Announcing the 2021 Canada’s Most Admired Award Winners!

2021 Canada’s Most Admired Corporate Cultures™ and Canada’s Most Admired CEO™ Winners Announced

TORONTO, November 25, 2021 – Waterstone Human Capital, Canada’s leading cultural talent management firm, has announced the 2021 winners of the Canada’s Most Admired Corporate Cultures™ and Canada’s Most Admired CEO™ program.  This national program recognizes best-in-class Canadian organizations and CEOs for fostering high performance corporate cultures that help sustain a competitive advantage.

Organizations and CEOs are recognized as national winners in categories including: Enterprise, Mid-Market, Growth, Emerging, and the Broader Public Sector. In 2021, for only the third time since the Canada’s Most Admired CEO Award was introduced in 2014, the Board of Governors voted to present the Transformational Leadership Award, recognizing a CEO who has had an extraordinary impact on the growth and evolution of an organization’s corporate culture and overall performance.

“At Waterstone we believe corporate culture drives performance and that it’s your organization’s greatest asset,” says Marty Parker, president and CEO of Waterstone Human Capital and Chair of the Canada’s Most Admired™ program. “Each of the 2021 award recipients puts culture at the centre of everything they do, and demonstrates a commitment to culture as competitive advantage. They set an excellent example of how crafting and sustaining a high performance culture can drive incredible growth and performance.”

Canada’s Most Admired™ CEOs of 2021

  • Enterprise: John Ferguson, President & CEO, Purolator (Mississauga, ON)
  • Mid-Market: Wayne Chiu, Founder & CEO, The Trico Group (Calgary, AB)
  • Growth: Judi Hess, CEO, Copperleaf (Vancouver, BC)
  • Emerging: Zak Hemraj, Co-founder & CEO, Loopio Inc. (Toronto, ON)
  • Broader Public Sector: Michael Lavis, CEO, Creative Options Regina (Regina, SK)
  • Transformational Leadership: Lori Nikkel, CEO, Second Harvest (Toronto, ON)


Canada’s Most Admired
Corporate Cultures of 2021 – Enterprise

·       Bayer Canada (Mississauga, ON)
·       Compass Group Canada (Mississauga, ON)
·       Corus Entertainment Inc. (Toronto, ON)
·       goeasy Ltd. (Mississauga, ON)
·       Hershey Canada Inc. (Mississauga, ON)
·       Ledcor Group of Companies (Vancouver, BC)
·       Longo Brothers Fruit Markets Inc. (Vaughan, ON)
·       Manulife (Toronto, ON)
·       Mattamy Homes (Toronto, ON)
·       OpenText Corporation (Waterloo, ON)

Canada’s Most Admired Corporate Cultures of 2021– Mid-Market

·       BlueShore Financial (North Vancouver, BC)
·       Book Depot Inc. (Thorold, ON)
·       Eckler Ltd. (Toronto, ON)
·       Endy Canada Inc. (Toronto, ON)
·       KUBRA (Mississauga, ON)
·       Nicola Wealth (Vancouver, BC)
·       Nordia (Laval, QC)
·       Penguin Random House Canada (Toronto, ON)
·       Questrade (Toronto, ON)
·       SCI Group Inc. (Toronto, ON)
·       Securiguard Services Limited (Vancouver, BC)

Canada’s Most Admired Corporate Cultures of 2021– Growth

·       BOWEN Group, a division of Agilus (Calgary, AB)·       Copperleaf (Vancouver, BC)·       Cowan Insurance Group (Cambridge, ON)·       Financeit (Toronto, ON)·       Helcim (Calgary, AB)·       Mitsubishi HC Capital Canada (Trois-Rivieres, QC)·       Molded Precision Components (Oro-Medonte, ON)·       Security Compass (Toronto, ON)·       Sharethrough (Montreal, QC)·       StarFish Medical (Victoria, BC) 

Canada’s Most Admired Corporate Cultures of 2021– Emerging

·       Accent Inns Inc. (Victoria, BC)
·       Corporate Finance Institute® (CFI) (Vancouver, BC)
·       FISPAN (Vancouver, BC)
·       Impetus Digital (Toronto, ON)
·       Insurance Insight Inc. (Oakville, ON)
·       Jan Kelley (Burlington, ON)
·       Klue (Vancouver, BC)
·       Litco Law (Calgary, AB)
·       RFP Design Group Inc. (Mississauga, ON)
·       Righteous Gelato (Calgary, AB)

Canada’s Most Admired Corporate Cultures of 2021 – Broader Public Sector

·       Alberta Blue Cross (Edmonton, AB)
·       City of Surrey (Surrey, BC)
·       Halton Healthcare (Oakville, ON)
·       Lakefield College School (Lakefield, ON)
·       Medavie (Moncton, NB)
·       Opportunities NB (Fredericton, NB)
·       Plan International Canada (Toronto, ON)
·       SE Health (Markham, ON)
·       St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton (Hamilton, ON)
·       ventureLAB (Markham, ON)

The Canada’s Most Admired™ Corporate Cultures and Canada’s Most Admired™ CEO awards will be presented at an awards celebration on Thursday, March 31, 2022. The day also includes a Corporate Culture Summit – a learning event focused on corporate culture that features speakers and breakout sessions with past award winners – and a CEO-only Summit, which brings together some of the most senior executives from across Canada to network and share best practices around how to leverage corporate culture as a competitive advantage.

Tickets for all events will be available online early in the new year.