CRAIG SKAUGE

President

OLYMPIA TRUST COMPANY BIO: Entrepreneurial spirit, a focus on relationshipbuilding and an overarching commitment to customers have helped Craig Skauge grow the family business and successfully advocate on the part of customers and the private capital markets industry. Craig sets the tone for the company’s philosophy of “With Us It’s Personal”, ensuring that the highest standards of customer service are experienced by customers at all levels. As the face of Olympia Trust Company, he is a fixture at industry events, directs the marketing department, and oversees strategic direction and innovations, particularly in the area of technology implementation. A tireless advocate for Canada’s private capital markets, Craig is a Founder and Vice Chair of the Private Capital Markets Association and a member of the Alberta Securities Commission’s Exempt Market Dealer Advisory Committee. He was previously a member of the Ontario Securities Commission’s Small and Medium Enterprises Committee and Exempt Market Advisory Committee. Craig established the Olympia Charitable Foundation, a CRA-registered charitable organization, which donates approximately $300,000 annually and has donated well in excess of $1 million to employeechosen causes. Craig is also a long-term volunteer with Dreams Take Flight, a national organization that takes under-privileged and disabled children on a one-day trip to Disneyland each year. As a childhood brain tumor survivor who was aboard the inaugural flight 26 years ago, Craig has gone full circle, becoming an ongoing volunteer, advocate and, through Olympia and his family, one of Dream’s largest annual donors.

THE BEST CAREER ADVICE I EVER RECEIVED: If you’re put in a position where you can learn from entrepreneurs with more experience than you, take it. The business world is obviously very different than 10, 20, 30 years ago but to discount the vast knowledge of those with battle scars from the past is foolish. Learn from their victories and losses. Make work/life balance a priority early in your career.

THE BEST CAREER DECISION I EVER MADE WAS: To advocate on behalf of our entire industry. Having the courage to speak on behalf of our customers to regulators and government had the unintended benefit of putting me in the spotlight and helped separate our company from the pack.