is a mentor to many people, including those who suffer with depression and their loved ones.

This week’s guest is former defensive back for both the Hamilton Tiger Cats and the Toronto Argonauts, Jonathan Hood. He is a professional speaker, a personal and corporate coach, as well as a PhD candidate in Kinesiology at the University of Toronto.

Jonathan is the founder of the Ahead of the Game youth mentorship program which over the past 10 years has helped more than 2000 diverse young people achieve their goals. He hopes to help “sharpen” today’s youth so that they may become better leaders in the future.

This week’s guest is Agnes Watkinson, a highly sought-after guest speaker and the owner and co-founder of NextGen Professional. NextGen is a recruitment and mentorship community that “addresses the skilled labour shortage by connecting and training talented, passionate workers with progressive construction leaders.”

They operate under a three pillar approach that aims to first raise awareness of the personnel shortage in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction industries, then recruit all levels of personnel and finally provide leadership coaching via classroom seminars and personal, one-to-one mentoring.

This week’s guest is Derek Kent, a global Chief Marketing Officer and the founder of Alter Empire, a strategic brand communications company. Derek enjoyed a 7 year career as the CMO for the Canadian Olympic Committee, during which he and his team created the freshly envisioned Canadian Olympic House (COH) for the 2018 Pyeongchang Games. Derek spent 8 years working for Nike, including occupying the role of U.S. Media Relations Director at their headquarters in New York City. In addition to all of this, Derek is a compelling storyteller who helps “push boundaries, elevating brands to the top of their game.”

Tiffiny Lai is the founder of Plantiful and Co., a passion project which sprouted during and because of the current global pandemic. It is both an online, social-media based plant boutique and a plant styling service that aims to “bring more life to life.” 

Prior to taking this pivot in her career path, she worked for the National Basketball Association for over four years. She started working on social responsibility projects for the NBA and eventually became an associate manager for merchandising and events, among other roles. She is currently working on her orthomolecular health practitioner nutrition certification. 

This week’s guest is Georges Awaad, an inspiring undergraduate student of linguistics at McGill University. He is just 21 years old and can speak 19 different languages. Georges currently teaches Chinese language to primary school students at École Montessori de Laval and as his LinkedIn profile will tell you, he “seek[s] to use [his] language and communication skills to inspire people from all over the world to look past language and cultural barriers and to see the authentic nature in everyone.”