In this episode of Navigating Major Programmes, Riccardo Cosentino sits down with Vickie Turnbull, a trailblazer in infrastructure finance with over 35 years of experience in the banking industry. Vickie shares her unique journey from corporate banking to becoming a key figure in infrastructure finance, shedding light on her extensive work with leading Canadian banks like TD Securities and RBC. Now, in what she calls "Vickie 2.0," she remains deeply involved in the sector, leveraging her expertise in advisory roles and as a board member for Infrastructure Ontario. Vickie also dives into her commitment to mentorship and advocacy for women in infrastructure, reflecting on her role in founding the Women's Infrastructure Network (WIN) and Women in Energy Canada (WIECAN). She emphasizes the importance of diversity and inclusion in infrastructure and discusses how these networks have evolved to support and empower women in the industry. "I think that's one of the things I really love about the whole infrastructure space is it takes a village to get these transactions done. I think that's been part of the fun part for me is that I have so many different people that I talk through as I'm working on a transaction. Right? And you've got all these people that you can interact with. And again, you get that whole diversity. People are looking at things from various different ways. And at the end of the day, we've got these fabulous assets that are getting built for the use of Canadians and replacing, you know, things that really needed to be replaced. There's a lot more that still needs to be done. So I'm a part of it, but I don't see myself, like I, it's hard and I don't know whether that's just how I think through things, how I look at it, but I do really, like, it does take a village to get these things done and I couldn't do it alone on my own. Absolutely not." – Vickie Turnbull
In this episode of Navigating Major Programmes, Riccardo Cosentino sits down with Vickie Turnbull, a trailblazer in infrastructure finance with over 35 years of experience in the banking industry. Vickie shares her unique journey from corporate banking to becoming a key figure in infrastructure finance, shedding light on her extensive work with leading Canadian banks like TD Securities and RBC. Now, in what she calls "Vickie 2.0," she remains deeply involved in the sector, leveraging her expertise in advisory roles and as a board member for Infrastructure Ontario.
Vickie also dives into her commitment to mentorship and advocacy for women in infrastructure, reflecting on her role in founding the Women's Infrastructure Network (WIN) and Women in Energy Canada (WIECAN). She emphasizes the importance of diversity and inclusion in infrastructure and discusses how these networks have evolved to support and empower women in the industry.
"I think that's one of the things I really love about the whole infrastructure space is it takes a village to get these transactions done. I think that's been part of the fun part for me is that I have so many different people that I talk through as I'm working on a transaction. Right? And you've got all these people that you can interact with. And again, you get that whole diversity. People are looking at things from various different ways. And at the end of the day, we've got these fabulous assets that are getting built for the use of Canadians and replacing, you know, things that really needed to be replaced. There's a lot more that still needs to be done. So I'm a part of it, but I don't see myself, like I, it's hard and I don't know whether that's just how I think through things, how I look at it, but I do really, like, it does take a village to get these things done and I couldn't do it alone on my own. Absolutely not." – Vickie Turnbull
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[00:00:00] Riccardo Cosentino: Welcome to a special miniseries on Navigating Major Programmes podcast called Master Builder, where we will spotlight the remarkable stories of accomplished female leaders in the infrastructure space. I'm your host, Riccardo Cosentino, and alongside me is my co-host, Shormila Chatterjee. On Navigating Major Programmes, we explore the complexity of major programme management from governance and risk to technology adoption. In this miniseries, we will dive deep into the journey of women who have not only shaped the infrastructure landscape, but have also set new industry status.
[00:00:37] Shormila Chatterjee: Our goal is to inspire and empower the next generation of female leaders in infrastructure by showcasing the incredible paths these women have forged. Through their stories, we'll explore the challenges, accomplishments, and growth that define their careers.
[00:00:54] Today, we have a fantastic episode. We have the pleasure of speaking with Vicky Turnbull, [00:01:00] who has made significant contributions to the infrastructure space in Canada and beyond. Let's get started.
[00:01:06] Riccardo Cosentino: Okay Vickie, maybe, can you introduce yourself?
