Wes Hall (Founder, The BlackNorth Initiative): How Long Does It Take to Create Meaningful Change?

Take a look inside the boardrooms of corporate Canada and you’ll find that over the years, they’ve largely stayed (and looked) the same. While it has been proven again, and again, and again that a diverse executive suite directly contributes to the growth of a company’s bottom line and overall performance (and is just generally the right thing to do,) straight, white cisgender men have kept the c-suite looking pretty much the same for a long, long time. Wes Hall is working to change that. One of Canada’s most powerful figures on Bay Street, Wes is the executive chairman and founder behind Kingsdale Advisors, an investor on Dragons’ Den, and the founder of the BlackNorth Initiative—a non-profit whose mission is to end anti-Black systemic racism in the corporate world.In the wake of the George Floyd murder and Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, Wes was moved to take action by doing what he does best—by using business as a vessel for change. Specifically, by having the country’s top executives and companies commit to diversifying key decision-making positions. Almost two years since he founded the non-profit, Lance chats with Wes on today’s episode about building BlackNorth, their Racial Equity Playbook, and how long it takes to make progress.