Quote about change: "Just go in, figure things out, and get things done."
Ever wondered what it takes to transition from corporate finance to entrepreneurship? Our insightful chat with Karri Howlett is a must-listen for anyone facing career changes or contemplating a leap into entrepreneurship. Karri Howlett is the owner of Karri Howlett Consulting. She takes us through her remarkable journey of career changes, the challenges she encountered, and shares how her upbringing on a farm shaped her decisions and cultivated an optimistic outlook.
We dive into the real deal of entrepreneurship, discussing the decision Karri and her husband made to become entrepreneurs, even against initial apprehensions from their family. Karri shares insights on the risks and rewards of leaving a steady paycheck. She sheds light on the resilience required to forge ahead and how nourishing optimism can lead to achieving goals.
Karri shares her experience of buying a business with partners and how crucial alignment is in finding the right partner. Finally, we delve into the importance of trusting that inner voice when making decisions.
Quote about change: "Just go in, figure things out, and get things done."
Ever wondered what it takes to transition from corporate finance to entrepreneurship? Our insightful chat with Karri Howlett is a must-listen for anyone facing career changes or contemplating a leap into entrepreneurship. Karri Howlett is the owner of Karri Howlett Consulting. She takes us through her remarkable journey of career changes, the challenges she encountered, and shares how her upbringing on a farm shaped her decisions and cultivated an optimistic outlook.
We dive into the real deal of entrepreneurship, discussing the decision Karri and her husband made to become entrepreneurs, even against initial apprehensions from their family. Karri shares insights on the risks and rewards of leaving a steady paycheck. She sheds light on the resilience required to forge ahead and how nourishing optimism can lead to achieving goals.
Karri shares her experience of buying a business with partners and how crucial alignment is in finding the right partner. Finally, we delve into the importance of trusting that inner voice when making decisions.
Welcome to. So you Want to Move to the Country and Raise Goats? This is a podcast about change. Change is all around us and sometimes we're ready for it and sometimes we're not. When it overwhelms us, well, we just want to move to the country and raise goats. This podcast features stories from people who have gone through change. We hope that their insights will help you better understand and deal with the changes in your life. I'm Peggy Koenig and, along with my co-host, Catherine Gryba, we chat with insightful people with interesting change stories. We hope you enjoy our podcast.
Catherine Gryba:Karri Howlett is the owner of Karri Howlett Consulting. She has a very interesting background in finance, geoscience, engineering, mergers and acquisitions, so a lot of Carrie arrived at owning her own consulting firm. She has strong ties and connections to her family, where she grew up in a farm. Following university, she started working for corporate Canada and made the very common move to Caligary where she followed the love of her life. They then decided to move back to Saskatoon to be close to family as they raised their children. Carrie is an optimist. She just knows that things will work out. She trusts her voice inside and has what she describes as a bouncy mind. She pays attention to when she's bouncing and has learned to quiet herself through meditation. Join Peggy and I as Carrie shares her story.
Peggie Koenig:Today we're very happy to welcome Carrie Howlett to the program. Hi, carrie, thanks for joining. Catherine and I.
Karri Howlett:Hi, Great to be here. Thanks for the invitation to be a part of your great show.
Peggie Koenig:Okay, great Well you know, carrie, you and I have. We've known each other off and on over the years and I think it really way back in the day you were actually a client of my consulting firm. I didn't work with you directly, but that's where we first connected and then we actually shared some space in the same office building, which was interesting as well. We would run into each other in the hallway. So I'm interested and I think our listeners are interested in hearing about about your career and its evolution, and I know that you started out studying finance, and I'm wondering if you can just go back back there and sort of start talking about where that took you and why you made the decisions that you made and the changes that you made.
Karri Howlett:Yeah, thanks, peggy. Yeah, it's funny when you think back to that. That was 30 years ago when I started my university degree. I was 17 years old. I was, you know, farm kid, grew up in around Porcupine Plains, saskatchewan, and, you know, wasn't going to fulfill my grandfather's desire dreams of me marrying a farmer and taking over the farm. So, you know, it was something that I was interested in was to go to university. I was first thinking about becoming a corporate lawyer, actually, and then, once I got into school and realized that, you know, law school looked a little too challenging for me, I thought I would go straight into commerce and stick with it. So, yeah, I picked a finance degree. I always think of that as applied accounting or applied economics one of the two and so I always found that really interesting and creative about you know how you can grow wealth and grow businesses and things like that. So I really took to that training and, of course, when I finished my degree, I did as every good Saskatchewan kid does.
