Canada’s Best Executives 2025

Chief execs get all the glory (at least when things are going well). Five years ago, we decided it was time to change that. And so we present our fifth annual Best Executive Awards, hailing all the leaders—in finance, tech, operations, human resources, sustainability and more—who toil just outside the corner office, doing the often unglamorous work that helps move a company forward.

Rachel MacAdam

VP marketing, Skip (Winnipeg, Man.)

When Rachel MacAdam went looking for a new job after spending 14 years at Air Miles, she had three non-negotiable criteria. First, she wanted to solve tangible problems by working with a consumer brand. Second, she wanted to work with really smart people. And third, she wanted to lend her skills to a company in transition that needed big new ideas—and crucially, one with the nerve to usher them into reality.

She found all three at Skip (formerly SkipTheDishes). Not every marketing executive is genuinely excited by campaign impressions and order-volume numbers, but MacAdam finds momentum in measurable impact.

In less than two years, she transformed her department into a strategic powerhouse and forged deeper partnerships with everyone who affects its success—restaurant brands, retail partners, couriers and consumers. (Also Mad Men star Jon Hamm, whom she brought back to reprise his role in a Skip commercial, quipping “You know, you could totally Skip this” to grocery shoppers and someone awkwardly buying condoms at a convenience store.)

Before she arrived, marketing was mostly about executing restaurant discounts—McDonald’s, for instance, might offer a $5 breakfast voucher, and Skip would advertise it on the platform. But MacAdam saw potential to tap into the company’s data, reach and creative capabilities. She integrated marketing with sales, and launched co-branded TV spots, courier activations with games and free food, and experiential campaigns, like a Barenaked Ladies concert at Toronto’s Yonge-Dundas Square (attendees got vouchers to the Shake Shack across the street).

But one of her first moves—and not a moment too soon—was reclaiming Skip’s Canadian identity. After its 2016 acquisition by a U.K.-based company, Skip had lost its local voice. MacAdam saw a missed opportunity. Research showed that while many Canadians didn’t realize Skip was homegrown, they preferred supporting Canadian brands when given the choice (even before the latest burst of Trump-inspired nationalism). So she led a rebrand—dropping “TheDishes” and adding a maple leaf to the logo.

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Drawing on her experience with Air Miles, she launched Skip+, the company’s first loyalty and subscription program. Pretty much every delivery service has one, but MacAdam designed Skip’s to drive engagement beyond pricing incentives—think playoff tickets, exclusive access to events and travel benefits with WestJet. It attracted 186,000 members in its first month.

“Rachel is constantly asking the question: How do we make this bigger? How do we go deeper on that idea? She’s never satisfied with the first idea—she always knows it could be better,” says Skip CEO Paul Burns. “She has this ability to zoom in and zoom out—to go from big, bold brand ideas at 30,000 feet down to the minutiae of how a promise actually delivers in the real world.”

In short, where others saw a transactional marketing function, MacAdam saw Skip’s potential for mutually beneficial partnerships with big names—and for cementing its place as a brand focused on convenience with a presence in liquor, grocery, pharmacy and other categories beyond restaurant delivery. Once she had a vision, she swiftly steered marketing in that direction—and completely redefined the role of the department in the process. – Liza Agrba

Sarah Chapman

Global chief sustainability officer, Manulife; chief marketing officer, Manulife Wealth & Asset Management (Toronto, Ont.)

Chapman may be Manulife’s first chief sustainability officer, but since joining the life and health insurer in 2020, she’s already boosted sustainable investments worldwide to $48.3 billion. Building on Manulife’s 30-year track record of investing in renewable energy, she’s steered the company toward societal sustainability by also investing in such initiatives as population health research, microlending in developing nations and preserving global heritage sites. These form part of the Impact Agenda, spearheaded by Chapman and implemented in 2022 with the goal of marrying good business with doing good in the world, like funnelling $90 million into community well-being, from setting up a financial literacy program in the Philippines to improving access to cancer screening in the U.S. In the process, she’s also improved the company’s ESG ratings. “We see actions as interrelated, creating shared value,” she says. “Healthier customers are better for business, and better for society and the planet.” – Susan Nerberg

Husein Rahemtulla

COO and co-founder, Fresh Prep (Vancouver, B.C.)

How do you go from zero to 50,000% revenue growth in just 10 years? Well, if you’re Rahemtulla, you hit the gas gently. “In our first few years,” says the co-founder, with Dhruv Sood and Becky Brauer, of the Vancouver-based meal-kit business, “our growth did not out-compete that of our rivals, because we took time to focus on the product, centring on gross margin and investing in sourcing quality ingredients.” Growth speed is relative, of course: The first year saw revenues of $200,000; the second, $1.25 million; and in the third year, the company raked in $6 million.