[00:01:09] Vickie Turnbull: Sure. So hello everyone. Glad to be speaking to you. I am Vickie Turnbull. I have been a corporate banker for 35 years, doing a variety of different things, primarily in the infrastructure space over the last 25 years, I'm actually looking sort of, if you want to call it Vickie 2.0, that was Vickie 1.0. Vickie 2.0 now, I'm semi-retired and still involved with the infrastructure space because I love it so much. Got into the banking space, worked for RBC for 16 years. And I was the head ultimately at the end of infrastructure finance team. I also worked at TD Securities before that for 12 years and I was in an area called treasury credit, which is a go-between between risk management and the trading floor. I was a loan syndicator and then I moved into debt capital markets. And as a loan syndicator and in debt capital markets, that's how I first got into infrastructure. [00:02:00] And before that, I was a corporate banker for 3 different foreign financial institutions here in Canada.
[00:02:06] I have also been an active member of the Women's Infrastructure Network. I was, I think, one of the inaugural members of, I think we got together for drinks, there were 13 of us at the bar at the Royal York, and the sad part is after two hours of having drinks, we all went back to our offices and continued to work the life of an infrastructure person.
[00:02:23] I have also was the co-chair for the Women's Infrastructure Network in Toronto for about 16 years with Angela Clayton, so something very near and dear to my heart. I was one of the inaugural members and one of the first committee members for WIECAN, Women In Energy, here in Canada. Both of those roles, actually, for WIN and for WIECAN, I've actually given up my positions on the steering committees because it's always nice to have new women who would join, provide different perspectives, different views, but they are still organizations that are near and dear to my heart.
[00:02:53] Currently I'm on the Board of Infrastructure Ontario. I am doing some advisory work in the infrastructure space. [00:03:00] I am on the Planning and Construction Committee for Unity Health. So that includes the hospitals here in Toronto, Providence, St. Mike's and St. Joe's. And I'm also looking at some other opportunities. So, that is Vickie 2.0, that is me.
[00:03:14] Shormila Chatterjee: Vickie 2.0 is busier than Shormila version, all versions, like that's, that's incredible, Vickie. If I may, Riccardo, kind of ask, I know this is called Master Builder, but I'd love to sort of talk about your building blocks and kind of what got you to where you are today and doing a little bit of digging about you and seeing that you went to school for applied mathematics. And I would just love to hear kind of what you wanted to do when you were young. I know a lot of us, when we were young, have sort of, in our minds, just a very clear path, like I'm going to, you know, for me, I was going to be an engineer and work in that and very quickly realized I was not the smartest person in that room and pivoted to something more that spoke to me a little bit more, but, so we'd love to hear kind of what you thought you were going to do when you were young, how you went into school, and then you talked a little bit about that [00:04:00] pivot, but if, were there any kind of pivotal moments that kind of pushed you into a the into the infrastructure space?
[00:04:06] Vickie Turnbull: Yeah, I mean, for me it it was hard to know what I wanted to study, and I'll be honest, I actually went to school down in the States, because I did not need to pick my degree, my concentration, for two years, so I could do sort of the liberal arts education, which is what I did.
[00:04:20] Now, funnily enough, I was good at math, and that's what I gravitated to. I gravitated to applied mathematics versus pure math, because the applied math classes were in the afternoon, not in the morning, I mean, I'm being honest here. Candid.
[00:04:32] Shormila Chatterjee: I love that that's how the decisions got made. Yeah. That's great.
[00:04:35] Vickie Turnbull: So, you know, it was applied mathematics and economics, and interesting enough, so I graduated in 1988, I am a hundred years old, but it was right after the crash on Wall Street. Right? So it was a lot of turmoil, a lot of things going on. I was kind of interested in potentially going to work on Wall Street or to live in New York than anything else, to be honest, I also actually looked at 2 other career choices. 1 was to work for Sotheby's or Christie's [00:05:00] because I'm fascinated by art history.
[00:05:02] Shormila Chatterjee: Right.
[00:05:02] Vickie Turnbull: Or to work as a buyer, you know, at one of the department stores, because I love fashion and buying things, shiny things.
[00:05:07] Shormila Chatterjee: Oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah.
[00:05:08] Vickie Turnbull: The interesting thing, though, is as my father said to me, he goes, great. And I did actually get off, offered a job at Bloomingdale's in the finance department, because again, my math background.
[00:05:17] Shormila Chatterjee: Right.
[00:05:17] Vickie Turnbull: And my father said to me, he goes, they're going to pay you below the poverty line, in Manhattan, you're not going to be able to afford to live. So he goes, how about, sweetheart, you look at banking, right?