Karri Howlett:I moved to Calgary for a couple of years, but I didn't move for a job, I moved for love. My husband was finishing up his architecture degree there, and so when I, as soon as I finished university, I headed out to Alberta to be with him and so I spent a couple of years working in the oil industry in Calgary and then, after we had our first daughter, we moved back to Saskatchewan. And because he's from Saskatchewan as well, he's from Saskatoon and so I worked for a company called what was called Co-op Trust. I think it's gone through a few different iterations I can't remember what it's called now, but it's. I worked in their corporate finance group there and was lucky enough to be involved with their large merger, which was a large merger with another credit union institution and I think it was a total of about $7 billion in assets and really complicated merger work in terms of financial modeling and regulatory and things like that.
Karri Howlett:So super fulfilling experience and really loved it. And then continued on doing that for Saskatoon Credit Union, doing their mergers, and then decided at that point that I like doing that so much and thought that that could be applicable skills that could be for many different companies, not necessarily just banks and credit unions. So I decided that I would become an entrepreneur and start my own consulting business and do ownership, transition, risk management, cash flow management, those types of things, and that was super fulfilling. I guess, growing up on a farm, entrepreneurship is in your blood, and so again disappointed my grandfather, who thought having a good, steady job in the credit union system was the way to go, and then thoroughly disappointed him yet again by becoming an entrepreneur. But when you grew up on a farm, it's hard not to work for yourself, and so that's what I decided to do.
Catherine Gryba:Maryam, I'm curious. I want to go back to when you moved to Caligari because, you're right, there was such an exodus of young people moving for that grass that was greener in Alberta, and so when you moved, did you have in mind that you were going to come back within two to five years, or was that even you know? You're young enough that it will just take it as it comes? What were you thinking then in terms of your path to Alberta and back again?
Karri Howlett:Yeah, good question. It really really was, with no plan in mind other than just to go to be with my love. And so I was working for CIBC here and was kind of on that path that you take once you are finished university and decided then to move it towards. I took a job at CIBC in Caligari originally just to kind of get me there, and then got a much better paying job in the oil industry as they all do. But I wasn't really. We didn't really have a plan. It was just sort of more of a take it as you go. My husband being an architect, you know there may not have been as much opportunity in Saskatchewan as there would have been in Alberta. So we didn't really have a plan to move back. Things just sort of all fell into place.
Karri Howlett:I, we had our first child in Caligari and while I was on maternity leave I was visiting family back in Saskatchewan and saw a job posting.
Karri Howlett:For what was the job? At Co-op Trust, applied for it, thinking you know, that sounds like a cool job and it would be nice to be close to family because I grew up very close to all of my my family and my husband's family is here and got the job and then my husband was able to find work here, and so then we, we moved back and haven't looked back. But when we, when we left Caligari, it was we left in 2000. And that was still the mass exodus. And I remember going to change my, my address at different places and I was saying, you know, I'm moving, I'm changing it from Caligari to Saskatoon, and people would be like you have that backwards, are you sure I like that doesn't seem right. And so you know we were, we were kind of bucking the trend, I suppose, by moving back when we did. But but you know, got us an opportunity to get a good foothold here in our careers and, you know, by house and and raise our family here and it's just been wonderful.
Peggie Koenig:So, Kerry, it sounds like I mean, you were in some pretty large corporations where you really honed your skills and it sounds to me like you had that you were really open to new experiences on the job, to really jumping in and doing some of the tough stuff. Am I hearing that right?
Karri Howlett:Yeah, I think, especially when I came back here and started working for Co-op Trust. I mean, the company was so dynamic. It was run by just a phenomenal woman leader, myrna Bentley if anyone remembers Wonderful, wonderful Myrna and she was so inspiring and really ran a great company and I was really given a lot of opportunity to do, to make the role what I wanted it to be. And you know, just again that kind of Saskatchewan upbringing where you just you don't need a manual, you just go in and you figure it out and you get it done, and when there's a problem that needs to be solved, you figure out how to solve it and over time that just gives you kind of a good good foothold in skill development. And and then, paired with the fact that I can't really say no when things sound really fun and interesting and a lot of things sound fun and interesting, and so I you know it just gained a lot of great experience there, so did you ever have moments where you really wondered whether you could do it?
