Alexandra Stewart
Toronto Homecoming 2011 Participant
Interviewer: Shama Ahmed
After growing up in Toronto, Alexandra Stewart left the place she called home and spent a number of years in various cities across the United States. Her journey started in New Haven at Yale University, where she graduated with a B.Sc., with distinction in Neuroscience (Computer Science and Biology). Upon graduating, Alexandra joined McKinsey & Company in Washington D.C.. After finishing the analyst program, she then joined Tribute Entertainment Media Group as VP, New Business Development.
Alexandra went on to Boston where she completed her MBA at Harvard Business School. Leaving Harvard with a wealth of knowledge and an enthusiasm to continue to apply her breadth of skills, Alexandra returned to McKinsey’s New York City office where, through multiple positions, she led client teams across multiple industries and functions. Throughout this time, Alexandra concurrently served as an Advisor to Tribute providing strategic support.
Alexandra left McKinsey to return to Tribute as COO, a job that brought her back to Toronto part time. She was thrilled by the quality of life here, from summers in Muskoka to easy access to public golf courses (apparently the only ones who will allow her to play). She and her husband Roger also began eating and drinking their way around the city, quickly identifying Origin, Canoe and Café Nervosa among their favorite places.
Alexandra and Roger attended the 2011 Toronto Homecoming event, taking advantage of the opportunity to meet fellow Torontonians, make some new and valuable connections and most importantly, re-connect with many appealing aspects this diverse city has to offer. It wasn’t long before Alexandra’s strong educational background and unique combination of skills were noticed. Through the Toronto Homecoming network, Alexandra was offered a role with the W. Garfield Weston Foundation . As Executive Director, Neuroscience, Alexandra joins an organization founded by the Westons, one of Canada’s most famous and successful entrepreneurial families. The Foundation directs its donations to specific organizations in the fields of education, land conservation and science in Canada. Alexandra’s role is to shape and lead the Foundation’s contribution to neurodegenerative diseases, a cause she is very passionate about. The role also has aspects in NYC, offering Alexandra and Roger the best of both worlds!
It is no surprise that Alexandra’s talents have brought her to a place where she can fully utilize her knowledge, education and experience and, in return, receive personal and professional satisfaction. Alexandra looks forward to sharing her experiences with other expats at the 2012 Toronto Homecoming event…possibly convincing other talented folks that Toronto is a winning destination.
Chris Allen
Toronto Homecoming 2010 Participant
September 27, 2010
Interviewer: Larry Chan
Shanghai or Toronto? That was the question Chris Allen and his wife asked each other in Spring 2010.Comfortable in their ex-patriate apartment in Toyko, and at the end of his nearly three year assignment for global auto giant Nissan Infiniti, they had a big decision – career wise for both of them and the impact on their two year old son. A container full of household goods was in the shipping port with only a winning destination city and home address to be determined.
Shanghai had a strong pull as Chris had worked there for Husky Injection Molding before he did his MBA (’06 Tuck / Dartmouth), and it is where his wife is originally from. Toronto was Chris’ hometown but he had only lived here one year in the last eight. Clearly, either destination would offer ample job opportunities, great food and supportive extended families to enjoy.
As part of the thought process, Chris leapt at the chance to spend a long weekend in Toronto with fellow-minded people to help him process this important decision. Arriving back in the city for Toronto Homecoming, he was reminded of the continued urbanization of Toronto by the number of construction cranes and condominiums in the downtown core. His global strategy & planning role inside the office of the CEO at Nissan Infiniti sent him traveling around the world and more often than not, to cosmopolitan cities. The concentration of people, culture, restaurants and shopping in relatively compact quarters was particularly important to Chris and his wife. At the Toronto Homecoming event he also had the opportunity to meet with representatives from numerous companies who were interested in hiring talented people with global experience.
After returning to Tokyo, Chris continued the conversations started over the weekend through a series of telephone and videoconference interviews (some literally after midnight for him), and was offered a very interesting Senior Manager role with KPMG. Based out of their Toronto office at the swanky new Bay-Adelaide Centre, he is now part of their Corporate Strategy Group providing advice to Canadian and U.S. clients across a number of industries. Chris is also playing a role working with clients in the Transaction Services – Restructuring Group. He is excited to be working for a global company with a world-class reputation for leading edge services & solutions as well as its professional and caring attitude to growing its employees.
Chris is grateful for the impact that Toronto Homecoming had on his family’s decision to move to Toronto. It was encouraging to know that so many others like him – educated, mobile and with global work experience – were also thinking about moving to Toronto. For Chris and his young family, Toronto is a vibrant city where the balance of being a business hub and continuing to be highly livable were the contributing factors in their return to the city.
Shoaib Mushtaq
Toronto Homecoming 2010 Participant
September 20, 2010
Interviewer: Chris Edey
As a Dubai-based financial services professional with family in and around Toronto, Shoaib Mushtaq had both an insider’s and an outsider’s perspective on our city as he and his wife contemplated their next move.“I was thinking about this move for about three years. I had come here before, but it was time for a leap of faith. May 2010 was when we made the decision to move to Toronto.”