With more money available not only for recipe development, Rahemtulla oversaw the engineering of Fresh Prep’s own reusable container system, cutting out nearly all single-use plastics. “Zero waste is important to our customers, but the meals we deliver are packaged in a way that simply makes for a better experience—like you’re on a cooking show,” he says. This is a significant factor in customer retention, the metric that truly sets Fresh Prep apart by consistently growing during and post-pandemic—unlike its rivals. Maybe Fresh Prep hasn’t quite gobbled up the competition. But so far, it’s managing growth without getting bloated—all while giving back to the community by donating funds and surplus food to charity. – Susan Nerberg

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Jason Schonfeld

CFO, New Look Vision Group (Saint-Laurent, Que.)

You might think the eyeglasses business is recession-proof. After all, employed or looking, pandemic or not, everyone needs to see clearly. But this wide assumption hasn’t necessarily been good for the industry. “The biggest problem this business faces is complacency,” says Jason Schonfeld, CFO of New Look Vision Group (NVG).

For better or worse, the business model hasn’t changed much in a few centuries—despite the hype heard every decade or two. “When contacts came into play, people said it was the end of eyeglasses, and when laser eye surgery hit the market, people said it all over again,” says Schonfeld. Both times, they were wrong; millions upon millions of bespectacled folk don’t want unnecessary surgery and do want to take their contacts out of their sore eyes ASAP. More still actually just like wearing (increasingly fashionable, arguably cool) glasses.

Even amid the proliferation of digital eyewear companies like Clearly or Kits, whose sales are primarily contacts, most consumers still want a real-life eyewear experience. “They want to see a familiar doctor, they want to try on frames, and they want those frames precisely measured and fitted,” says Schonfeld. Loyal consumers approach their optometrist like they do their dentist—they see the same doctor they always have and don’t change unless they really have to, allowing independently owned optometry operations to survive where other businesses cannot. For now.

“Many optometrists are getting older and want to retire. Others want to be optometrists but not entrepreneurs,” he says. In his 10 years at New Look, Schonfeld has specifically appealed to these sellers, as well as to chains like Iris and Vogue, growing from 70 stores to about 500—and doubling the company’s enterprise value to more than $1 billion.

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During the already uncertain pandemic, NVG went private in 2021, and its CFO retired a year later. No doubt impressed by massive accelerated growth, and reassured by its solid positioning at the crossroads of health care and retail, investors gambled on the New Look management team in general and Schonfeld in particular. As then-SVP of business development and soon-to-be CFO, he spearheaded the changes while keeping 3,000 employees content with their jobs and confident in the future of the eyewear business, which Schonfeld calls “not recession-proof, but recession-resistant.” People shopped less and maybe chose a less expensive frame, but they bought glasses nonetheless. When stores/life finally opened up, consumers flooding back for new specs represented revenue growth of 30%.

With the industry’s healthy cash flow and comfortable margins, Schonfeld cautions it’s “really easy to take your eye off the ball and lose sight of running a business.” NVG’s largest competitor, he explains, isn’t actually a flashy digital chain or trendy surgery but an independent glasses store with ample entrepreneurial spirit. No matter how big NVG gets during Schonfeld’s tenure, he’ll be leveraging the same entrepreneurial zeal to embrace whatever disruption is inevitably up next. “Now new lens technologies are making it so we have different glasses for different things, like driving, working or looking at a computer screen,” he says. Delivering a pair of sight-perfecting specs to a happy customer, says Schonfeld, is eternally rewarding every time. – Rosemary Counter

Deval Pandya

VP, AI Engineering, Vector Institute (Toronto, Ont.)

Pandya cut his teeth integrating machine learning into renewable energy products at Shell—but he’s not just a highly skilled technician, which was key for his next role. When Pandya joined Toronto’s Vector Institute—a not-for-profit co-founded by Geoffrey Hinton, a.k.a. the Godfather of AI—it had a solid reputation for research but no technical team for applied AI. “I love building teams,” Pandya says. “For me, creating an environment where people can genuinely thrive is just as important as the technical work we do.”

The engineering team Pandya built from the ground up serves as the bridge between Vector’s research and real-world applications, contributing to more than 80% of its projects with external partners in industry, government and health care. His powerful combination of technical expertise and people skills helps unlock the real-world potential of AI research—especially for helping curb the climate emergency, an issue he’s deeply passionate about. – Liza Agrba

Valérie Lavoie

EVP, property and casualty insurance, Desjardins Group (Lévis, Que.)

