Sometimes the best time for an executive to take a risk is when they can least afford to do it. When Jon McKenzie was named the new CEO of Cenovus Energy , he owed the move in part to a decision he made in early 2020, when he was still the COO and the company had barely survived the early stages of the pandemic. Now, he thought, was the time to acquire another oil company, Husky Energy.
Sim started her career on the proverbial bottom rung of Canada’s oldest bank when she joined as a junior C++ software developer 22 years ago. Now, she leads a team of more than 1,500 across three continents, and is effectively responsible for the technological infrastructure that keeps BMO running. During COVID-19, she oversaw the bank’s transition to remote work, including an organization-wide rollout of Microsoft Teams—which would normally take two years—in just a few months.
One of the first projects Zitouni spearheaded was figuring out how to minimize the amount of time it took an online customer to get an insurance quote. “In our world, quotes can turn into sales, and we knew we had to shrink how long people were waiting,” she says. In 2015, the average wait was nine to 10 minutes. Zitouni and her team got it down to three minutes. “You need to have a clear vision of how to execute an idea.
At Intact, one idea that stands out for Zitouni is its new mobile crash assist feature, which detects accidents and contacts emergency services with one tap. “Innovation is about making better experiences for people,” she says, “and really, it only matters when it ends up in the hands of the customers.”Education is about changing yourself. But it seems the same applies to a career in education tech-nology, given Auger’s 20-year journey as part of D2L’s founding team.
So honoured to see Mélanie Lavoie from VOSKER on this list !