JONATHAN GITLIN

President and chief operating officer at RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust

What is your ‘big idea’ in the fight against poverty in the GTA?

The Small Business Catalyzer program came together following a round-table spearheaded by United Way and BMO. The idea is to take all of our combined business expertise and lend it to people from the community who have a great entrepreneurial idea but who lack advice or the money to (act on) it. I think if a community that is facing issues of poverty sees its own homegrown businesses succeeding, and in turn gives jobs to people within that community, it does create a sense of pride and of hope. And I think that if our few businesses that we’ve helped incubate can create hope, that might have a cascading impact — a small, incremental step in the very complex fight against poverty.

What inspires your work?

My mother is a very giving person and has always taken huge strides to give of her time and effort — she has always set such a wonderful example. It’s the example that it’s not just good enough to just write a cheque to a charity — that’s the easy way out. You have to put forward a lot more effort than that.