Serving people has been the driving force behind Lavoie’s 30-year career at Desjardins. From her start as a newly minted actuary to her current role, her overarching goal is to keep Desjardins “rooted in the community.” And her climb up the corporate ladder has equipped her with deep institutional knowledge she credits for helping her drive meaningful change. A case in point: the implementation of a client-experience net promoter system to better understand client needs and integrate feedback into its strategy. Lavoie says it was a win for members, employees and shareholders alike—especially during ever-more-frequent crises like the Jasper fires, and flooding in Quebec and Ontario. Lavoie also led the acquisition of the Insurance Co. of PEI in 2024, expanding Desjardins’ commercial lines and diversifying its business.

Despite industry-wide challenges—including the growing frequency of climate events and geopolitical uncertainty—Desjardins has thrived under Lavoie’s leadership, achieving a 5.5% growth rate over the past five years and consistently outperforming the industry average return on equity by 5.5 points since 2019. – Claire Porter Robbins

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Casandra Mangroo

Senior VP of product and science, BenchSci (Toronto, Ont.)

If you like puns, you might describe BenchSci’s growth as having gone viral. Since Casandra Mangroo joined the startup in 2017 to lend her science-first approach to developing solutions to improve preclinical drug discovery and research, she has helped get the company’s AI-powered ASCEND platform into the hands of more than 50,000 researchers worldwide.

With a PhD in virology and a background as a bench researcher in life sciences herself, she knows just how frustrating it can be to gather the scientific and academic articles necessary to build an understanding of the underlying biology of a particular disease. But researchers need that information to determine how to set up clinical trials. “The reason 90% of drugs fail in trial is that researchers couldn’t get the biology right,” Mangroo says about the lack of access to that vital information. “I know first-hand the pain points associated with the preclinical research. The tools, like Google Scholar and ChatGPT, are outdated, or they’re not built for life science work. Information is disparate, it appears in different scientific publications, or it’s hiding in third-party databases.” She even points to bad dictionaries—the use of acronyms and overlapping scientific terms—as co-culprits.

So when Tom Leung, one of the co-founders of BenchSci and a former lab mate of Mangroo’s at the University of Toronto, called to ask if she might join their team to figure out how to apply AI to the preclinical research conundrum, including improving R&D productivity and speed, Mangroo jumped at the opportunity. When she started, after BenchSci’s first funding round, the company had seven staff; today, it employs some 300 people in different roles built around science teams to represent the end users—researchers in the drug discovery field, as well as master’s students and doctoral candidates.

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Drawing on her own experience as a researcher, Mangroo brings subject-matter expertise to create impact within a niche—virology and drug discovery. But her work also goes beyond her own area and into all life sciences by evaluating what goes into the tools that BenchSci is creating. This “science-first” methodology, she explains, puts BenchSci experts and their clients side by side, if you will, as it translates the pain points into solutions that meet end users’ needs.

Take the company’s flagship ASCEND platform: It leverages machine learning to sift through the available scientific and academic literature, and gets information to researchers in seconds. “Instead of reading thousands of papers, you’re reading one,” Mangroo says about what has become the most searchable catalogue of its kind in the world. What started as an academic tool has become a darling of Big Pharma, where it can drive the greatest impact, from US$14 million in cost savings for Novartis in 2021 to a 60% increase in efficiency gains at Novo Nordisk.

In the end, though, ASCEND helps researchers build a solid data foundation so they can make better decisions. Ultimately, as Mangroo puts is, “it comes down to getting better meds to more patients, faster.” – Susan Nerberg

Steph Condra

EVP, chief experience officer, Wellington-Altus Financial (Winnipeg, Man.)

Condra found her calling even before she finished university. While attending school in Waterloo, Ont., a local wealth adviser hired her part-time. “He saw a student who was keen and committed,” she says. “He took a chance on me, and 25 years later, I’m still in the industry.”

That early experience learning the nitty-gritty of wealth management set her up perfectly for her current role as Wellington-Altus’s first-ever chief experience officer. Condra‘s job is to talk to advisers about their dreams for building a business, the experience they want for their clients, the ways they’d like to market or brand and how they want to prioritize their time. “The message for me is consistent,” she says. “We have the tools and resources to help bring those dreams to life.”

In just one year, Condra has delivered impressive results. Wellington-Altus has welcomed 16 new adviser teams, adding $4 billion in assets under administration. And her team has implemented resources that have helped existing advisers generate $1.2 billion in net new client assets. – Claire Porter Robbins

Nav Dhillon

CFO, Aviva Canada (Markham, Ont.)

