WestJet President – Corner Brook Native Sean Durfy

Recently Westjet starting flying into the Deer Lake Airport in Newfoundland and Labrador.

In September 2006, Corner Brook native Sean Durfy replaced WestJet’s legendary founder, Clive Beddoe, who remains as the company’s CEO and chairman.

Durfy attended Herdman and among other things, was a very good basketball player.

In the article referenced below, by Monte Stewart of Businessedge.ca, Durfy talks about his dad who ran a grocery wholesale-retail company.

I called on Sean’s Dad back in the early 90′s when I worked for McCain Foods. He was a nice man and he did work very hard. In fact, I believe the entire Durfy family are nice hard working people.

It certainly is good to see that Durfy is doing well.

Below are some highlights from the article written by Monte Stewart.

Strange things happen in the business world. Just ask Sean Durfy.The 41-year-old Newfoundland native was fired from his first full-time job after graduating from university, but he flew through the corporate ranks to become president of Calgary-based WestJet Airlines.

He replaced WestJet’s legendary founder, Clive Beddoe, who remains as the company’s CEO and chairman.

“I followed my brothers and my dad (into business),” says Durfy. “My dad ran a grocery wholesale-retail company and was a successful businessman and worked hard.

“On Saturday mornings, we would go with my dad to his office so he could do some work. Because it was wholesale-retail, it was always stocked full of stuff like a big warehouse. We were so ingrained (in business) at an early age and then my brothers got into it and I sort of followed suit. Really, it was in the bloodline – and I just kept going.”

1. What was it like growing up in Corner Brook?”It was an awesome place to grow up. When I grew up, there were about 30,000-35,000 people. It had everything you needed. I grew up on a ski hill – Marble Mountain – so I learned to ski early in life. Winter was taken up with skiing and basketball and in summer, it was baseball. We had great swimming holes. All the families sort of knew each other and the education system was very good. It had several high schools and a very good university and college. My dad was a businessman and my mom was a stay-at-home mom. We had four kids in our family. I’m the youngest, our sister is the oldest, and then two brothers. My sister’s still in Newfoundland and both brothers are in Toronto and I’m in Calgary.”

4. What type of business did you expect to get into?

“I thought I had this creative flair. I was going to be this big advertising guy, and I actually did do some advertising for a company called General Motors Super Group, MacLaren Lintas. That’s where I met my beautiful wife, who was in the advertising industry. She worked for a sister company to the one I worked for. I always thought I would be the big advertising guy, the real creative mind and all that good stuff – and I just really wasn’t very good at it. That ended abruptly. I think I spent maybe a year and a half at that.”

5. How did you end up leaving that company?

“Well, I was fired. Yup. I was fired by this gal who was our boss at the time. I learned a lot. In my career, I still don’t know exactly what to do as a good leader – but I really know what not to do. It was funny, because that particular case taught me great lessons on how not to lead and what not to do. When I was appointed president here, believe it or not, I got a note from that lady who fired me. Something to the extent: ‘I’ve been following your career. Very proud of you. Congratulations.’ And, I went: Wow! Fifteen years later and you get a note like that. I laughed. I thought it was quite humorous.”

6. Why were you fired?

“I would probably call it personality conflict. Yeah. We didn’t get along very well.”

7. What were the lessons that you learned?

“I learned how not to treat people. I learned how to be an inclusive person out of that experience. I think I learned how to try to be more even-keel and not an emotive person when it comes to dealing with business. So those would have been two big lessons.”

Sean Durfy* Title: President

* Born/raised/age: Corner Brook, Nfld./41

* Education: Bachelor of commerce in finance and marketing from University of Dalhousie

* Family: Wife Tracy, daughter Kennedy, 4, son Reilly, 3 months.

* Career: After graduating from Dalhousie, Durfy moved to Calgary and joined General Motors Super Group, MacLaren Lintas as the field account manager for northern Alberta. He moved on to several executive positions with Honeywell Ltd.’s home and building-control operation, joined TransAlta Energy Marketing Corp. as its director of energy marketing and then joined Enmax Corp. He rose through the executive ranks to become Enmax’s president and chief operating officer before starting in 2004 with WestJet as its vice-president of marketing. About a year later, his duties were expanded to include airport operations. In September 2006, he was promoted to president, replacing legendary WestJet founder and CEO Clive Beddoe.

* Moonlighting: Former board member for Kids Cancer Care and Calgary Zoo.

* Passions: Baseball, basketball, skiing, other sports.

WestJet Airlines

* Brass: Clive Beddoe, chairman, CEO and founder; Sean Durfy, president; Vito Culmone, executive vice-president of finance and CFO; Donald Bell, executive vice-president of culture; Fred Ring, executive vice-president of corporate projects; Hugh Dunleavy, executive vice-president of commercial distribution; Bob Cummings, executive vice-president of guest experience and marketing; Ken McKenzie, executive vice-president of operations.

* Website: www.westjet.com

* HQ: 5055 11th St. N.E., Calgary, T2E 8N4

* Phone/Fax: (403) 444-2600/(403) 444-2301

(Monte Stewart can be reached at monte@businessedge.ca)

Tagged as: Corner Brook, Humber Valley