Peggie Koenig:Did you ever have questions of confidence? Because it sounds like you had opportunities to to take on all sorts of things, like people were were giving you things to do that you nest not necessarily really knew what you were doing at the time. I'm making an assumption. Were you ever? Was your confidence ever? Did you ever question yourself? Were you ever afraid?
Karri Howlett:Yeah, I think I'm not. I'm pretty good at asking questions of others, I like to learn, and so anytime I was a bit a bit lost. Luckily, I had a ton of great mentors there, so I was able to to really lean on a lot of very experienced people who knew a lot more than me, and so, you know, and made and made my fair share of mistakes too. Again, great great environment there. I was able to make mistakes and learn from them without too serious of consequences too. So, you know, I think it was, it was just a great place to to start my career really.
Catherine Gryba:And I'm curious. Carrie, it's absolutely true. Farming is really an entrepreneurial business and it's just born into you and you're raised that way, and yet you were on a trajectory for a very successful career in corporate world. So what did you go through when making that decision to make the jump, because there would have been some risk in it, also in going out on your own. What was what went through your mind to make that decision?
Karri Howlett:You know it's funny, catherine, you mentioned that, and it's when you, as soon as you ask that question, I'm thrown back to 2006, when I made that decision, and it feels like yesterday it was.
Karri Howlett:It's a tough one to go into entrepreneurship, give up that steady paycheck that I'd had since I was a teenager, always having that place to go on Monday and the paycheck at the end of every two weeks, and so, yeah, it was risky. But then I thought back to when I started university and I had nothing. I was, you know, I mean a good family and strong background, but, you know, taking on student loans and living off of very little money and and just doing what you had to do, and I thought this is just going to be a new form of tuition. I'm going to be having to sacrifice a little bit of income to learn a new skill. I could go back to school or I could become an entrepreneur. Both, both require a cost of admission and and and some you know, intuition is the school of life when you're an entrepreneur, and so that's that's ultimately what the mindset that I had to adopt in order to to get through it was that this is going to be another four year degree in entrepreneurship.
Peggie Koenig:So when, when you made that decision, I'm taking, I'm taking back to when I made the decision. I left a job, at a good job, initially at the university and then with with Deloitte, to start my own business. My parents were absolutely horrified that I would do such a to give up all that security. How was, how did your family react to you making that decision?
Karri Howlett:Yeah. So I mean, I had two young kids at the time and my husband also made the decision to become an entrepreneur. He became a partner in his architecture firm at the same time. So I remember going to our accountant and our lawyer and saying, okay, we need the paperwork drawn up for starting two businesses this month. And so, I don't know, maybe we were crazy, but it all worked out. It was, it just felt like the right thing to do and and yeah, it all it all worked out, to fair, you know, with varying degrees, I mean, nothing's ever a straight line or perfect all the way through but but certainly it was, yeah, kind of a pivotal moment for both of us, and we were kind of going through it at the same time, and so we just, we just did what we had to do. It helps if you start your career with your, your consulting business, with your first contract though, so there's a little bit of cash flow that to get you started is always helpful. But landing that second and third contract is the hard part, for sure.
Catherine Gryba:And you experience setbacks.
Karri Howlett:Yeah for sure there were all little setbacks, little things where maybe a client, that just didn't pan out the way you thought it was going to. I still think of consulting as a fun, a funny thing, and even though I've been doing it for 15 plus years, I still go into every contract thinking that we're going to deliver this beautiful, shiny, golden orb at the end of this project and it's going to be so wonderful. And then in reality by the time it's done, you're handing over to the client this, you know, rusted and beat up and like you know things taped on and gum stuck to it and it's like it's not shiny and golden but it's your orb sort of. And you know, and it's just the reality. You know you go into things with the best of intentions and then it just life happens and so on both sides, you know you can't anticipate everything.