Last summer marked a record for Canada, but not the good kind: A season of catastrophic floods, fires and hailstorms resulted in insured losses of more than $7 billion—and a ton of corresponding claims for Aviva. Claims team leader Dhillon could have pinched pennies; instead, he got proactive, partnering with auto shops in Ontario and Alberta to remodel Aviva‘s claims strategy, and make cheques easier and faster to obtain. If that doesn’t sound like any insurance company you’ve dealt with before, well, that’s kind of the point. “I see our job as helping people get back on their feet as soon as possible,” says Dhillon, who completed more than $250 million in acquisitions to help fund the good-faith endeavour. While other policy providers are reducing coverage for increasingly common events—flooded basements, sewer backups—Aviva is instead being proactive to accommodate inevitable climate change. “I’m looking forward five, 10, 20 years, and thinking about how to ensure Canadians are prepared.” – Rosemary Counter

Kristy Shortall

EVP development, Northcrest Developments (Toronto, Ont.)

The job description for Shortall’s role as lead on the YZD redevelopment framework for Toronto’s decommisioned Downsview airport could be summarized as an imperative: Create cohesion. That’s no small feat on a project that envisions seven new neighbourhoods built over three decades on 370 acres. To foster integration and continuity, Shortall—who came on board as employee No. 6 five years ago (there are 42 today)—assembled a core team where everyone works for the betterment of the overall project, regardless of their task at hand (community outreach, permitting, environmental resiliency, infrastructure development and more) or which of the seven neighbourhoods team members might eventually focus on. The common spatial element is the old airstrip, re-imagined as a pedestrian spine that connects all seven neighbourhoods. But cohesion also means connecting people to a place that’s been closed off for more than 100 years. “We do that through interim activations, such as inviting the public to an experience centre on site and organizing Sunday Fundays, and we had a skating rink with classes for disadvantaged youth over the winter,” says Shortall. Opportunities for social interaction let people connect the site’s past with the future—and perhaps see themselves there. Despite shovels not hitting the ground until early 2026, YZD is already looking like a model for community-focused urban redevelopment. – Susan Nerberg

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Jacqui Allard

Group head, global wealth management, Scotiabank (Toronto, Ont.)

When Jacqui Allard took the reins as head of Scotiabank’s global wealth management group in December 2023, her team was already a leader in Canadian asset and wealth management. But Allard, whose career has spanned the globe and a variety of bank departments, decided she wanted more for her team—and set her sights on accelerating sales growth and boosting client offerings.

In just under a year and a half, Allard has overseen a strategic refresh affecting more than two million Scotia clients in 13 countries. Her first move was to conduct a comprehensive review to identify which lines of business were primed for growth. “My team wasn’t satisfied with the status quo,” she says. “Finding which of those businesses were right to move to the next level was essential.”

Allard’s leadership style is grounded in listening—both to clients and to her team members who work directly with them. Describing her management philosophy as “client-focused, collaborative and curious,” she emphasized the importance of understanding on-the-ground perspectives. The team then decided to expand retail investment advice for clients in Canada, including by recruiting and empowering specialist advisers in Scotia‘s retail branches, which resulted in an 80% increase in long-term investment fund sales. Allard’s review also pushed to grow Scotia‘s high-net-worth channels in Canada, especially private banking and ScotiaMcLeod. The team increased financial planning services for entrepreneurs and high-net-worth clients by 30% year-over-year and deployed new software to enable a more effective planning process for advisers and clients. Next, she’s looking to add more clients from underserved communities, working with marketing and building partnerships to do so.

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Allard is uniquely oriented for her role at Scotia, with its strong presence in Latin America: After a mentor at her first post-MBA job suggested she try her hand at international work, Allard took a job in Australia, which led to 15 years in Asia and Europe. She has supported her teams to build out wealth management offerings in international offices to lay the foundation for future growth, which has so far delivered double-digit earnings growth in the region, led by Mexico.

On the horizon, Allard understands that clients are looking for long-term advice and relationship building. She notes the greatest challenge over the past year and a half has been market volatility and uncertainty. “What’s important is getting in front of our clients,” says Allard, “making sure they understand the implications, making sure we’re focused on the long term, not the short term, answering their questions and addressing any worries they have.”

Asked how she’ll define success and keep growing in the second year of her leadership, Allard reframes the question. “Ultimately, being the best doesn’t mean being the biggest, but providing enduring shareholder value and delivering the best client outcomes and experiences.” – Claire Porter Robbins

Jason Bubba

COO, NORCAT (Sudbury, Ont.)

