We are excited to launch our new blog! Weekly Impact is written for leaders, by our Executive Director Garth Jestley, who has decades of experience as a top leader in the financial services sector. Each week he will share insights on life, leadership and faith.
THIS BLOG IS NOT MY IDEA!
Aided and abetted by our marketing consultant, the staff of LeaderImpact have encouraged me to share my thoughts and experience in order to raise the profile of LeaderImpact among marketplace leaders. Two reasons: First, communication is a critical responsibility of any leader and, as Executive Director of LeaderImpact, I therefore have this responsibility. Second, I spent most of my working life in senior business roles and am therefore part of our “target market.” As a result, marketplace leaders should be able to relate to my perspective just as I relate to theirs.
After wrestling with this blog idea for some time, I have decided – not without trepidation! – to go ahead. Our mission at LeaderImpact is “to help marketplace leaders explore the relevance of faith in God in their professional and personal lives.” So, consistent with our mission statement, Weekly Impact will provide my personal reflections on the relevance of faith in God for me as a leader, business executive, husband, father and grandfather.
BACKGROUND
I grew up in Vancouver, BC. Intent on becoming a doctor, I completed my pre-med studies at UBC and wrote the medical entrance exams. At that moment, I suddenly realized that I could not (and still cannot) stand the sight of blood! So ended my promising medical career. On the rebound, I decided to try my hand at business, which is ironic, since I have seen a lot of bloodshed on Bay Street and Wall Street over the course of my business career!
To prepare myself for business, I completed an MBA at the Ivey Business School in London, Ontario thereafter achieving the CFA designation. For more than forty years, I held various executive roles in the financial services sector including stints at Citibank and Bank of Montreal in New York, Montreal and Toronto.
For the two and one half decades ended December 2012, I was a partner at Middlefield Group serving for much of that time as CEO. Middlefield is a privately held specialty investment management firm based in Toronto with offices in London, UK.
At the end of 2012, I retired from Middlefield Group and, in March 2014, I “retired from retirement” to become Executive Director of LeaderImpact.
My hope is that my weekly musings will encourage and inspire you to see how faith in God is highly relevant to experiencing life to the full.