Spotlight
Gratitude and giving back
Sadi Khan comes from a family that values serving the public interest – a family of doctors, teachers, civil engineers. When Khan told his father he wanted to work in business in the private sector, his father said, “What?”
“I asked my father what he would be happy with, and he said he’d be happy if I got a job at IBM,” says Khan. “So that is where I applied.” In fact, Khan, now the national sales manager for Hybrid Cloud & Analytics Software at IBM Canada, applied for 17 jobs there before he landed one in sales operations and support, through the Co-op program.
For Khan, co-op was a game changer. He could have received his degree, then figured out his career, he says, but co-op gave him the confidence to pursue an opportunity immediately. “It was the best accident: by chance, I have made a career out of this and it was all because of the exposure to sales through co-op – I’ve had a pretty good run here,” he adds. “I don’t want to sound like the poster boy for IBM but they really invested in me – I started here with no sales background, and they trained me to become a sales professional with a strong focus on client success and solving problems.” In fact, he points out, IBM sent him for training at Harvard University and Boston University Questrom School of Business.
Khan is proud of his accomplishments. “My parents came here for their kids’ education and a standard of living, and I was able to take advantage of the best commerce program at UTSC and do my MBA at the Schulich School of Business,” he says. And now, 10 years later, Khan is working toward his Masters of Management Analytics at the Smith School of Business at Queens’s University.
Khan is happily married now with a one-year-old son. “It sounds cliché but I want to follow in my father’s footsteps,” he says. Khan’s father, an engineer, reinvented himself when he came to Canada. “He has been recognized with many awards, including the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal and the Ontario Medal for Good Citizenship for his significant contributions to public life and multiculturalism in this country,” says Khan.
One piece of advice that Khan likes to share is simply this: extracurricular activities are important. At U of T Scarborough, Khan did it all, from learning how to shoot a puck at 18 and playing intramural hockey to working as a part-time DJ for a radio station. Because you never know where extracurricular activities could lead. For Khan, who loves baseball, playing on a slo-pitch baseball team at work led him to Noel Paterson, a former VP of IBM Canada, who took Khan under his wing and still mentors him to this day.
What’s up for the future? “I want more kids, God willing: I need a left and right winger to join my son on a future hockey line!” Khan also wants to cherish his family and his parents, and simply spend more time with them. “My wife and I so lucky, we are all healthy and I am so grateful – I want to pay it forward.” Just like his father.
When Julie Burnham (BA, 1988), Vice-President, Managing Director with BMO Nesbitt Burns, graduated with a double major in political science and sociology, she had no idea she would end up working in the finance world. But her mom worked at Scotiabank in downtown Toronto, where there was an opening for a personal lending officer and, well, she needed a job and was open to possibilities.
She followed the path, developing skills and continuing to grow into a larger role, eventually moving to BMO Nesbitt Burns, where she worked her way up to the head of marketing. Burnham is proud of her achievements as a young woman working in a then male-dominated industry, balancing her family life, including kids, and the fact that she has been a mentor to so many younger employees who have worked with her.
“And I’m proud of my degree and the university,” adds Burnham. “This is an outstanding institution and the accomplishments of some of the alumni bring me a great deal of joy.”
As a graduate of the Green Path Program, which provides students from China with an advanced Canadian-style learning environment, Michael Liu (BSc, 2013)
remembers his four years at the university fondly. “UTSC turned an innocent kid into a well-rounded young man,” he says.
This young man, who first worked as an intern as part of his co-op program at university, is now the CEO of Beijing Lange Group Co. in Beijing, responsible for the operation of the largest iron and steel e-commerce platform in China.
Liu shoulders the responsibility of being an alumnus gladly, and takes it to heart. He’s proud of the recently founded U of T Green Path Alumni Chapter, which connects alumni around the world. “Such mentorship is motivational and I couldn’t think of any better way to thank the university than to inherit this spirit and carry it forward.”
In fact, he’s working with Tony Wang, who is also an alumnus. “We have already carried out a few business co-operations on supply chain finance of our own fields,” he says.
The future looks bright for Tony Wang (BBA, 2010). An entrepreneur, he operates his own agri-fintech business in China, and his company provides financing for suppliers, such as feed companies, pork farmers and meat wholesalers. “I am passionate about my business because it truly benefits the agricultural industry,” says Wang. “The current Chinese financial system considers agriculture a huge risk, so it is difficult to get financing.”
Wang started the company, V-invest three years ago; last year they posted a cumulative funds trading volume of 450 million RMB – and he’s hoping to triple the volume this year. “All these funds go into different sectors of agricultural business and this helps so many people,” he says. “It would be worth devoting my lifetime to developing a sustainable system to benefit the whole industry.”
But Wang also knows the value of a balanced life. He likes thinking, reading, body-building and practising yoga. “Reading helps me to acquire knowledge and information, thinking helps me to organize the knowledge, body-building helps me maintain my physical body and yoga helps me to feel calm and peaceful,” he says.
In a word, Wojciech Gryc (BSc, 2007) describes U of T Scarborough as simply awesome. “I’ve always been grateful to UTSC for allowing me to do a double major in
international development and applied math,” he says. “It allowed me to follow my interests in technology and social science.”
After graduation, he worked for IBM Research, working on social network research and machine learning in the same lab that developed the chess-playing computer that played Kasparov, the world champion. He then went on to receive his master’s degree at Oxford when he was awarded a Rhodes scholarship.
Six years ago, Gryc started his own company, Canopy Labs, which combines AI with customer data to personalize marketing. “We help B2C companies, such as banks and retailers like Roots, provide better experiences for their customers,” he says.
Gryc credits the accessibility to faculty and the U of T network, which offers so many independent research projects, with getting to where he is today. “That’s how I started to learn some of the machine learning and social network analysis that opened up so many career opportunities for me,” he says. “Without that, my career path would have been very different – and much less exciting.”
When Camille Stewart (BSc, 1994) graduated, there was a recession, so she decided to take a job in a dental office, thinking she would go into dentistry. It was good in theory, but she just couldn’t do it. “Instead I took an entry-level position at an insurance company,” she says.
It worked out. “I haven’t done the same thing for more than two years – I always came into crazy opportunities, situations like: ‘OK, our entire Montreal office has quit, you speak French, Camille, can you go help them out?’ To her credit, Stewart, now AVP Solutions Development at Manulife, always said yes. “I knew my stuff, I’m comfortable talking to people, I believe in what I’m doing,” she says. “Insurance gets a bad rap – but when I saw how it can dramatically change lives, I became passionate about it.”
Still, Stewart credits her education with teaching her invaluable skills. “Who knew when we were learning how to observe in the lab in the basement that I’d be using those skills now!” she laughs.
Chloe Ho (BA, 2006), always liked designing things but had no idea that a love for fashion would lead her and her husband, Kelvin, to start up their own
company. Pixie Mood features vegan-friendly accessories sold in shops like Chapters Indigo. “We use materials such as vegan leather and cork as alternatives to leather and fur,” says Ho. “And we avoid using any animal products – fashion is a way of expressing ourselves, but nothing should be harmed in this pursuit.”
Who would have thought a girl with a degree in psychology would end up designing handbags? “Actually, my degree helps me understand consumers and in developing marketing plans,” she says. More than that, however, she stresses that her education helped her develop critical thinking skills, which plays a huge role in running a business and making decisions.
Ho is excited about the next steps: Recently, she received the Toronto Region Board of Trade, 2017 Young Professional Award. And this year, she and her husband are looking to expand into larger department stores and the European market.