Karri Howlett:So I think you know, entrepreneurship is a bit like that too. It just starts out as this you know great idea and everything's going to go wonderfully, and then just things come along to kind of batter and bruise you along the way. But ultimately I think it's a much stronger battered and bruised orb in the end, because it's you know it's real, it's been tested through life and it still holds up. So I think that's kind of a testament to anybody who's an entrepreneur and who's been doing it for a long time is that if you can, you know, still be held up. You're maybe a bit battered and bruised, but you're still going.
Peggie Koenig:So it's very you know through this conversation what I'm hearing a lot of resilience and also where hearing resilience combined with forging ahead to achieve your goals and just almost making an assumption that it's all going to work out. Am I, like you, just really believe? You believe?
Karri Howlett:I guess. So, yeah, I do have an optimistic viewpoint generally. I think now it's a little more tempered with realism than it was, you know, when I started out, when I was younger. Yeah, I guess just always feeling like I could figure it out. But if there was anything that you know came my way that was was kind of threw me off, then I could figure it out. Or and not just me I have.
Karri Howlett:I have great people in my world. I've met so many, many, many amazing people in my different spheres of business, either through as a corporate person on this entrepreneurship journey that I've been on on different corporate boards that I've been on. There's just so much wealth of knowledge and people who are willing to share their advice and their thoughts with you and kind of banter things out on. You know how to maybe look at a problem a little bit differently, those types of things, and it's really quite, quite amazing.
Karri Howlett:So, yeah, I definitely draw on some of my own resilience, but I think I also draw on the resilience of others who've who've been there and done that and are are just amazing people who are willing to share and help out. So we get to have a lot of that in Saskatchewan. We've got a lot of people who are just like it doesn't matter if you are, you know, a person whose name is on an important building in the city or you have, you know, run a company for so many years or whatever, or even, yeah, just, or you're a doctor or anything, just everybody's got such interesting stories and they're just so willing to to chat. So it's a great. It's a great place to do business, it's a great place to build your career and it's yeah, I really have enjoyed it.
Catherine Gryba:Harry, do you specifically seek out mentors, or or do these conversations kind of happen and you're in boardrooms or meetings and you're open to open to you know advice? Then how does that work for you?
Karri Howlett:Yeah, I actually don't go and seek out mentors. I think I have had mentors in the past. Some are formal, some are informal. Yeah, I think that's a lot of pressure on someone to feel like they need to provide you the right thing at all times. So I like to kind of just have conversations with people and just learn from their experience. I'm one of these types of thinkers that I can. I'd like to make connections in what people are saying. So even if someone says something that is seemingly irrelevant to what I might be going through, actually there's probably a lot of relevance. I mean, the human experience can be fairly universal in many ways, and so I always get something of great value anytime I talk with someone, and oftentimes, if it's not a nugget for use in a current situation, there's usually a quote or something that comes out in my mind, or even just a general feeling that I get from that person that I can draw on later If there's another challenge that comes ahead. Yeah.
Peggie Koenig:So you were a consultant, you are a consultant, but in between the were and are, there were some. You've had other entrepreneurial opportunities, right? And just prior to going on to the podcast, you were talking about how you and some other partners bought into a company which is where I first met you in the hallways right, but that company was merged, right, and yes, and then you stayed on for a while. But there, talk to us a little bit about how important alignment is at work.
Karri Howlett:Yeah, so the company that you're talking about, peggy, was used to be called North Rim Exploration. It was a client of mine back in 2009 or 2008 that was looking to sell his business, and when I got into entrepreneurship, I was looking for a business that I could either build or buy, and so that was maybe different than consulting. And so this opportunity presented itself this client who was looking to sell his business. I got to know the business, I got to know the people. I really loved it. It was in mining, so totally different than what I was experienced. But every business has a finance component. And so, yes, I organized a group of individuals who worked at the company, as well as an institutional shareholder, to buy the company from this fellow.
Karri Howlett:And then we ran it for six years, went through the ups and downs of the mining industry, so grew the business, shrunk the business and got ourselves back to having good profitability, really good profitability, and had had a vast, quite a bit of cash over that time. And so we were, and our institutional shareholder was looking to exit. So we were looking for partners to kind of grow and expand our business into new areas and also have take out our institutional shareholder, and so we had a couple of options. But we ended up working with a company called Respec, which was based out of Rapid City, south Dakota, and our other partner potential partner was based out of Germany, and so we were kind of deciding between the two and what we found was that our partner, respec, in Rapid City, was just had a lot of the similar perspective.
