Marking its fiftieth anniversary this year, the Learners & Leaders Business and Tourism Conference created and coordinated by MSVU’s Business & Tourism Department continues to inspire, educate and connect. The 50th edition takes place October 30, 2024.
Learners & Leaders is the longest-standing student business conference in Atlantic Canada, and no other university in the region offers a similar event. Since its inception in 1974, the conference has been bringing together students and faculty with experienced professionals and entrepreneurs from many sectors and disciplines. More than 200 students from MSVU, the Nova Scotia Community College and Holland College will be among this year’s participants. Designed to unite learners and industry leaders, the event provides a day of learning and networking, with speakers sharing insights about a range of topics including entrepreneurship, innovation, and tourism and hospitality management.
Dr. Sandi Findlay-Thompson, Professor, Department of Business and Tourism, is the conference’s lead faculty organizer. Her involvement with the event began 39 years ago when she first attended the conference while she was a student at MSVU. Of interest, Sandi recalls that Halifax Chamber of Commerce President Patrick Sullivan – a member of the alumni panel at this year’s event – was the Co-president of the Business and Tourism Society that year and was running the conference! We asked Sandi to tell us more Learners & Leaders and its history.
What do you think has given this conference the staying power to continue for so many years?
Business and Tourism degrees at MSVU fall within professional studies. The majority of faculty in Business and Tourism have industry experience and recognize the value of providing opportunities for students to network with industry professionals outside of the classroom. The Chair of the Department of Business and Tourism, Dr. Peter Mombourquette, has committed enormous time and effort to ensuring that students have numerous opportunities to interact with industry professionals and for as long as I have been here he has been involved in promoting and organizing this conference. He has been able to motivate faculty in the Department and the Business and Tourism Society executive to all work as a highly motivated team. By leaning into industry connections, we have managed to get a stellar line-up of professionals to attend the conference for the past 50 years.
Feedback from the students who attend is always highly positive, which gives faculty and the Business and Tourism Society the motivation to undertake the extensive work required to produce this annual conference. Over the years, Miriam Gallant in the Department of Business and Tourism has brought her dedication, expertise and experience to managing the conference details. We also have a full-time co-op student who helps organize our conference. This year, Casey Oakey-O’Grady, our winter 2024 co-op student who has returned for the Fall 2024 term, volunteered her time during the summer months to ensure that outreach to dozens of industry professionals was completed prior to her coming aboard for her work term in the last week of August.
This conference provides incredible opportunities for students, but if not for the dedication of faculty, the Business and Tourism Society members, Miriam Gallant, and the term co-op student each fall, the event might not have been able to withstand 50 years.
What do you think participants gain by taking part in the conference?
Students are always told that networking during their university years is extremely important, but most find networking intimidating or simply not something they have access to as students. Faculty in the Department of Business and Tourism understand this and have been committed for the past 50 years to keeping up the tradition of bringing networking opportunities to the students. Through this conference, students get to showcase their skills to organizations in attendance plus get a full day and evening of knowledge and insights about specific industries, disciplines, and tips on workplace culture, skills required, and many other nuances often only learned outside the classroom.
On the other hand, organizations that have representatives attend get the opportunity to share knowledge and to assess students – often locating future employees. One thing that has always been true is that organizations and industry professionals are authentic in wanting to make a difference in the lives of students and they generously agree to donate their time and expertise year after year.
My involvement with the conference has been longstanding as I did my BBA degree at MSVU in the 80s and witnessed first-hand how effective the conference was and when I joined the Mount many years later in 2003 as a faculty member, I asked Dr. Peter Mombourquette, Chair, how I could be involved with the conference. I’ve been involved since then, outside of 2016 when Dr. Gabrielle Durepos was the lead faculty organizer and a three-year period when Maria Matthews and Rhonda Bursey took the lead. Every year is a new group of students and industry professionals, so it never grows old, and the benefits of this conference are second to none. I believe this conference makes a difference in the lives of our students.
