From Operating to Holding: New HR Responses to an Emerging Canadian Business Model

DESCRIPTION:

A new model of corporate strategy is leading some Canadian companies to create  value by becoming holding companies. Find out what happened when Air Canada did this in 2004 and when Aeroplan followed suit in 2008. Moving from an operating company to a holding company structure presents unique HR challenges. Learn the strategies you need to know—from an industry insider.

Business strategists foresee these transformations as the beginning of a trend that will become increasingly popular as more and more Canadian companies transform  their corporate structures in order to unlock value for their shareholders, to create better service for their customers and to create a more meaningful work environment for their employees.

Melissa Sonberg brings unique experience to shaping, leading and articulating the HR dynamics of this important trend in business and HR transformation.  While a senior executive at Air Canada, she was a member of the team that engineered the change from Canada’s national airline as an operating company to a holding company with a number of different subsidiaries, including Air Canada, Jazz, Aeroplan and Air Canada’s maintenance operations. Today, as a member of the senior management team at Aeroplan, she is involved in a similar exercise as Canada’s leading loyalty management program becomes a holding company for a number of different loyalty management programs around the world, including what five million Canadians know as Aeroplan.

This is a truly unique case study offered by one of the very few senior HR executives in Canada who can speak authoritatively on the shift “from operating to holding.”

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

• Find out how to apply your existing HR skills to new challenges brought on by different corporate structures
  Examine the HR opportunities and dangers in the transformation process
• Embrace planned corporate change and use it to advance your company’s HR goals
• Learn what could well lie ahead for your organization
• Find out what companies outside of Canada are doing to ensure the smooth changeover from an operating company structure to a holding company structure
  

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Melissa Sonberg is the Aeroplan executive responsible for the corporate affairs portfolio. In this role, she oversees all aspects of Aeroplan's human resources, corporate communications and corporate social responsibility programs. She has significant hands-on experience in the private and public sectors. Her expertise has been noted in the Who's Who of Canadian Business, the Who's Who of Canadian Women and the Who's Who of Canada. She currently lectures at McGill University and other institutions. Sonberg has held a number of senior management positions at Air Canada, including director of organizational learning and director of customer service communication, employee involvement and training, building on several years of leadership roles in Quebec's health and social services sector. She holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from McGill University and a master's of administration from the University of Ottawa. She also offers her expertise  to various organizations such as The Royal Victoria Hospital Foundation,  The Women's Y and Auberge Shalom ... pour femmes, a shelter for abused women and their children.