Our CFO reflects on the difference between prosperity and pursuit of the bottom line.

Navida Suleman
Chief Financial Officer

I’ve never been one to focus purely on profit. That may be strange for a chief financial officer to say, but success to me is so much more than that.

Setting financial targets is much more meaningful when we start with a broader lens of prosperity rather than profit. It becomes about having enough to succeed not only financially as a business, but to reinvest in our people and our operations, to do business in ways that support our planet, and to give back to our communities.

It’s about how we use our financial resources to ensure the world around us can prosper and thrive. Revenue and profit are important for us to be able to welcome more Members, create new services for them and invest even more in BC communities.

We use the term “prosperity” because our targets help us determine how much of an impact we can make. Last year, we invested over one million dollars into BC communities and if we reach or surpass our prosperity targets, we can do even more for each other and for BC.

A great example of this virtuous circle is how, this year, our business operations and prudent budgeting generated enough by the mid-year to fund accelerated hiring at our Contact Centres. We also invested in more of the latest service technology to support a better phone experience.

It’s about how we use our financial resources to ensure the world around us can prosper and thrive.

Almost immediately, these reinvestments enabled us to answer calls faster and help more people when and where they were looking for us. Taking more calls and providing better service to more Members and customers ultimately delivers more to our bottom line, enabling us to reach our revenue targets and continue to invest back into building stronger, more resilient and connected communities in the year ahead.

Committing $100,000 to support BC wildfire relief efforts, donating 685 child car seats to those who otherwise may go without safe transport, and funding School Safety Patrols that teach students leadership skills to help support safe school zones are just a few examples of how more business success translates into more community impact.