Bubba has always been an early adopter. In 1995 when he joined NORCAT—which back then supported the mining industry from a basement at Sudbury’s Cambrian College—e-learning was just becoming a thing. That didn’t stop Bubba from getting the startup to teach mining safety, skills and solutions via CD-ROM. “We were one of the first to adopt e-learning,” says Bubba, a self-described techie. By the time NORCAT moved out of the basement, it had progressed to internet training, in addition to real-life skills development in an underground mine. Today, the company has six offices, including a brand new training facility in Nevada, supported by $832,000 in state funding. And NORCAT now offers mining- and construction-skills assessment and training via virtual and augmented reality—tools that have improved knowledge retention by 40% compared to traditional teaching methods. “With VR and AR, students can immerse themselves in high-tech machinery and develop muscle memory of those tools before actually using them,” Bubba says. “It reduces the initial stress associated with work in a high-hazard environment.” Empowerment is also the name of the game when it comes to employees: “As a leader, I want to inspire teams to do their best within their parameters.” The result: Staff turnover is near zero. By consistently raising the bar for innovation in workforce development, NORCAT has increased its international revenue by some 25%. – Susan Nerberg

Josh Lewis

Chief technical engineer, NERVA Energy Group (Hamilton, Ont.)

Imagine a 100-year-old building: beautiful and historic, perhaps, but environmentally friendly? Probably not. Building owners looking to decarbonize call NERVA, founded in 2017. “We don’t just come in and write a report,” says Lewis. “We take every project on a multiyear, multistep journey to implement guaranteed energy solutions.” More than 500 public- and private-sector projects have undergone NERVA‘s three-part energy makeover: optimization of existing energy systems (an elementary school needn’t be heated all night, for example); conservation (keeping heat from unnecessary escape); and conversion (replacing gas with air- or ground-sourced heat pumps or other energy systems). For its innovative work, Canada‘s fastest-growing energy engineering firm won 10 awards last year alone, including the Clean50 Top Project Award for the epic feat of optimizing 10,000 suites across more than 85 buildings—North America‘s largest multiresidential smart building conversion. – Rosemary Counter

Monisha Sharma

Chief revenue officer, Fig Financial (Montreal, Que.)

Ironically, the better Sharma does at her job, the less loan provider Fig Financial will need her. When a borrower uses the (entirely digital, extra-convenient) lender for an unsecured personal loan—like nearly 15,000 people who’ve borrowed more than $200 million already have—they’ll lower exorbitant credit card rates (easily 20% APR or higher) to something more manageable (Fig starts at 8.99%), of course, but they’ll also get a healthy dose of Sharma‘s real passion: financial literacy for regular folk. “Predatory lenders want you stuck in revolving debt—we want to get you out,” she says. In almost two decades in the financial space, Sharma has done everything from co-hosting a money podcast called Make It Shine to writing the adorable kids’ book Billie Buys a Bicycle. Next up: Fig podcasts, blogs and webinars that teach good financial habits so would-be clients won’t need her services. “I would love to have the problem that every Canadian is so well-versed financially that we don’t need loans,” she says, completely unfazed. In that case, “we’ll come up with other, better products.” – Rosemary Counter

Deepak Pabla

Executive director, Vantage Logistics Services (Dorval, Que.)

The “Great Freight Recession” of 2023 hit logistics provider Vantage hard. Downsizing would have been the simplest move, but Pabla wouldn’t have it. His father was a truck driver, so he could vividly imagine what losing a trucking job during a recession could do to a family. Instead of laying off workers, Pabla pulled every other lever at his disposal to save Vantage hundreds of thousands of dollars. He renegotiated contracts with suppliers, and led a team that analyzed driving patterns to optimize routes and fuel efficiency. He also introduced cross-department training programs that let drivers with down time complete other tasks, like phoning customers, to make sure everyone could bill enough hours to get by. To date, the company hasn’t laid off a single employee. – Liza Agrba

Jayme Minor

VP sales, MAXgreen Windows, Siding & Roofing (Calgary, Alta.)

For Minor, the secret to upping MAXgreen’s business by 480% in just five years was… keeping sales numbers secret from himself. “The trick,” he says, “was not worrying about that and instead focusing on staying true to the new me.” Six years sober, Minor has struggled with anxiety, depression and addiction. “I was a mess,” he says. But after joining MAXgreen and having the opportunity to slowly rebuild his life thanks to an understanding CEO, there’s no stopping him—be it in sales or in creating a space in which employees feel safe sharing vulnerabilities and asking for help. Minor, who’s open about his own battles, has been instrumental in ensuring employee access to mental health resources by setting up a company program that picks up the tab. And MAXgreen also supports mental wellness organizations and events in the broader community. Building a strong business comes down to building trust—in yourself and with customers. “We’re leaders, not bosses,” Minor says. “And in addition to selling windows, we’re here to help.” – Susan Nerberg

Rex Lee

Chief information and technology officer, Canadian Tire Corp. (Toronto, Ont.)

