Alumni: In the People Business

How Mark Wilson Found His Passion for HR at Confederation College, and How That Led to One of the Largest Grocery Chains in Canada

by Graham Strong

For Mark Wilson, an HR executive at one of the largest grocery chains in Canada, Confederation College wasn’t a springboard. It was a rocket.

Today, Mark is Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at Loblaw Companies Limited, which includes Loblaws, the Real Canadian Superstore, No Frills, and Shoppers Drug Mart brands. But initially he had no real interest in retail food – or HR for that matter.

I didn’t have enough math credits from high school, so I decided to switch to the business program at Confederation College instead.

“I started a Bachelor of Arts at Lakehead, majoring in sociology,” said Mark, who is born and raised in Thunder Bay. He decided to switch to business and wanted to take a BA in Commerce. But…“I didn’t have enough math credits from high school, so I decided to switch to the business program at Confederation College instead.”

Turns out it was the right decision. With hindsight, Mark recognizes that the hands-on learning style at Confederation was exactly what he needed.

“It matters what works for the individual. One person may be suited for academia, and another might thrive better in a practical learning environment. It certainly worked for me.”

Back in the late 80s, there wasn’t really a focus on HR, But I liked it.

One of the advantages at Confederation is that first-year business students get a taste of everything. That’s when Mark was first exposed to HR, a relatively new area at the time.
“Back in the late 80s, there wasn’t a really a focus on HR,” Mark said. “But I liked it, and labour relations in particular. So I specialized during my second year, and I’ve been in HR ever since.”

Five months before graduation, Mark landed an internship with Rogers Communications. That turned into a full-time job as a labour relations specialist. Things moved quickly after that. Within a couple of years, he became Director of HR at Rogers. Then, in 1997, an opportunity came up for an executive position at Scott’s Restaurants, which ran 500 KFCs across Canada with 10,000 employees. The position was a little higher than the average recent grad could shoot for.

“Somebody took a chance on me, and it was a great opportunity,” Mark said.
Shortly after, it was bought by an even bigger company, Yum! Brands Canada, a franchisor that added KFC to its existing restaurants, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. Mark stayed on as Vice President of HR, overseeing 25,000 employees in the corporate stores.

“With Yum! Brands, I could have gone anywhere in the world. But the CEO of Scott’s Restaurants, who moved on after the sale, asked me to join him in his new venture: the Loewen Group.”

Far from the fast-food industry, the Loewen Group was a funeral home and cemetery company with 1,500 operations across Canada and the US. If the name sounds familiar, then no doubt you’ve watched “The Burial” on Prime, inspired by a class-action lawsuit against the Loewen Group. Mark stepped in as CHRO after these events to help bring the company back from bankruptcy.

People issues are people issues. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in.

Despite the vastly different industries and circumstances, it was a challenge Mark wanted to take.
“People issues are people issues. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in. Ultimately we cleaned up the company and sold it to the largest funeral home company in the US a few years later.”

During that sale, Mark had the opportunity to hold the same position with the larger company, but it meant moving from the Toronto-area to Houston, Texas, something he wasn’t interested in doing.

That left Mark at a crossroads. At that point, he’d been head of HR for several medium-sized companies. He could do the same at another medium-sized company. Or, he could take a relative demotion at a larger company. He chose the latter, signing on with Loblaw Companies Limited as Senior Vice President of HR. Eight years later, he rose to the top becoming Executive Vice President and CHRO. Loblaws is a $60-billion company with 220,000 employees, almost half of whom are unionized.

“We have a sophisticated, complex labour relations environment, which requires a strategic element I’ve always enjoyed.”

Mark believes that part of his success is due to his business-first approach to HR. “I speak business. Most times, when I’m in the board room, people are surprised when they learn I’m from HR. They assume I’m from operations. Over the years, CEOs saw it too and that allowed my career to fast-track.” It’s more common now, he said, but at the time there were only a handful of HR professionals with that approach.

The field has changed in other ways, and corporate/store culture is one of those ways.

“Culture is so important these days,” Mark said. In the old, old days, you might get on with a company and stay with them for your whole career. That’s flipped on its head today. “People have choices. If you don’t have the right culture, they won’t want to work for you. Culture also drives how successful the company is.”

Mark helped develop and now implements what is known at Loblaws as the “Blue Culture”. No, it’s not a type of Stilton cheese. The name comes from a psychometric assessment tool called the Strength Deployment Inventory that measures red (task-focused), green (analytical), and blue (people-focused) business behaviours.

“Using that tool and going through that process helped us understand what type of culture we wanted to be. It balances the ‘what’ with the ‘how’. How do we want our employees to interact with each other and our customers to achieve our goals? So when we wanted to name it, we just went back to that same tool. ‘Blue Culture’ just seemed to fit. People naturally understood it.”

Mark doesn’t get back to Thunder Bay much these days. Most of his family has moved from the city, and for his own family, Stouffville is home. But he has fond memories of his hometown and his college and is looking for ways to give back.

“I still have close ties,” Mark said. “Who knows, you might see me giving a talk to an HR class there someday.”