Keshia Fortune, non-direct recruitment officer (left), and Alexandra Stirling, marketing manager, at George Brown Polytechnic.Supplied
George Brown Polytechnic has a reputation for lifelong learning, but it’s not just for students, says Keshia Fortune.
“I’m literally a lifelong learner,” she says of the array of roles she has held at the institution (formerly George Brown College) over the last 20 years, starting with the part-time jobs she had while studying for her advanced three-year diploma in the school’s human resources program.
Since then, she has worked as an office assistant, special events supervisor and student engagement coordinator, among other roles.
And she’s now working as a non-direct recruitment officer, marketing the school to mature students.
The fears mature students face returning to school is something Fortune understands well, since she has continued to upgrade her own skills and education by taking certificate programs at George Brown at every opportunity and is now taking a bachelor of commerce degree in digital marketing — all while working full-time. And it’s not just the school’s openness to transferring employees into various roles that has helped her over the years. It is the tremendous support she has received from her bosses.
“I’ve honestly had some amazing managers,” she says. One previous manager in particular gave her the confidence to take on new duties. “She built my confidence, and she helped me build my skill set.”
And the push didn’t stop there. Fortune says that a manager encouraged her to go for a degree.
Fortune is not alone in finding George Brown supports staff to surf new career opportunities at its three Toronto campuses.
“I absolutely credit George Brown for their willingness to allow me to grow in so many different areas,” says Nerys Rau, who is now executive director of facilities and sustainability.
Rau had an MBA and a career in project management when she arrived at George Brown to take on a finance, operations and project management role in the health sciences department.
But when George Brown started building its Waterfront Campus in 2009, the VP of corporate services asked her if she would manage the construction of the first building.
“I didn’t have a construction background, but he recognized I could manage the stakeholder management, the budgets, the project management aspect and the coordination with the college,” she says.
“So, I moved over and got deeply involved in the construction and really liked it.”
From there, she moved into managing the conversion of the Pan Am Games Athletes’ Village into a student residence, then became director of the strategic planning office, where she prioritized enterprise projects and developed project management capability across the organization.
Then — without a background in IT — she was asked to be the director of IT operations.
That was when the pandemic hit, and Rau found herself having to convert the whole school to online learning.
In 2021, she was asked to take over the project management for George Brown’s much-praised Limberlost Place: a 10-storey, mass-timber, net-zero building on Queens Quay East.
This breadth of experiences prepared her to take over George Brown’s capital projects portfolio earlier this year, when she was named executive director of facilities and sustainability.
Not bad for someone without a background in construction or IT, never mind being a woman working in what are still mainly male-dominated industries.
But Rau thinks the leadership at George Brown recognizes the benefits new thinking can bring to the table.
“It reflects so positively on George Brown that its recognition of transferable skills allowed me to work in so many different areas.”
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