Stephen Beamish, BCom graduate of 1990, chose the Telfer School of Management for a multitude of different reasons. As he says, his top three driving reasons would have to be the sense of collaboration that Telfer promotes between students and professors, the high caliber professors, and the students studying from all over the world.
Reflecting back on his time at Telfer, Stephen remembers fondly his group projects, one in particular that he worked on with five other students. The challenging nature of the project meant that him and his team spent many late nights working on the project, but the breaks taken in between work proved to be fun and made the project all the more enjoyable. Coming together with other students to work on a common goal meant a lot to Stephen as a committed student. As for his favorite class, Stephen speaks of his statistics course taught by Professor John Nash, as it was taught in an engaging manner and had great importance and relevance to the world of business.
A major tool learned in his time at Telfer is, according to Stephen, the ability to collaborate with people of any personality, view point or skill level. Just as in the business world, during class projects Stephen was not always able to choose whom he would like to work with. As he says: “Having learned from Telfer’s many group assignments about collaboration, compromise and shared responsibility proved to be a great lesson that helped tremendously throughout my business career”.
Throughout his career, it has been important to Stephen to work in a profession or company that does something to help others. Working in high tech marketing, he appreciates being able to being advanced communication solutions to remote communities. Also important to Stephen is giving his best to anything he is involved with, expressing that “I guess then you could easily say that the Telfer School played a big part in making sure I had the proper business education to be able to perform my job over the years – to the best of my ability”.
Upon graduating, after taking a few years off to travel and experience living in other parts of Canada, Stephen returned to Telfer to obtain his MBA. After finishing his second degree, Stephen began working in high tech marketing and advanced to the position of Vice President of Global marketing for Mitel, as well as the Vice President of Mitel’s Business Development team. Stephen eventually made the choice to leave Mitel after 10 years in order to be closer to his family and went on to open his own practice as a virtual Chief Marketing Officer for his company BlackTusk Business solutions. BlackTusk Business Solution’s mandate is to provide businesses with a one-stop-shop for both creating and executing client marketing strategies.
