Jon Mara
Jon has over 30 years of entrepreneurial experience and has been the founder or co-founder of 5 businesses that have qualified for membership in the Entrepreneur’s Organization or the Young Presidents Organization.
In fact, one of those businesses was 3 years in a row on the Profit 100 Fastest Growing Companies list in Canada.
Over those 30 years Jon has also had 4 business failures, one of which cost him over $1,000,000 – which he now views as his “tuition fee to the school of hard-knocks”.
These success and failures have taught him some key life lessons:
- Learning to trust a strong ego and avoiding a big ego;
- Do things that give energy, not suck energy; and
- Make the tough decisions, enter the danger.
His greatest strength and passion has always been working with the senior leadership/management teams to help their company grow and for everyone to stay aligned on the entrepreneurial journey.
In his late 20’s and 30’s it was Vantage Securities Inc. from a pure start-up to a company of 175 employees, over $275 million in sales and an asset management portfolio of $1billion when he sold it in 1997.
Subsequent successes included buying KINeSYS Pharmaceuticals Inc. out of receivership, restructuring and rebranding it to taking it public in an 18 month time period; and then co-founding Investec Solutions Inc. and formulating it’s innovative RRSP bond/lending portfolio which he sold in 2012.
Businesses that did not fare as well, but are still important contributors to Jon’s entrepreneurial ride, include Storyeum in Gastown (and profitably selling 8 months before the doors opened); e-Pie Ventures Ltd. (an original Yaletown dot-com incubator); and Hakai Fishing Resort (now the Calvert Ecological Observatory owned by the Hakai Institute).
Jon is still an active Angel investor in companies like Trading Post Brewery Corp., Valley Commons Winery and BC Hops Co.
Hear what some of Jon’s current and past clients have to say.
Business Strategy Implementation
Jon works with entrepreneurs and their leadership teams to define and achieve business strategy through the adoption and execution of an operating system for the whole business. This keeps everyone aligned, accountable and maintaining a high trust environment.
This starts with the leadership and then as they master then shared with the next level down to master. As they go, so goes the rest of the company.
Testimonials
“We’ve gained tremendous traction in our organization. Jon’s EOS methodology has kept our executive team focused. We continue to experience improving results and momentum. We are more aligned as a leadership team and more accountable to one another. We’ve been able to increase the rest of our team’s understanding of our company goals, purpose, values and where we’re headed.”
“Working with Jon Mara has allowed us to implement EOS quickly and efficiently and get buy-in, not only from upper management but from the team leads in every department. I highly recommend Jon Mara as an EOS implementation specialist.”