Karri Howlett:They're both they're Midwest company, you know, based out of Rapid City, so they got that kind of Midwest feel, very, you know, home driven, you know hardworking, just yeah, let the work speak for itself, but have that balance with your life and your family and those types of things. So that was really important for our team. And then we became it's an employee owned business and we were an employee owned business, so it was just a good fit that way as well, and so they just felt like the right partner and it because they felt like the right partner from the day we started talking to the day we closed the deal was four months and so it all happened really really fast, just because we were all aligned and and it just felt like a good fit. And so, yeah, and it's been a successful transaction transition ever since.
Catherine Gryba:Carrie, what advice or tips and tools would you share with our listeners that have worked for you or didn't work when you went through change?
Karri Howlett:I would say a tip is and this sounds cliché, but it is so very, very true is trust that voice inside that says this is the thing that you should do or this is the thing you shouldn't do.
Karri Howlett:I can pinpoint me not listening to my inner wisdom to every failure I've had, and I can pinpoint listening to my inner wisdom for every success that I've had too. In order to be able to do that, you do have to spend some time getting to know yourself a little bit and what's important to you. I keep going back to my upbringing and just being around the farm and being around family all the time, and it just has to fit with your values. I guess, if I can segue into what I'm doing now, I guess that's what I like about the work that I'm doing now, which is ESG strategy consulting, so helping companies not only make money but also do it in a way that aligns with the values of their stakeholders, because that's been so important to how I've governed my life and made the choices I've made in my career and I've seen the success. For me, it just feels like a bit of a natural fit to be able to talk about how that might be successful for others and for other businesses.
Catherine Gryba:I find the trusting your voice such an important piece of advice. And did you get better at it the older you've got? Do you pay attention to that voice now, or was it always there?
Karri Howlett:I think it was. Honestly, I think it was always there. I was lucky I had. My grandmother was one that always kind of taught me how to. She taught she was my first meditation teacher, so she always taught me how to kind of get quiet and listen.
Karri Howlett:I have a busy brain and I'm a bit of a bouncy person, and so she gave me some really helpful tools on how to kind of quiet that and pay attention. That was really helpful and, I think, also to we all put certain brave faces on and kind of soldier through things a lot in life and so there's times of course where you just kind of push through because you have to, but I think in the end you usually find out if that was a good decision or not. So as I've gotten older, I'm starting to have a little bit more, maybe a little less energy to push through, I think. I think that's the big thing. So if it's not working for me right now, then I kind of sometimes will just say nah, nah. So maybe I pivot a little bit quicker now than I used to before.
Peggie Koenig:Fascinating, yeah, and I really think that that is such good advice because very often, where the first thing we jump to is in our insecurities and we don't listen to our intuition. We think about how others expect us to react or how others expect us to be, when really, intuitively, we know what our decision should be. So I'm just actually learning that myself, and how many. Well, I'm quite a bit older than you guys, but, yeah, sometimes it takes a long time to get to that place.
Catherine Gryba:Yeah, yeah, carrie, this has been fascinating. I've admired you for so many years and I really am so pleased to see how well you're consulting for me and it's just a perfect timing. The whole ESG and I've done some work with you on this limited, but you have such a practical approach and it's you kind of take the all of us stuff away and just really bring it down to here's what you need to be focusing on talking about, and I'm guessing that also comes from your Saskatchewan boots. Let's just think about what's important here and move through that. So congratulations on how well you're doing with your company.
Karri Howlett:Thank you so much. Yeah, it's so much fun that we can have in business, and this is just another dimension of it. So I'm really really grateful for the opportunity to have made a living and a career here in Saskatchewan with other Saskatchewan businesses and hope to keep going Okay.
Peggie Koenig:Thank you so much Thank you so much. If you've learned just one thing about change while listening to this podcast, please subscribe on Apple or Spotify and share with friend this episode recorded via Zoom Audio. Producers Peggy Keneck and Catherine Greiba. Executive producer. Keneck leadership advisory theme music La Pompée, written by Chris Harrington, music publisher in Vato Market. For information on this podcast and to purchase some fabulous goat merchandise, please visit wwwgetyourgoatca.