[00:05:27] My father was an investment banker. Look at that. And, you know, you'll make the money and you'll be able to then indulge yourself in what you like to do for art history and for fashion. I said, okay, well that, that kind of makes sense. I also thought about it and I thought, well, I really don't know what I want to do.
[00:05:40] Shormila Chatterjee: Right.
[00:05:40] Vickie Turnbull: But if I go into banking, right, at some point in time, I'm going to need to learn how to lie to my banker. If I go into banking, I'll learn what lies to tell them. You know, I mean, you know, sort of, you know, 35, 36 years on, I think I am, you know, I was a banker, but it was interesting for me. I started off and I came back home to Canada because I couldn't get a job in the States.
[00:05:59] I actually couldn't [00:06:00] get a job in Canada. So at that point in time, the big Canadian banks were looking for people who had business degrees for, from Queens or Western, is effectively all they were looking for. And I didn't have a business degree. I had a degree in applied mathematics, a good school in the States. So I ended up working for some foreign banks. And I did that for about six or seven years till I ended up in the Canadian banking system. So kind of got my way in, as I talked about earlier, at TD Securities through treasury credit, found my way from there into, did that for two years, then I went and had my first child, the eldest son.
[00:06:33] Then I came back and I came back to a group called Loan Syndications. And that's where actually I got introduced to infrastructure. People ask, so do you know, do you remember your first deal or what you looked at? I can tell you the day that I first got involved in infrastructure. It was December 27th of 1998.
[00:06:51] Shormila Chatterjee: That's not the year, but that day is my birthday. Wow.
[00:06:54] Vickie Turnbull: There you go. There you go. I know the exact date. Cause I remember going into my boss's office and saying, [00:07:00] yeah, I have nothing to do. And then of course, quickly correcting myself to say, Oh, I have lots to do. Everyone's on vacation. I'm waiting for information to come in.
[00:07:08] And he said to me, some idiot sent me 10 copies of a document for some new deal. Grab a copy and go off and take a look at it. And you can work on that deal. So I go over to this box that has 10 copies. It's not 10 copies of anything. It's one copy of a massive concession agreement and that was the concession agreement for the 407 ETR.
[00:07:28] The whole sale process, the 99-year lease, because it's not a full on sale that was taking place. And TD was involved with one of the bid teams. I was on the loan syndication side and they said, all right, like you're going to be involved in this. And that was like, tell you three months of my life, you know, a lot of time, a lot of effort went into this.
[00:07:48] And it was kind of depressing because, you know, you get your bid in. You find out you're one of the four bidders. I think three bids got in, but there were two that were very close. So they ran a BAFO process, your best final offer, ran the [00:08:00] BAFO process. And we lost by 50 million dollars and it was heartbreaking.
[00:08:04] Now the good news is, of course, we got to go into the deal, I mean, they needed other banks coming in and looking at things. And I learned a lot in that whole process, which was great. Then, two months later, there's some deal out in Calgary, there's an oil sands transaction that needs to be done.
[00:08:19] And they're like, well, it's infrastructure. It's whatever, Vickie you go and you do that. And I said, well, why me? And they said we need a project finance girl. All right. Wow. And that's how I became the project finance girl.
[00:08:30] Shormila Chatterjee: Oh my gosh.
[00:08:32] Riccardo Cosentino: How long were you a TD?
[00:08:34] Vickie Turnbull: So I was a TD for 12 years, you know, so start from 95 to 2007.
[00:08:40] Riccardo Cosentino: Okay.
[00:08:40] Vickie Turnbull: So, and what's interesting is, so, as I was working on those infrastructure transactions in loan syndications, they actually decided at this at that point in time, the banking community was trying to explore bringing institutional investors, so not banks, but the institutional investors into the bank market and looking at these types of projects.
[00:08:54] So I got to know them and they said, well, actually, it might be a good idea, Vicki, if you actually, you're in loan syndications, [00:09:00] but we'll sit you with the debt capital markets people. So you had a corporate banking person sitting with the debt capital markets people. And this is at that point,
[00:09:07] I'm sure you're talking early 2000, you're having a lot of infrastructure transactions starting to come out, you've got the creation of Partnerships BC, you've got all those projects that needed to be done out in BC, as they were related to the Olympics, the 2010 Olympics. You had things bubbling up in Ontario.