Can you tell us about the MSVU alumni who’ll be participating?
Our keynote for the evening is Edwin Frizzell who was part of the first graduating class of MSVU’s Tourism and Hospitality Management degree program in 1990. He is currently the Regional Vice President, Accor Central Canada, and General Manager, Fairmont Royal York.
Three of our four CEO panelists are MSVU grads – Erin Madden, CEO of Happy Kids Nutrition, Dave Reynolds, CEO and Founder of Rumin8group, and Kathleen Jay, SVP Operations and Delivery at Maplewave. Our fourth CEO is Harry Arora, General Manager, Moxy Hotel Halifax by Marriott.
This year’s MSVU grad panel is entitled 5 Decades of Successful Grads and includes:
- 1980s – Patrick Sullivan (BBA, 1985), President and CEO Halifax Chamber of Commerce
- 1990s – Rhonda Bursey (BBA, 1994) Assistant Professor, Accounting, MSVU
- 2000s – Adam Bower (THMT, 2003), Owner at The Grand Banker Bar & Grill and Brigantine Inn
- 2010s – Gideon Sing (THMT, 2019), Manager, Le Rouge Group
- 2020s – Deshawn Davison (BBA, 2023) Training and Administrative Officer, Department of National Defence
What other highlights are you looking forward to?
The morning keynote at the conference is Courtney Sherlock. She runs a number of vet practices and is the CEO and founder of the professional women’s soccer organization here – the Atlantic Women’s Football Club. There is also a series of interesting workshops planned as part of the day, including AI and Marketing hosted by Nancy Eke-Agu, Personal Branding hosted by Tia Upshaw, RBC Young Women Entrepreneurs hosted by Natalie Frederick-Wilson, and Satisfaction is Worthless: Emotional Connection is Everything by Curtis Scalpen. Our Human Resource session this year is titled Connecting Employers and Students: Information Sessions and we have invited 16 organizations from across different business and tourism disciplines to participate. We’re also hosting a networking reception, a Chartered Professional Accountant session for accounting students and a 2+2 Session for our guests from NSCC and Holland College.
I want to extend our sincere thanks to the speakers who share their time to make the conference possible, and to the sponsors who support the event which include the Centre for Women in Business as our major sponsor, The AC Group of Independent Accounting Firms Limited, Enterprise Mobility, Chartered Professional Accountants and MSVU Alumni.
What is the theme of this year’s conference?
The theme has been consistent since 2009 when we re-branded and it became the MSVU Learners & Leaders: Igniting Success Business and Tourism Conference. The reason for the rebranding was because we spent at least two months trying to come up an annual theme for the Business and Tourism conference and the time it took to agree on a theme, what the design and logo would look like, etc., made no sense given that the day was consistently about providing opportunities for both learners and leaders to connect for a day of sharing knowledge. We decided to rebrand and name the conference to reflect its exact purpose.
Can you share any stories from past conferences?
Several students during my time at MSVU have secured employment after graduation with organizations that attended the conference. There have also been co-op positions secured as a result of networking done at the conference, leading to full-time employment after the work term was completed.
Students have told us stories of:
- mentorship being offered
- being encouraged to take the risk of being an entrepreneur because of the messaging at workshops on entrepreneurship
- deciding to complete their degree at MSVU as they were here as NSCC students and learned about the 2+2 pathway
- learning the value of networking and more importantly “how to” network
Additionally, students who were terrified of public speaking have told us how they gained tremendous confidence in public speaking because they had opportunities at the conference to be a panel or workshop moderator. They asked questions at the various events during the day, or even agreed to emcee an event! Students who attend the conference also get to interact with fellow students they do not know and are able to make connections and friendships.
One very important piece of feedback from students is that they are grateful for faculty pushing them out of their comfort zones by reassuring them the industry professionals who attend want to see students succeed and are there to listen to them.
Find out more
For more information on this year’s Learners & Leaders conference (October 30), please visit the conference website.