BIV is recognizing Conner Galway, president of Junction Consulting, and 39 other exceptional business leaders as part of the 2023 Forty Under 40 Awards cohort.
Longer Q&As with each recipient are included in BIV's annual Forty Under 40 Magazine (out in print Dec. 11). Award winners will be celebrated at an awards gala Feb. 7, 2024.
This profile may have been edited for length and clarity.
What career highlight are you most proud of?
Over the pandemic, when the tourism industry was completely shut down, Junction quickly pivoted to offer its best training and workshops for free to help business owners to find creative ways to use digital to serve their customers. That effort earned us Marketing News Canada’s leadership award, and we used what we learned from that period to acquire, rebuild, and relaunch elearningu.com, which now serves thousands of tourism businesses across North America.
What was your toughest business or professional decision?
Junction launched as a digital agency that could do everything. In 2015 I saw what businesses needed most was a strong internal capacity for digital. Instead of outsourcing strategy, the best businesses knew what they were doing and why. When they did that, everyone benefited: Employees, customers, even their agencies were happier. We pivoted to focus on building that strength, shutting down all creative services, passing some of our favourite clients on to agencies who would serve them well. I’ve made more decisions to narrow focus, and each time our work gets better, and instead of reducing opportunities, more open.
How do you lead?
I’m incredibly fortunate to work with smart, talented people, so I see my role as a leader is to give them direction and the tools that they need to be successful, then remove obstacles along the way.
What is the biggest lesson you've learned in business?
When I first started, I bought into the idea that if you were smart enough, worked hard enough, success could happen overnight. However, I’ve noticed that so many people and projects that we look at as overnight successes are actually the result of years of learning and persistence. It’s a hard lesson that I still struggle with, whether it’s the relaunch of eLearningU, or a feature for The Brief, I want to see the big idea realized now. However, as my team reminds me, when we give things the space they need, the payoff is more than worth the wait.
Best piece of advice ever received?
Great businesses should be boring. This was shocking to me, because my experience up to that point had been anything but boring. It came from someone with many more years of experience than me, they explained that the foundation of good business should be simple: Generates revenue, pay expenses and retain earnings. We can use that as a platform to do big, exciting things – achieving goals, living our dreams, changing world and all of the other reasons that people start businesses, but that is made possible by an engine that, when you strip everything else away, can look boring.
What advice would you give your 20-year-old self?
Stop and listen. At 20 I was sure that I had all of the answers. I was studying business at university, consuming all of the content that was available in pre-internet days. Ironically, I was surrounded by so many people with insights and experiences to share, from people in my classes, to professors and people at work, that the smartest thing I could have done would have been to stop and listen. The amount of mistakes I confidently made that could have been avoided had I just had the humility to learn from those around me are hard to count.
What's left to accomplish?
For the past decade, I have tried to figure out how to attract and serve clients individually, and build a business that takes care of its people. In the next phase, my goal is to scale that across North America. One way we’re going to do that is by bringing eLearningU to tourism businesses and universities in every province and state across the continent. At Junction, my goals are all about building a brilliant consulting team that can deliver world-class solutions to businesses and destinations that may otherwise may not have access to those types of services.
Is there anyone you would like to thank or acknowledge?
Without question, the person who is most responsible for any success that I’ve had is my wife. She constantly holds me to a higher standard, pushes me creatively and believes in my abilities even at times when I might not be so sure.
Read Q&As with all 40 award recipients here. Tickets to the 2023 Forty Under 40 Awards gala on Feb. 7 are now available.