Lee believes AI will be one of the most disruptive forces in history, comparing its impact to that of electricity. That’s why he has pushed Canadian Tire to integrate AI across its operations, from forecasting consumer demand and optimizing inventory to improving store layouts and digital customer experiences. The internal AI tools he introduced are used by 4,500 staff and save an estimated 45 minutes per employee daily. He also helped implement AI shopping assistants that doubled add-to-cart rates and increased purchase intention by 30%. Lee believes that if the retailer intends to stay competitive against global behemoths with massive AI investments, leveraging AI strategically isn’t just beneficial—it’s essential for long-term survival.

He’s not about moving fast and breaking things, though—when an over-time, over-budget project risked long-term system failures, he resisted shortcuts and fought to fix its flaws at the root. You won’t find a more enthusiastic proponent of AI, but for Lee, speed has to be grounded in smart, strategic execution to build things that last. – Liza Agrba

Angie Ng

VP, people and organization, Novo Nordisk Canada (Mississauga, Ont.)

Ng understands the burden women face as primary caregivers maybe better than most. During the pandemic, she balanced the dual responsibility of caring for her young children while also supporting her elderly parents through serious health challenges. She’s also endured profound personal losses. At Novo Nordisk, she turned her grief into a superpower, leading its HR strategy with genuine empathy. The initiatives she’s spearheaded include significantly expanded parental benefits, bereavement leave and mental health coverage. Ng also removed minimum service requirements for parental leave, instituted a 100% top-up, and introduced a partnership that provides employees with backup child care and elder care. Since care-giving responsibilities disproportionately fall to women, her policies have contributed to the company’s retention of women employees—who comprise 63% of its total work force, including 56% in management roles. “It’s not how long you live,” Ng says. “It’s the impact you make.” – Liza Agrba

Helena Pagano

EVP, chief people and culture officer, Sun Life (Global) (Toronto, Ont.)

“On an employee’s first day, it’s more important to make sure they get useful guidance from a skilled manager than to shower them with balloons and cupcakes,” Pagano says. Not that she has anything against cupcakes, but for this HR exec, narrowing 100 good ideas to the few that make the biggest impact—and aligning them with Sun Life’s strategy—is the trickiest part of the job.

To make those calls, Pagano became an early adopter of AI-driven data analytics. Her evidence-based approach to what employees actually need yielded key insights—like championing women’s health initiatives and doubling down on hybrid work when many other companies are calling staff back. It’s working. Since she took on this position in 2018, employee engagement has steadily risen to 88%, four points over the benchmark. Collaboration has also improved, with 95% reporting that their teams work well together, up from 90% when she took over. With an 8% compound annual growth rate across global operations, Pagano’s people-first, data-backed approach is proving that what’s good for employees is also good for business. – Liza Agrba

Louise Clements

Global chief marketing officer, WorkJam (Montreal, Que.)

To take WorkJam from its start as a work-force management app based in Montreal to a global company signing on such clients as Aramark, Shell and Hilton, Clements suggested a complete mindset overhaul. “I took a contrarian approach to the established market presence,” she says. Instead of the usual siloed marketing-gives-a-lead-to-sales-which-in-turn-brings-a-deal approach, Clements established an integrated process centred around teamwork and team revenue: The two teams share the conversion of a lead into an active deal. “Change done well takes time,” says Clements. “In our case, it’s taken 18 to 24 months to get everyone to see that we’re stronger as a team. It’s not for everyone, but it works for us.” Good thing, because thanks to Clements’s unorthodox thinking, WorkJam has increased its revenue by 160% and landed on Time’s ranking of the 100 most influential companies. – Susan Nerberg

Paul Hogan

General manager, international, Conagra Brands (Mississauga, Ont.)

A patchwork of leadership left a strategy vacuum at Conagra, which meant fragmented decision-making and a lack of direction. Momentum stalled, but when Hogan joined as general manager for Canada in 2021, he worked to fix all that. His efforts to rally the organization around a unified strategy with four pillars—brand growth, customer engagement, operational efficiency and talent development—were so successful that he was promoted to lead Conagra‘s international division within six months.

But he didn’t do it with top-down directives. Hogan sees himself as a servant leader, empowering his team with a clear framework, but giving everyone freedom to breathe within it. His results-driven but people-centred leadership set the company’s international segment on a steady upward trajectory—with a compound annual growth rate of 4.7% in net sales and 5.3% in operating profit between 2021 and 2024. “I see myself primarily as a coach,” he says, “but I’m willing to dive into the weeds when needed.” – Liza Agrba

Chadwick Westlake

CFO, OpenText (Waterloo, Ont.)

