The magic numbers are 30,000 and 700.
One is the number of days in the life of the average Canadian and the other the number of days the average HBA student spends at Ivey.
Chris Albinson HBA ’90, MBA ’93, encouraged Ivey students to start planning now how they can make the most of both of them because doing so will change the way they see the world.
“There are 7.1 billion people to make an impact on and you have roughly 30,000 days to make that impact. It starts now during your 700 days at Ivey,” he said. “I hope in 24 years you can look back and say you did something you are really proud of.”
Albinson, co-founder and Managing Director of Founders Circle Capital, a technology-focused growth fund in Menlo Park, CA, was the speaker for the annual Richard G. Ivey Speaker Series on September 27 to kick off Ivey’s 2013 Homecoming festivities. He shared insights from his days at Ivey and how they shaped him as well as his experiences at a high-growth company and as an entrepreneur.
Here are some highlights from the event:
His mentors started him on his journey:
Albinson cited his grandfather, a farmer during the Great Depression, for teaching him to work hard and treat people well. He also credits his parents, who backpacked around the world twice, for encouraging him to take risks.
“They made me feel confident about going out in the world and exploring,” he said.
He later found four professors at Ivey – Paul Beamish, Jim de Wilde, Joe DiStefano and Ken Hardy – who further inspired him to go against the grain.
A famous entrepreneur helped set him on his career path:
Albinson was considering his career options post-Ivey when he met his first entrepreneur, Sir Terry Matthews. Matthews had just started Newbridge Networks in Ottawa to create data and voice networking products and encouraged Albinson to join him. During Albinson’s seven-year tenure at Newbridge, the company quickly grew to $1.6 billion in revenue and went global. Albinson said the experience taught him to deal with challenges.
“The amazing thing about being part of a hyper-growth company is you will be thrown so many things, until you break,” he said. “But it is the most amazing experience to be part of a company that is growing that fast.”
He found his calling in entrepreneurial startups:
He eventually followed in Matthews’ footsteps and was on the startup team of Digital Island in 1999. But after the dot-com bubble burst in the early 2000s, British telecom company Cable & Wireless acquired Digital Island in 2001.
Noting he learned more from the ride down than the ride up, he told the students not to be afraid of down markets.
“In the ashes of every downturn are some of the most interesting times,” he said.
After that Albinson co-founded the venture capital firm Panorama Capital in 2007. His latest business, Founders Circle Capital, launched in 2012, was inspired from his experience at Newbridge Networks and the management challenge of hyper growth on a global scale. The business connects entrepreneurs of mobile and social companies with mentors and funding to help them accelerate growth.
His advice:
Figure out what your ball is – that thing you can’t stop thinking about and that drives you – and go after it.
“I decided when I was 10 that I was going to go to the West Coast and I was going to make my life there. I thought I would be involved in something new and something different,” he said. “There was a painting of the Golden Gate Bridge in my grandmother’s house. She really loved San Francisco. There was something about that place – the energy – that didn’t leave me. That was my ball. That was the thing that I couldn’t stop thinking about.”
For more on Ivey’s Homecoming events, please see Homecoming article.
