Powerful women in business
Confident confidante
She’s been stuck in high school for almost three decades, but former Toronto teacher turned television producer Linda Schuyler, 59, doesn’t seem to mind. Schuyler has successfully tapped into the adolescent angst of two generations: first, with the innovative 1980s series Kids of Degrassi Street, Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High, and then again in the new millennium with Degrassi: The Next Generation, a hit on both sides of the border.
Update (February 2009): Schuyler is being awarded with the Female Eye Maverick Award, a newly-created award bestowed by the Female Eye Film Festival.
Merger manager
It was one of the most-talked-about business stories of recent years: Inco’s tribulations as it tried to acquire Falconbridge, proposed combining with Phelps Dodge and finally was acquired by Brazil’s Companhia Vale do Rio Doce. In the centre of it all was Dale Ponder, 50, managing partner of Toronto law firm Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP and lead counsel to Inco Ltd. The deal put Ponder on a list of the world’s top deal-makers and Canada’s top lawyers.
Power bookers
If you read (and you must, since you’re reading this!), these two Canadian publishing powerhouses have likely had an impact on the books you buy and where you buy ’em. Louise Dennys, 59, is executive vice president and executive publisher of Random House, Knopf and Vintage Canada, where her authors have included Michael Ondaatje, Ian McEwan, Martin Amis and John Irving. And Heather Reisman, 59, well, she’s become a household name as the moving force behind Canada’s biggest book retailer, Chapters, Indigo and Coles. Now she’s adding a new form of advocacy to her resumé: the Indigo Love of Reading Foundation is dedicated to improving literacy.
Chic hotelier
Her boutique hotels are the toast of the town — make that towns. Style-conscious travellers head for bed at Christiane Germain’s properties in Montreal, Quebec and Toronto. Groupe Germain was one of the first to offer the boutique-style concept in Canada, and Germain, 52, is frequently cited as the detail-oriented visionary who has shaped everything from what books to place in the hotel library to what coffee is served in the restaurants. Hospitality runs in her veins: Her father, Victor, was a successful restaurateur, and her two brothers work by her side.
