From sponsoring sports teams to funding charitable causes to volunteering with non-profits, the Top 50 CEOs are present in the best sense of the word.

—Dawn Chafe

 

Most corporate recognition programs jump right to the bottom line. How big is the organization? How much money does it make? How much has it grown? That’s newsworthy, of course, but it’s still only a fraction of the story. As a bi-monthly publication, Atlantic Business Magazine has the advantage of going beyond the news of the day. We deliver the backstory. 

And the backstory to the Top 50 CEO awards begins over 24 years ago, when we committed to doing something that was a true and authentic representation of Atlantic Canada’s corporate leadership excellence. Deliberate emphasis on Atlantic Canada. While businesses everywhere are united by numbers—revenue and expenditure, profit and loss—we found, over the course of our 33 years sharing Atlantic Canada’s business stories, that we have something very special here. 

Not only are our best corporate leaders the ones who deliver positive financial results, but they are also committed to improving the local quality of life. Driven, perhaps, by the “small-town” feel of the region, our leaders don’t merely exist here: they are part of the community. 

As active community members, they provide employment opportunities enabling families to stay and grow in the region and—and this is the crucial difference—they expect themselves and their peers to give generously of their personal and corporate resources. From sponsoring sports teams to funding charitable causes to volunteering with non-profits, the Top 50 CEOs are present in the best sense of the word. And that’s just as true now as it was when we launched these awards. 

One example that comes to mind emerged around this time last year, when Dalhousie invited us to partner with university business schools across Atlantic Canada around the Atlantic Promise Scholars program. This unique initiative is designed to increase classroom and boardroom opportunities for Black and Indigenous students through financial supports, meaningful work experiences and professional/peer mentoring opportunities. 

Research conducted by Dal’s Faculty of Management had shown that less than point-five per cent (yes, less than half a per cent) of students in their program were either African Nova Scotian or Mi’kmaq. “That’s hugely important to us because that’s the local communities for Dalhousie and we have a particular obligation to those communities,” said dean Kim Brooks. 

It wasn’t just a Dalhousie trend, either. At every business school in every university throughout Atlantic Canada, Black and Indigenous scholars are woefully underrepresented. And if they’re underrepresented in school, they’re next to nonexistent in regional c-suites and boardrooms. The universities hoped to radically, immediately, change that trend through Promise Scholars. 

As part of Atlantic Business Magazine’s promotional contribution, we shared information on our website, in our ABMInsider newsletter and on social media. We told people what the program was, how it worked and how to follow up if they were interested. Not surprisingly, a number of regional CEOs (both Top 50 and others) stepped forward. 

With the support of the corporate community, Promise Scholars has started to reshape business education and boardrooms to be more inclusive of these traditionally marginalized groups. 

A second and more recent example emerged following my March 22 ABMInsider newsletter about the unprovoked attack on Ukraine. Heartbroken over Russian atrocities, my post was a cri de coeur: what, if anything, can individual Atlantic Canadians do to support Ukraine in an immediately tangible way? 

A few hours later, the answer was delivered via email from Dianne Kelderman, president and CEO of both the Nova Scotia Cooperative Council and Atlantic Economics—and 2014 Top 50 CEO Hall of Fame inductee. 

After acknowledging we don’t have the power to stop Putin, she posited that we do have the power and ability to help the Ukrainian people. What if… she asked, what if corporate leaders in the region each contributed a thousand dollars to an ABM Atlantic/Ukrainian fund? And what if we used that money to sponsor Ukrainian families to find safe harbor in Atlantic Canada? 

Explaining that it costs approximately $40,000 to sponsor a family of four, Dianne contributed the first thousand; we contributed the second. But it didn’t stop there. Other Top 50 Hall of Fame contributors soon included Frank Coleman from N.L.’s Coleman Group of Companies and Jack Kelly from Bulk Carriers (P.E.I.) Limited. 

Will we reach Dianne’s goal of sponsoring 12 families, three in each Atlantic province? Can Atlantic Promise Scholars count on regional leaders to help them build rewarding careers for Black and Indigenous students? 

I don’t doubt it for a second. This is Atlantic Canada; giving back is what we do. 

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—DAWN CHAFE started with Atlantic Business Magazine as a freelancer in 1996. She became editor in 1998 and co-owner in 2019.