[00:09:22] And so the debt capital markets team was taking a look at these and trying to figure out like, how are we going to do it? What are we going to do? And I don't think they appreciated the person sitting two seats over saying, don't do that. Oh my God, that's the dumbest thing that you could ever do. No, no, no guys, you're not getting the risk right.
[00:09:35] So at some point, I think after about six months, they said, why don't you just move two seats over, sit with us, become part of our team and work on these infrastructure deals.
[00:09:43] Shormila Chatterjee: Stop being the net gallery. Come help us. Yeah, yeah.
[00:09:47] Vickie Turnbull: Absolutely. I, so, and that's how I got started and did that for about three years at TD then Royal Bank came calling and they said, hey, come on over to our site.
[00:09:56] You can do banking and bonds at Royal. And that's what I did when I started off, and [00:10:00] advisory as well.
[00:10:01] Shormila Chatterjee: And what was the energy? So like when you're talking about, you know, the creation of Infrastructure BC and I guess IO was kind of quite far away or a little bit behind that. I mean, what was the energy like seeing that these are kind of the first of its kind in the country? Did it feel transformational? Or was it just kind of another deal? Like, how did it, how did it feel around you?
[00:10:23] Vickie Turnbull: That's a great question. I mean, it was, it was it was exciting and taking a look at this. At that point I'd done a number of project finance transactions, right? So I'd had sort of a core grounding you know five years of project finance.
[00:10:35] And there was a number of things to do, a lot of renewable stuff. You know With that oil sands project, there were two code gens and a pipeline that went along with it, and looking at it from that bank, that bank perspective. But I also wanted to, for myself, to learn a little more, maybe moving on to the bond side, but what was really interesting is those very early deals and sitting in those, your sessions with the authorities, you're talking through things and they had a lot of their experts and a lot of their experts had come from overseas, either from the U.K. [00:11:00] or from Australia, and as you're trying to have a conversation with someone about, well, let's talk about the indigenous community and how they're getting involved with these projects, what potential challenges might come up, how we need to have the structuring, the risk allocation. And they had no idea or understanding. So we don't need to worry about that. And I said, well, perhaps you don't, but we do, right. We have a right to treat the indigenous communities properly.
[00:11:24] And we need to do that. We need to consider that. So those are some of the early things that we were taking a look at. Some of the challenges I found is that I'd be working on two deals at the same time. And so, I'd be sitting in, at the time, Partnerships BC now Infrastructure BC, in the morning sitting, you know talking about one side of the transit, one deal,
[00:11:43] and then that afternoon, the different transaction. And it was interesting because I remember in one of them I had, someone was advising the authority on one side and then was on our deal on the other side. And he had to be like, well, I have to recuse myself because I can't talk out of both sides of my mouth.
[00:11:56] And so one of the challenges was ensuring that we had some consistency. [00:12:00] Right? As to As to what t those underlying project agreements were going to look like. So it was great to be involved early on and telling them as well, like what the finance community would or would not do. Right? It was, you know, the key thing is just what? You need to make sure that the developers who were there, you've got the equity, you've got the contractor, you've got the operations and maintenance. Hopefully, you've got a DBFM or a DBFOM there.
[00:12:23] Shormila Chatterjee: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:12:24] Vickie Turnbull: You know, front and center, but the finance had to come about as to what we could or could not do what we could or could not live with. And it was exciting for me to be involved early on to help sort of structure and steer how some of these transactions get done. You know, having to speak up and having those discussions and what's in the realm of the possible and the impossible.
[00:12:43] It was exciting. I mean, and I, I'm still excited now. I look at some of the new risk models that are coming out, and it's exciting to be involved in those as well.
[00:12:51] Shormila Chatterjee: Well, I can, and I can feel that, that passion, which is amazing to see that you can still, I mean, there's been so much rhetoric about, infrastructure projects kind [00:13:00] of in Canada, and we go through these sort of waves of kind of love hate relationships, but it's great to see that people who were there, kind of in the beginning, still have that passion and that drive to see it successful.
[00:13:12] And I'd love to hear, because it does sound and, you know, at least in my experience, and Riccardo would love to hear yours—like, so much of the success and failures of products are centered around risk, and to hear that your perspective, like, that kind of risk experience is what sort of was the linchpin and brought you kind of through is really interesting to see that that was so, I think it was, it sounds like it was identified to be so necessary. Right? You know, having that perspective.