Shoaib said that in addition to being close to family, it was Toronto’s resilient economy amidst global turbulence that sealed his decision. “When my wife and I were deciding where we should move, it came down to a choice between Toronto and the Far East (Singapore and Malaysia). Family considerations were important but it was the business climate that put things over the top.” Shoaib is certainly a man with options, having obtained a double Bachelors Degree from Oklahoma State University, in addition to earlier studies at the University of Nicosia in Cyprus. At the Mashreq Bank PSC in Dubai, he advanced quickly and became one of the bank’s youngest Assistant Vice Presidents.
He is also a little surprised that Torontonians have not trumpeted their recent success as widely as possible. “Today presents a golden opportunity for Canada to take advantage of the right decisions that have been made in banking and the economy. Why not blow your horns around the world? This [resiliency] was well known in certain professional circles, but not especially well advertised.”
Now working with RBC as a Senior Account Manager in the Small Business Division, Shoaib looks back at Toronto Homecoming as a “huge help in making the contacts” for talented outsiders looking to enter the Toronto market. “Where else can you get to talk to the head of Human Resources strategy or the Director of Corporate Affairs for minutes on end?” He exclaimed. Shoaib was particularly impressed with the welcome that the event sponsors extended to the participants and the number of senior people that attended Homecoming.
As for the city as a whole, Shoaib is impressed with the degree to which international work experience is valued by Toronto employers, “something that was not evident 10 years ago. The world has become smaller and that has done well for the local business community. But there is still room for improvement, and for recognition of international work experience beyond working in the United States.”
Sarah Rea
Toronto Homecoming 2010 Participant
January 26, 2011
Interviewer: Larry Chan
Sarah Rea left Toronto nine years ago to pursue her undergraduate degree at Harvard University, drawn to the Liberal Arts curriculum and eager to enroll in a diverse mix of courses. These included political anthropology, Latin American studies, environmental and atmospheric science and Michael Ignatieff’s international human rights course at the Kennedy School of Government. Sarah’s research and work took her to Chile, Puerto Rico and California, and she proudly returns to our multicultural city with the entrepreneurial spirit and passion for social and environmental issues that she honed while abroad.
At Harvard, Sarah ran with the drive for social entrepreneurship she had developed while starting and leading non-profit programs for her Toronto-based high school. After securing university funding, she co-found two popular student organizations: the Harvard Progressive Advocacy Group, a partnership with community activists and State Representatives to address social policy issues; and the Harvard College in Asia Program, annual, interdisciplinary 10-day exchange programs for student leaders of Harvard and top Asian universities. During a summer of research in Chile for her honours thesis, on the impact of a gold mining project on an indigenous community, Sarah was motivated to channel her entrepreneurial spirit toward a career in corporate social and environmental responsibility. (Before doing so, she satisfied her desires to moonlight as a host at a Chilean ski resort and a travel guide writer in Puerto Rico.)
Leaving Harvard with a degree, a passion for innovation through corporate responsibility and husband-to-be, Jim Griswold, Sarah and her partner set their sights on the San Francisco Bay Area. For Sarah, the area represented the leading edge of the corporate sustainability and cleantech industries, and for Jim, a software engineer, it stood for stellar software start-ups. She worked in the sustainability office of the East Bay’s Alameda County government, managing corporate responsibility, green building and green IT projects and the launch of the Bay Area EV Corridor, the region’s electric vehicle charging network. She studied business, competed in triathlons and started pro bono consulting programs for Net Impact, the global corporate responsibility industry association, and the Cleantech Open business plan competition.
Shortly before the inaugural Toronto Homecoming event in 2010, the couple had made the decision to transition to Toronto to enjoy the company of their families in Toronto and Cleveland. The Toronto Homecoming event proved to Sarah that they had made the right decision. She was still in a transitional period, independently consulting to clients in San Francisco and Toronto, and the program introduced her to fellow Torontonians who had enjoyed similarly enriching international experiences and felt the same pull to their hometown. The participants shared a desire to bring their exposure to global best practices to Toronto; to collaborate with and improve upon best-of-class examples found here and abroad.
In Fall 2010, Sarah moved into the corporate sector full-time, joining Sears Canada as the Product Manager of Home Energy Efficiency. She and her team offer Home Services to help Canadians better understand the home as a system and to prioritize their acquisition of products that will save energy and money. Sarah is loving her work and the impact it will have on Canadians. Her U.S. network, green building designation from the U.S. Green Building Council and experience in Silicon Valley’s cleantech industry contribute a great deal both to her work at Sears and volunteer position as a cleantech business advisor at MaRS Discovery District.
In 2011, Sarah looks forward to attending the 2nd annual Toronto Homecoming event and to imparting her knowledge of how returning to Toronto has given her personal and professional satisfaction.
Farhan Thanwar
IT Entrepreneur