In his spare time, Westlake renovates and flips homes. Finding and maximizing untapped potential is also his MO at work. After 18 years at Scotiabank, where he became CFO of Canadian banking and global wealth management, Westlake was drawn to the challenge of elevating a lesser-known player. So he left to become CFO of EQ Bank, a mid-size operation with strong fundamentals but little market visibility. Over four years, he helped triple its market cap to become the seventh- largest bank in Canada.

Now, he’s applying that same playbook at OpenText, a more established but, in his view, underappreciated Canadian tech firm. His goal: to clarify its value proposition, reshape investor perception and unlock its next phase of growth—just as he did at EQ. And he’s doing it all while reshaping the role of CFO into a strategic business driver and culture builder. “It’s not just about the math—that’s table stakes,” he says. “The CFO function should create real insight, drive competitive advantage and shape strategy.” – Liza Agrba

Marie-Lucie Paradis

SVP, belairdirect (Toronto, Ont.)

Many insurance executives come from finance or actuarial backgrounds, but not Paradis. Her first job in insurance was processing claims during Montreal’s 1998 ice storm, a natural disaster that left 34 people dead, and caused massive damage to property and infrastructure. “Being on the phone with customers, and genuinely empathizing with the emotional weight of that event, taught me how important insurance is for society—how we got customers back on track after that event,” she says. “And that is the true purpose of what we do.”

That customer-centered approach shaped her career as Paradis climbed the ranks from sales and claims to senior leadership. Last year, she oversaw the conversion of a major acquired book, Johnson Insurance, into Intact’s operations—a transformation that required system migrations, process overhauls and a focused customer retention strategy.

While others might have taken a more conservative approach, she led efforts to double down on marketing, expand digital capabilities and hire more staff to make sure someone was always there when a customer called. Despite the turbulence, Paradis drove the highest rate of growth the company had seen in a decade. – Liza Agrba

Stephanie McDonald

Chief people, culture and transformation officer, MDA Space (Brampton, Ont.)

You could say McDonald takes an orbital view to MDA Space. Seeing the company and all its diverse parts from above, she’s charted a new course that better leverages in-house capabilities to match outside possibilities—in essence, disrupting inertia and bringing in a novel approach to building growth. “We’re expanding as an organization, but to be future-proof, we needed a new organizational structure,” says McDonald, adding that MDA could no longer rely on processes that worked in the company’s 55-year past. The baseline reset is rooted in bringing disparate units together. Engineers in one business arm do different things than engineers in another, so McDonald launched MDA‘s Senior Leadership Forum—a unified leadership cohort that shares ideas, knowledge and viewpoints to create what she calls “collective brain power.” McDonald’s vision is already paying off, with more change in the past two years than in the past decade, leading to opportunities for more than 1,500 new hires. – Susan Nerberg

Corey Pacht

Partner and EVP of operations, Fitzrovia (Toronto, Ont.)

Pacht’s career began in the world of investment banking and real estate private equity, but he wanted to be closer to the action—that is, to what happens after capital is deployed. That led him from finance to operations, a shift that’s defined his leadership approach at Fitzrovia. When he joined in 2020, the young rental development company was vertically integrating everything from design to construction and property management. Pacht saw an opportunity not just to oversee investments but to shape how the company actually delivered on them.

He built a thorough operational playbook, helped scale the team from 20 to nearly 400, and made sure that every part of the business fed into a collaborative feedback loop. Under his leadership, Fitzrovia—with 9,000 units already completed—is on track to add 2,000 by 2026 and 6,000 by 2028. He had a 35% tour-to-lease ratio in 2023 (more than triple the industry average) and played a key role in raising the $1.1-billion DevCore Fund, giving the company $2 billion in purchasing power to expand rental housing in the GTA. From finance to operations, Pacht has always gravitated to where the tangible work gets done. – Liza Agrba

Mandy Mail

EVP, head of marketing, corporate affairs and GreenShield Cares, GreenShield (Toronto, Ont.)

When Mail started with GreenShield three years ago, the non-profit was just launching a new strategic plan: to go from selling health and dental insurance to providing health services. That included acquiring and unifying more than 50 brands under one banner, a task that saw Mail guiding the breakdown of silos and pinpointing commonalities. “We had to update every touchpoint and get all of those brands to speak the same language—making the old GreenShield see itself as one company,” says Mail. The strategy paid off: The company hit its target to double revenues to more than $5 billion two years early, in 2023, which in turn helped usher the company into health-provider mode. In the past, excess earnings would be handed out as cheques to charities. Under the new model, that surplus is invested in creating a positive social impact. “For instance, we’ve acquired three mental health companies and now offer free mental health care to underserved communities—Indigenous, BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and low-income persons,” Mail says. “And we work directly with community partners to drive measurable impact, such as ensuring each individual gets culturally appropriate care.” All of this is currently being scaled up: By leveraging $75 million of the excess earnings, GreenShield is on track to help a million Canadians by the end of 2025. – Susan Nerberg

Eugene Lei

CFO, Hudbay Minerals (Toronto, Ont.)

