THE INNOVATOR

When people told Janice Larocque her dream of opening a new type of staffing agency was doomed to fail, she used it as inspiration to work harder. Nineteen years later, she’s more than proved them wrong.

Kirstine Stewart has gone from media exec to tech star, but her most recent career move scared her the most: leaving one job without having another lined up.

After two years as vice-president of media for Twitter (and three years as head of Twitter Canada before that), Kirstine Stewart was feeling what she sometimes describes as a “knock, knock, knock”—a sense that, as awesome as her job was, it would soon be time to find something else.

She’d had the itch before, most recently as an executive vice-president of CBC. The first woman and youngest person to oversee English services, Kirstine left the broadcaster for the Twitter gig. Before that, she was in another top job at CBC, and previously had senior posts at Alliance Atlantis and the Hallmark Channel—all for around three years. Clearly, she had a pattern. But this time was different: Kirstine had no idea what her next position would be when she gave her notice.

“Even though I have this reputation of being a risk-taker, I have also made sure my next step was evident to me before I left,” she says. “That had a lot to do with the industry I chose to be in. In media, there aren’t a lot of jobs, particularly those more senior positions. So moving from Alliance Atlantis [to CBC], for example, or from CBC to Twitter—those look like big, risky moves, and in a lot of ways they were, but I knew what I was going to do next.”

When she stepped down from Twitter, Kirstine was inspired by peers there and in the tech world who opted to leave jobs without having something else in the wings. They were eventually offered interesting, exciting and surprising opportunities they might not have pursued on their own.

And she was prepared. “I knew I wanted to do this, so I actually saved up for it—just in case,” says Kirstine. “And it did take until this part of my career to be able to afford to do it. Like a lot of people, I work paycheque to paycheque—there is no trust fund waiting for me.”

The risk paid off: After fewer than six weeks of unemployment, she signed on as chief strategy officer with Diply, an under-the-radar media company that aggregates shareable content (think list-style articles, viral videos and inspirational/tear-jerking stories).

“I ended up at a company I didn’t even know existed—i had to Google them when they contacted me! But they’re an amazing company looking for that next stage of growth,” she says.

The experience has affirmed Kirstine’s view on taking chances. “You need to take risks because they aren’t really risks, they’re actually decisions you make about where you want to go next,” she says. “They might not be predictable and they might not be safe, but at the same time, you’re taking a bit of control—you’re the one making that decision; you’re not waiting for someone else to.”

This approach is particularly useful for women, people of colour and other minorities; we might not read as stereotypical leaders, but Kirstine thinks that might be our greatest opportunity. “I find that people who are very set in their careers don’t want to take risks because of the reputation costs. But for people who maybe have a harder time than traditional leaders getting ahead, then it’s the way to forge a different path.”

Janice Larocque has always liked a challenge. “When I look back, my first office job was for a company that was newly developed, and I was responsible for setting it up and had no clue how!” she says. “I had to put payroll in place, order the office supplies and work with all the sales reps—and I was fresh from [working at] A&W.”

Yet, the gig taught her what she needed to know about running an office. That knowledge came in handy in 1998 when she started Spirit Staffing and Consulting, a job-placement agency aimed at connecting Indigenous peoples and others traditionally underrepresented in Alberta’s workforce with jobs.

That year, while on staff at an Indigenous employment and training centre in Calgary, Janice—a single mother—was tasked with encouraging local companies to hire the agency’s clients. But having worked there for nearly a decade, Janice knew this approach wasn’t very effective. Instead, she saw an opportunity: start her own agency and establish connections with small business and multinational companies that used staffing agencies to supply temporary workers, then send them résumés from individuals who were, for whatever reason, not being fairly considered. That included Indigenous peoples, people of colour and even those from other provinces. “Workers from Newfoundland often found it difficult to get consideration for a job because of their strong accents,” says Janice. “But once I got their résumés to the table, they were able to get employment opportunities.”

It was a bold, and clearly necessary, idea—not least because Alberta was in the middle of a recession, which Janice didn’t realize at first. But discouragingly, few people believed she could make Spirit Staffing work, including bankers,

“I was able to borrow a million dollars! [The bank was] willing t o work with me, which was probably the most satisfying thing to happen in year s . ”

who weren’t willing to loan her the money she needed to grow.

“I didn’t have a lot of equity, so I went to the mainstream banks and, of course, they wouldn’t even consider loans,” she says. “But I was lucky because the Alberta Women Entrepreneurs [a notfor-profit aimed at helping women build successful businesses] believed in my dream, and they gave me five loans.”

Even after she secured the funds and made her payments on time, banks still didn’t trust her; when she opened her first business account, the bank manager approved a $15,000 line of credit—but held $10,000 as collateral. The funds were released only three years ago. “They held [the credit line] captive for 15 years,” she says. “That’s how much faith they had in me. But I think it just made me work harder.”

Janice’s dedication has paid off. The company now has four divisions: office and administration, industrial, certified safety training and Indigenous specialty projects (for organizations doing work on First Nations land), plus a second branch in Edmonton, which is run by Janice’s sister Beatrice.

And she and the banks get along just fine now, says Janice. “Things have changed—we’re working with some of the largest companies in Canada to help with [the aftermath of] the Fort Mcmurray fire. We’re responsible for making sure up to 500 people get their paycheques, and we secured financing [so] we could pay them. I was able to borrow a million dollars! [The bank was] willing to work with me, which was probably the most satisfying thing to happen in years.”

It’s no surprise that Janice is often lauded for her hard work and business acumen. Spirit Staffing is owned entirely by Indigenous women (Janice is Métis), and in 2015, the company was recognized by the Council for the Advancement of Native Development Officers, the Calgary Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Aboriginal and Minority Supplier Council. That year, Janice was also awarded the Telus Trailblazer Award at the RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Awards, which are presented by Women of Influence.

But perhaps the most rewarding accolade is the company’s enduring success—even now, during another rough patch in Alberta’s economy, Spirit Staffing is holding strong, something Janice credits to the relationships she’s spent many years building.