About

My parents ran a dairy farm in Eastern Ontario. By twelve I was dealing with employees who were ten and twenty years older than me, and making calls that could cost my parents thousands of dollars if I got them wrong. Earning respect from people at that age teaches you something about leadership that no course does: nobody follows you because of your title.

I started my first business at 19. Over the next three and a half decades I built marketing agencies, grew them, made a great many mistakes, and eventually sold multi-million dollar companies. For eight years I ran one of Ottawa's top digital marketing agencies and built the strongest team I have ever worked with. Then I sold it — and learned that merging two cultures is harder than any spreadsheet suggests.

Through all of it, what I wanted and never had was someone who had already been there. Someone I could trust to tell me the truth and save me time, stress and money. That absence is basically my job description now.

Outside of business, I fly. Helicopters and airplanes both. I also trade the markets, which is where X-15 came from. The two share more than people expect: in a cockpit and in a trade, the discipline is in following the procedure when your instinct is telling you to improvise.