Lei is leading one of the mining industry’s biggest financial pivots: transforming the company’s balance sheet from one of the highest debt leverage positions to the lowest in its peer group. His managerial perspective to steer the company through the transition was gleaned from his days managing a team of junior investment bankers: Give the team the bigger picture. Having worked his way up the ranks in investment banking for 12 years, and then throughout 13 years at Hudbay, he says every level of team member, from finance to operations, needs to know how their work contributes to a bigger goal. “For us, deleveraging was the key to unlocking reinvestment in the company, enabling growth and creating value,” says Lei.

Though he’s only been in the CFO role for two and a half years, he describes time itself as his biggest stumbling block, since proving oneself each quarter amid market volatility can be relentless. Nonetheless, under his leadership Hudbay has achieved market-recognized success—its share price surged 60% in 2024, compared to an average of 11% among its peer group. As a result, Hudbay finished the year with the highest market capitalization in its history. – Claire Porter Robbins

Jason Ashdown

Co-founder & chief sustainability officer, Skyline (Guelph, Ont.)

Unlike many real estate dynamos, Ashdown wasn’t born with the proverbial silver spoon. “I grew up with a single mom, quickly learned to be handy and was always hustling to turn a buck,” he says. All have since proven formative for Ashdown, who began serving the most precarious of renters—university students—with a single residential investment (he lived in the basement, naturally). Skyline—officially launched in 1999—bought up 52 rental houses in record time and soon expanded into apartment buildings.

About 1,000 Skyline employees now oversee more than 20,000 apartments in 200-plus multiresidential properties, and Ashdown’s built-in empathy has helped to create space for lower-income community members, as well. Last year’s 10 Shelldale Cres. project, for example—to which Skyline donated $2.7 million in land and resources to help build—provides new permanent housing in Guelph for people who’ve experienced homelessness, complete with on-site mental health and addiction support services. –Rosemary Counter

Aaron Bennett

Chief investment officer, University Pension Plan (Toronto, Ont.)

Much has changed since Bennett became the first chief investment officer of the University Pension Plan (UPP) in its inaugural year—launched in the midst of the pandemic. “We turned on the lights in July 2021,” he recalls, and immediately set out to build a high-performing team with a bold goal: reaching net-zero portfolio emissions by 2040. With the right team in place, UPP quickly executed its first infrastructure co-investment, and gained momentum as more university and sector associations joined. Today, UPP serves 41,000 members. As CIO, Bennett oversees UPP’s responsible investment mandate, which delivered an impressive 10.2% annual return in 2023 and crossed the $1 billion threshold in private market deals the following year. Even amid market volatility, his team remains steadfast in its responsible investing approach. “This isn’t about imposing values,” he says. “It’s about unique opportunities to capture returns and a different lens to manage risk.” – Claire Porter Robbins

Meaghan Whitney

Chief people officer, Blackline Safety (Calgary, Alta.)

When you see the whole human, you’re better positioned to manage costs, boost staff retention and improve financial performance. For Blackline Safety, which makes wearable safety equipment and responds to workplace emergencies, the whole-human approach means ensuring employee safety—both physical and psychological. “Creating a thriving, growing company is all about inclusion and belonging,” says Whitney, who’s been at the helm of Blackline’s organizational restructuring since 2022. Part of her job has been to dispel the myth that HR is not part of company strategy by fostering a sense of ownership. She’s set up tangible ways for employees to voice their opinions and ideas, through regular focus groups, town halls, annual surveys and feedback forms, leading to an 82% increase in employee engagement and 82% improvement in loss reduction. What’s more, Whitney’s whole-human strategy and organizational shakeup has enabled staff to access educational assistance of up to $2,500 per person for upgrading skills to access promotions or move laterally within the company. And then there’s the $5,000 for mental wellness to staff in Canada. Little wonder people don’t want to leave, or that Blackline’s expansion has gone from 280 staff to more than 600 in 18 countries during Whitney’s tenure. Giving fosters giving. – Susan Nerberg

This article has been updated to clarify that Skyline is a for-profit housing provider that also contributes to community support initiatives, including the donation of land and resources to the 10 Shelldale Cres. Project, which is managed by a non-profit landlord.

A previous version of this article incorrectly suggested that the CEO of New Look Vision Group stepped down in 2022. It was the company’s previous CFO who stepped down. This version has been updated.