During our MBA, we study various aspects of business such as leadership, strategy, operations, finance, sales & marketing, and whatnot, but it’s very rare to apply all of the learning or see the application of all those lessons in the real world until we reach leadership positions. CEO Shadowing provided me an opportunity to visualize all aspects of business. To summarize my experience: If I say CEO Shadowing was a four-month crash course for an entire MBA, it would still be an undermining statement as one can learn a lot more than that. You learn things about the company which you could learn only after several years of experience of working in different roles. 

Talking about my day-to-day life as a CEO shadow, I used to join Eric Saint-Jacques (CEO e2ip technologies) in all his meetings, be it C-suite meetings, M&A meetings, or Board of Directors meeting. The discussion used to be around the key decisions needed to be taken for different business units, either Operations or Sales or Finance or R&D. Every day was inspiring and motivating. I felt like reaching the office as soon as possible in the morning. To be honest, I would have loved to live in the office. I remember once we were reviewing a company for acquisition. As we were reviewing the company’s financial statement, Eric immediately pointed out that there were some flaws with the numbers. I asked him what an investor/buyer typically will investigate about a company and its financial data. That was my first class towards understanding the true meaning of EBITDA and its multiplier in the real business world.

When I moved to Canada for my MBA, my goal was to learn why most of the Fortune 500 companies come from this part of the world. I wanted to experience everything that connects all the dots and tells the complete story about successful business. On February 15th, the day I got the CEO Shadowing offer, I already had 4 other job offers. But it was a very easy decision to go for this as I knew that CEO Shadowing was the opportunity that would clear the clouds for me. I consider myself lucky as I was working with Eric when GGI solution was being rebranded to e2ip technologies. It was a rare opportunity to contribute towards building a company’s vision and mission statements, to experience how the core values are identified, and most importantly, how a leader creates an amazing work culture.

In one of the John Molson MBA classes, ‘Responsible Manager’, we studied leadership and how should a leader act in a crisis. While working with Eric, I witnessed how leaders turn a crisis into opportunities. I remember an instance from my very initial days at e2ip, we had a setback with one of our customers. The impact could have been massive. Within a couple of months, Eric turned the table. Not only did we sign the deal, but we also opened up new opportunities with the same customer for the future. When I asked Eric to reflect on those, he talked about concise communication - “When writing to executives, always speak of end-results upfront. This is what they want to know about the big picture. Then go into details. Try not to write too many words. The same goes while conversing with executives. Tell exactly the result of what you want to tell. Next wait for them; if they will have questions, they will ask themselves.”

I always think that the one thing I would want to adopt from Eric’s style when I learn to become a leader is Eric’s empathy for his employees. His actions speak more than words, he makes all his effort to let his employees prosper, to give them enough opportunities, and, above all, doing all the small things that matter the most. 

Finally, I must thank William Meder (Bill) for coming up with such a brilliant idea as CEO Shadowing and the Concordia Co-op team for providing me with this wonderful opportunity.