In a casual floor-length skirt and quilted vest, Sarah Morgan-Silvester is the picture of West Coast casual. Her unlined face framed by a simple bob, the youthful 48-year-old greets a visitor to her spacious waterfront office with a relaxed smile.
Meet the new face of corporate Vancouver. As chair of the newly amalgamated Vancouver Fraser Port Authority and the B.C. Women’s Hospital and Health Centre Foundation, and director of numerous other organizations, Morgan-Silvester is one the most connected and influential people in the Vancouver business community – even though she isn’t yet 50, she doesn’t golf and she doesn’t wear a tie.
How is it that she was able to give up a salaried position as president and CEO of HSBC Trust Co. a little over a year ago to become a full-time director? Morgan-Silvester attributes it to the new demand for diversity on boards; as companies increasingly turn to headhunters to fill board positions, new names get added to the list.
“Why me? Well, why not me?” she asks with a touch of indignation. “You just have to stand on your own merit. If you happen to fit the skill set, you’re a good board member.”
A native of Victoria, Morgan-Silvester completed a bachelor of commerce degree at UBC in 1982. (She transferred from UVic, after a counsellor there suggested she was suited to home economics.)
After a couple of years in the local banking business, she joined HSBC Bank of Canada in 1987, where she quickly moved through management ranks. Today she lives in North Vancouver with her husband and their four children, aged 15 to 31.
The Vancouver Port Authority came knocking in 2004, and within a couple of years Morgan-Silvester was chairing the committee overseeing the amalgamation of the Fraser River Port Authority, the North Fraser Port Authority, and the Vancouver Port Authority. She now chairs the board of the new Vancouver Fraser Port Authority.
The amalgamation was a no-brainer – why compete with each other for clients, resources and government funding? – and had been talked about for years. But it was Morgan-Silvester who finally oversaw the conglomeration.
“These things always end up being a little more work than you thought they were going to be,” she says with a laugh. “The tricky bit is never about the logistics of having organizations come together. The trick is always about the people coming together.”
Morgan-Silvester says that, not only did managers of the three ports have to be eased into new roles and responsibilities, the board had to be whittled from 23 members to 11. “That’s a bit of a trick, and to have people feel okay about that and respected through that process is really important.”
Morgan-Silvester compares leaving a salaried position to leaving home for the first time: “It took a measure of courage, but it was the right time for me to make that decision.”
She has no regrets. “Life’s too short to not enjoy what you’re doing,” she says. “I’m having a great time.” l