Long before I became a business owner, I was learning how businesses worked.
My perspective did not begin in an executive office. It began long before that.
Learning resilience early
I grew up in a place where the water only ran in the middle of the night. You got up at one in the morning to store what you needed because that was the window you were given.
You learn early that you do not wait for conditions to be fair. You work with what there is, and you make it work.
Every job taught me something
I arrived in Canada as a teenager and understood quickly that opportunities are rarely handed to you. By the time I reached university, I had already held more jobs than I can count. Invoicing at fourteen. McDonald's. Saint-Hubert. The night shift in a hospital cafeteria. Hotels. Retail floors. Later, manufacturing.
I never looked at any of them as just a job. I looked at the system underneath.
At McDonald's, I saw operational excellence before I had a word for it. The movements, the processes, the speed, the logic. I was already looking at the world like an engineer without knowing it yet.
But those years gave me something the engineering never could. They taught me respect.
Respect for the person who arrives before sunrise. For the receptionist who knows every customer by name. For the operator who quietly solves the problem before anyone notices there was one.
Years later, leading manufacturing operations across Canada, I understood that those early jobs had become one of my real strengths. I could connect with the person running the night shift as easily as with the person running the books, because I had once stood where they were standing.
Titles never changed the way I saw people. They never will.
Engineering taught me systems
I am an engineer by training, so I have never been able to look at a company without seeing the system underneath it. What makes it work. What slows it down. What deserves to be protected. Engineering taught me how systems work.
Operations taught me how businesses grow. People taught me everything else.
Leadership is earned on the floor
I have led four manufacturing plants across Québec and Canada, teams of 25 to 120 employees, in both unionized and non-unionized environments.
Under my leadership, an underperforming manufacturing plant returned to multi-million-dollar EBITDA profitability. At the same time, employee engagement rose dramatically. I have never seen those two outcomes in conflict. The strongest businesses prove they are connected.
But the lesson that stayed with me is simpler than any result. Leadership cannot be understood from a boardroom.
I made a point of meeting every shift. I would arrive before 6 a.m. to greet the night team before they went home, and many evenings I stayed until the last shift had finished. Not because anyone asked. Because if I expected people to trust my decisions, I first needed to understand their reality.
I never led by raising my voice or playing the part of the boss. I led by understanding the system, by the quality of my questions, and by being present where it mattered.
Those experiences shaped the way I see businesses today.