B.C. Business Leaders: The Power List
There are the undeniable B.C. business leaders who make an obvious choice for the BCBusiness Power List.
There are the undeniable business leaders who make an obvious choice for the BCBusiness Power List. Could anyone deny that Jimmy Pattison, who built a $5.5-billion empire from a car dealership, is the top dog in retail? Or that Geoffrey Ballard, once named “hero of the planet” by Time magazine, is the leader in environmental technology?
But our poll of insiders reveals some unexpected names. For example, mention biotech, and Julia Levy is the obvious choice as industry leader. But few outside of the biotech community realize that there would be no QLT success story without the marketing acumen of its current president and CEO, Robert Butchofsky. Yes, Levy invented Visudyne and brought it to commercial production. But if doctors weren’t aware that age-related macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness in people over 55, and that Visudyne was, at the time of its release, the only available drug treatment, QLT would still be just another struggling biotech.
In mining, Teck Cominco CEO Don Lindsay would seem an obvious choice, simply due to the headline factor: his foiled bid to acquire Inco was all over the news last summer and he remains on the acquisition trail. But few outsiders realize that it was Teck director David Thompson who reshaped the B.C. mining industry in the 1980s and ’90s, and laid the groundwork for Teck Cominco’s dominance today.
These power brokers have not only left their mark on B.C.’s economy, they have put this province on the world map. Thanks to some of the innovators and visionaries profiled here, B.C. is the world leader in fuel cells and computer games; we have set the standard for community planning and resort development; and industry leaders across Canada look to B.C. for guidance in mining and forestry.
The following tell the stories behind the power driving this economy. Click to view a section
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
BIOTECHNOLOGY
FILM & NEW MEDIA
REAL ESTATE & DEVELOPMENT
MINING
TECH & ENVIRONMENTAL
RETAIL
FORESTRY
TOURISM & HOSPITALITY
Bob Bailey, president and CEO, PMC-Sierra
Bob Bailey represents the B.C.-California connection in this year’s list of most influential business leaders (see also Paul Lee, president of Electronic Arts). The head of PMC-Sierra is a veteran of the local tech industry, having guided the chip maker from its early days as a spin-off of BC Tel’s R&D division, through a U.S. acquisition, and then engineering a successful comeback from the tech crash of 2001.
Bailey joined the company in 1993, when it was known as Pacific Microelectronic Centre, a business division of BC Tel’s MPR Teltech R&D division. In 1994, Bailey engineered the company’s acquisition by Sierra Semiconductor of Santa Clara, California, which subsequently changed its name to PMC-Sierra.
Today, the company’s operations remain headquartered in Burnaby, while its corporate head office is in Santa Clara. Bailey splits his time between both locations. In 2005, the company sold US$291 million worth of computer chips used in broadband communications and storage.
Bailey took a considerable risk when joining PMC-Sierra in 1993. At the time, he was heading a US$500-million business for AT&T Microelectronics, while PMC-Sierra’s sales were approximately US$2 million. Since taking the helm, he has engineered two spectacular success stories. First, he built PMC-Sierra into a major player in the communications chip industry, taking the company to US$694.6 million in sales in 2000. Then he structured a comeback, following an industry-wide collapse in 2001.
In 2002, PMC revenue had fallen to US$218 million, and the stock price had gone from US$225 a share at its peak in 2000 to below US$3. A big part of the company’s successful turnaround is due to a shift of focus to Asian markets. The company posted US$206 million in revenue in the first six months of 2006, and its stock price has rebounded slightly to the US$7 level. The company expects that over half of its revenue this year will come from Asian markets, because it started concentrating on developing Asian distribution channels three years ago, anticipating the larger demands from these countries.
Bailey brings a background in both science and finance to his role at PMC-Sierra. He has an electrical engineering degree from the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut and an MBA from the University of Dallas. He spent 10 years with Texas Instruments after completing his MBA and before joining PMC-Sierra, he was VP of application-specific integrated circuits at AT&T’s Microelectronics Unit.
RUNNERS UP
Daniel Friedmann, president and CEO,
MacDonald, Dettwiler & Associates Ltd.
“Daniel Friedmann has shown outstanding performance in his role as CEO. He has put together a diversified team that has placed MDA in a class of its own internationally.”
Iraj Pourian, president and CEO, Sierra Systems Group Inc.
“Mr. Pourian is one of the best project managers in the systems business in Canada. This is exactly what Sierra Systems needs to compete in a tough industry with the likes of IBM and others.”
Jason Cohenour, CEO, Sierra Wireless Inc.
“Mr. Cohenour always has a focus grounded in the belief in the potential of wireless to change the world. That ¬fundamental belief in what he does is probably why he is so influential in the wireless industry in B.C.”
BIOTECHNOLOGY
Robert Butchofsky, president and CEO, QLT Inc.
Hands up: how many of you know the leading cause of blindness in people over 55? Astonishingly enough, if you were to pose the question to a random sample of BCBusiness readers, chances are pretty good that at least a few would be quick to identify the arcane medical condition: age-related macular degeneration (AMD). And inseparable from our recognition of the condition is the name of its treatment: Visudyne.
The fact that the terminology is so firmly engrained in our minds is due largely to Robert Butchofsky, who oversaw marketing for QLT when Visudyne was launched in 2000.
QLT is, of course, the anchor of B.C.’s biotech industry, and founder Julia Levy has been deservedly enshrined in local ¬business legend as the scientist-entrepreneur who showed the rest of the industry that it is possible to translate a promising drug discovery into a profitable company.
Save over 50% off the newsstand price with a subscription to BCBusiness Magazine
