By Vanessa Chiasson
AN INTERESTING COLLECTION of global experiences led Simon Carroll to his current role as President of Saab Canada. Growing up in rural Australia, his parents operated pubs and hotels, sometimes in towns as small as Dunedoo (home to approximately 800 people). It’s an environment that Carroll describes as one where you really can’t help but get to know everyone pretty quickly. A brief glance at his current job description suggests that his early expertise in management and service is still serving him well to this day.
As the President of Saab Canada, Inc, Carroll leads teams in Ottawa, Halifax, Medicine Hat, and Burnaby, making sure that all employees receive the necessary corporate services and support, including legal and human resources, they need to perform their duties. His work covers all aspects of operations, from business development to government relations to marketing.
The gap between rural Australia and corporate Canada was bridged in part by the military, though it wasn’t his original plan. As Carroll says: “I was all set to study commerce at university… until I went to a defence recruiting brief in my last four months of high school and applied to join the Royal Australian Navy and attend the Australian Defence Academy (Australia’s equivalent of RMC in Kingston). From here my interest in Defence only grew further as I spent 13 years in the Navy before joining the defence industry in Australia.”
Carroll’s naval career offered many rewards. A standout moment for him came when he was serving as the Operations Officer onboard HMAS Sydney during the second Gulf War. While the role itself was extremely satisfying, it also gave him his first exposure to collaborative work with international colleagues from a management perspective (though no doubt watching his parents manage hotel guests didn’t hurt!) It wasn’t just interacting with new people that Carroll found gratifying. His tenure aboard HMAS Sydney came at a time of tremendous technological change. Carroll describes this by saying: “So much of what we take for granted today in regards to information technology communications and the transfer of data was very new at that time and the management of this provided a real challenge, but also a fantastic learning experience.”
However, as outstanding as his experience was with the Royal Australian Navy, it was a chance conversation with an ex-Naval colleague that steered Carroll’s career path in a new direction. His former colleague had started a business helping military personnel find new roles when they left service. With a keen eye for matching people with positions, he presented Carroll with the right opportunity at the right time. He says: “To be honest if I hadn’t made this decision at the time I would probably still be in the Navy.” And thus an international industry career spanning time in Australia, the UAE, and Canada was born!
A pivotal point in that journey was joining CEA Technologies in a sales role in 2006. The position introduced Carroll to the international aspect of the defence industry and he’s never looked back. He sees many parallels between his industry experience and his military service, saying: “Much like pursuing a career in the military, you need a very supportive and willing family to achieve this, along with an employer who is open to providing such opportunities. Fortunately, I have both!”
While he hadn’t set out to live overseas for so long (describing his expat life as a two-year ‘life experience’ that has turned into nearly nine), it has developed into one of the most outstanding parts of his career, one that has provided him with more opportunities than he ever imagined – to say nothing of the inspiration he’s found along the way. Carroll describes some of the folks he has met in the industry as “ridiculously intelligent people” who have inspired him to re-think his approach to certain situations (in a good way!). Yet they are all aligned with the common purpose of serving military members in their respective countries. He says that “Having the opportunity to work with, and learn from, people from a range of cultures in a variety of social environments has been extremely rewarding.”
But while Carroll has seen tremendous growth in his industry over the years, he also sees where there is room for improvement. He has heard colleagues describe industry event attendance as being “male, pale, and stale” and he recognized the hard truth buried within the quip. He sees the need for all aspects of the defence industry to attract a “more diverse range of personnel such that the industry can benefit from different ways of thinking, new ideas and a broader personnel representation of today’s society.”
When Carroll looks to the future and envisions young executives thinking of entering the defence industry, he’d advise those interested to be ambitious and always strive to achieve more while keeping in mind the role of teamwork. He sees teamwork as central to everyone’s success and knows that those critical relationships are built through positive communication. One of the most valuable aspects of his own career has been establishing relationships and friendships with people from all over the world and he knows that success in the defence industry is heavily reliant on these relationships and their resulting partnerships.
He also knows this team-centred approach is crucial for the growth of the industry as a whole. Carroll says: “I think the real challenge facing not only Saab, but the defence industry at large, is the challenge for people. It is extremely important for defence and industry to look at this challenge in unison so that together we present the defence industry as an attractive and rewarding environment in order to attract new talent.” As he looks at Saab’s future, he knows they’ll be continually working on how to improve their offerings to the Canadian Armed Forces, endeavouring to maintain an active growing presence in Canada.
