Boiling Point - Episode 066 - Marcel LeBrun

Growing as a CEO

Introducing Marcel Lebrun

Is a CEO born or made? Marcel LeBrun believes the former and he should know because he was given the opportunity to grow into the position. Marcel is a native New Brunswicker and a graduate of the University of New Brunswick’s computer engineering department. After school, Marcel took a job at New Brunswick’s telecom company, NBTel. What he didn’t know at the time was that NBTel would prove to be an incubator for a number of exemplary entrepreneurs. 

NBTel had a philosophy that inspired innovation. Being a phone company that only owned about 3 per cent of the Canadian market, the company had a choice of working within an economy of scale or an economy of innovation. They took the innovation path in order to stay relevant. NBTel also had a culture whereby they took chances by promoting people that had all of the capability but perhaps not the experience. Marcel was one of these people without the experience, but had all the capability in the world to succeed. When Marcel was 28 years-old he was in the right meeting at the right time and he was given the opportunity to become CEO of Imagic TV, which made software for telecom companies. Marcel learned his position by doing it and eventually was given the opportunity to become CEO for Radian 6, one of Canada’s leading tech acquisitions.

Check out this week’s episode for lots of great nuggets of wisdom from a CEO that learned by doing.

In this episode

• Marcel talks about the self-described entrepreneur, and when is it appropriate to consider yourself one.
• He goes on to talk about how he became an entrepreneur accidentally.
• Marcel tells us how his experience at Imagic TV allowed him to take an opportunity to help revolutionize the marketing world with Radian 6.
• He tells us how NBTel provided a culture that acted like an incubator for future entrepreneurs.
• There is a discussion of seasoned entrepreneurs vs. green horns and whether a great entrepreneur is born or made.
• Marcel explains how a new entrepreneur should, “expect trouble”.
• We talk about how a business is a social organism and that it’s main purpose is to benefit the community.
• Marcel talk about the importance of making contentment a choice.
• He tells us that the important question for every entrepreneur is to ask themselves, “Why am I doing this and for what purpose?”
• Dave is inspired by Marcel’s notion of thinking beyond you as an entrepreneur.
• Greg enjoys the concept of not defining the what, but the what for?

Links

- Boiling Point with David Alston

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