Each year our annual Leadership Conference allows our Community Managers, Maintenance Managers, and corporate teams to connect with one another and others to learn, celebrate, and have a great time! Although the format was a bit different than in previous years, Venterra Leadership Conference 2021 still resulted in these individuals expanding their knowledge, growing their skills, and putting what they learned to use, helping build a stronger Venterra.
This year is the first time that the event was held in a virtual format, and, instead of our typical 3-day event in February, we spread the festivities out across the whole year. VLC 2021 kicked off in March with our annual tradeshow and speeches from our Sr. Vice President of Property and Asset Management, Bryan George, and our CEO, John Foresi. Things rolled on in April with our Employee Learning Manager, Jessica Shaw, presenting leadership lessons learned from the popular Canadian sitcom, Schitt’s Creek, a technology and innovation series from our VP of Technology, Andrew Basso, and our VP of Property and Customer Innovation, Stephanie Gonzalez, and John Foresi returned to allow our leaders a chance to pick his brain during an interactive Q & A session.
The summer months held more VLC action with Community Manager and Maintenance Manager breakout sessions, a presentation about employee financial wellness program, SmartDollar, and a keynote from a guest speaker, author Michael Bungay Stanier, who shared practical ways to foster autonomous, accountable teams. Venterra leaders would later hear from more Venterra Leadership Conference 2021 guest speakers. In September, Kevin Karschnik, taught our leaders about communication, listening, conflict styles, and empathetic responding. And in October, we learned about the “customer of the future” from author, Blake Morgan.
Even though VLC 2021 was a little different than others, we still had a blast learning, interacting, and growing together. Our leaders have already been putting what they’ve learned to use and we’re looking forward to seeing the results in the years to come!