[00:13:39] Vickie Turnbull: Absolutely. Right. You really need to talk things through. And one of the things that, I'm sure my clients are sick of hearing about it but, bring it down to first principles. Right? I mean, you know, we talk a bit out of both sides of my mouth. Yes, we want a lot of things to be streamlined and be similar. You know, like, if you're looking at compensation on termination, we'd like to see similar provisions throughout all the transactions, but you do need to adopt [00:14:00] and adapt to the various unique situations you have with the underlying asset that's being procured, that's going to get built and how it's going to get operated. Right? And there are some fine tuning and some things you need to talk about there. So I've not been a big proponent of, well, it's a precedent, we've always done it this way. Well, we may have always done it that way, but why have we done it that way? What's changed that now necessitates us to rethink, how we do things. And I've always been a big proponent of let's talk about that and talk through that. You also have to take a look at the learning stage. I remember early on, we all thought, oh, well, the construction is a really hard part in the operations. Well, that's just easy peasy. It hasn't turned out that way for a number of projects. And so it's one of those things I've always said is you have to learn as you go along.
[00:14:42] One of the biggest challenges is people always say, well, Vickie, you as a funder, and especially as a bond person, once you've sold it, you're like, you don't care about it, whatever. And it's like, my God, no. One, I've actually sold the bond. And you know, I mean, at that point, it was always personal with me because you spent so much time on a project, but sold it to someone. I want it to perform well and to do [00:15:00] well. I want to know that the investors are happy with what they've bought. I also want the issuer to be happy. They want to do future transactions and make sure, quite honestly, at the end of the day that the infrastructure is going to get delivered, wearing a taxpayer hat, making sure it's getting done right. But I've always been involved in the projects through the piece, through the construction, reading through the monthly reports that are coming through operations. How are things performing? I want to think about, well, you know, we had a hiccup here. Something happened. How do I then change things? Do we need to change the underlying risk framework?
[00:15:27] Do I need to change how we're structuring the financing? Do we need to reevaluate what we're taking a look at here and trying to find that optimal solution where the authority can live with it? The project company and the DB and the OMR and equity can live with it and the funders can live with it.
[00:15:43] Shormila Chatterjee: Right.
[00:15:44] Vickie Turnbull: Right? It's not a matter of anyone being very happy because at the end of the day, it's hard to make everyone happy and everyone loving what they're doing. But as long as you come up with something that everyone can live with, then that, that works out well. Right. But you do have to evolve it and you need to think through it over time.[00:16:00]
[00:16:00] Riccardo Cosentino: I have to say, Vickie, this is a very, very humbling conversation listening to you. I mean, just going back in time, you said 2007, that's when I entered the industry because I came to Canada in 2005, did my MBA, started working at IO in 2007. I think I met you on a couple of transactions when I was at IO, a young, a young project coordinator at IO.
[00:16:23] Shormila Chatterjee: The hotheaded Italian.
[00:16:25] Riccardo Cosentino: Yeah. I mean, you were, some of the people that, you know, people of my generation were looking up to, right? And there were people like you, people like Len Lumbers, Duncan McCallum, right? Those were the people that we were considering as the mentors of the industry. Did you have people like that? And I know your, your father probably was also somebody that showed you the way, but who were your mentors back in the days? Who were you looking up to?
[00:16:55] Vickie Turnbull: Sure. Well, finally enough, Len Lumbers and my father worked together.
[00:16:59] Riccardo Cosentino: Right.
[00:16:59] Vickie Turnbull: [00:17:00] You talk about a small world. Yeah. They worked together way back when.
[00:17:04] I have to admit it was kind of hard. I mean, you know, for me, a lot of the mentors were male mentors to start with, just in banking and then sort of in infrastructure, which is the natural as things started to happen. One very important person. So one of the first project financing I did, I don't know, I mean, I guess now you might call it infrastructure, was with the, when they were building what was then the Air Canada Center, so that, you know, the new, the new home for the Leafs.
[00:17:28] And then of course they brought on, you know, all the challenges and they brought on the Raptors and getting that done, I was working on that project financing. And I remember I was literally just back, like I was a week back from maternity leave. I'd taken my six-month maternity leave. And I remember, you know, being put on this deal, new loan syndications, getting thrown into this. And we were working and McCarthy's was working on this transaction. And I met Godyne Sibay. She was very pregnant with her fourth son.
[00:17:54] Shormila Chatterjee: Oh my God.
[00:17:55] Vickie Turnbull: And I was, I mean, I was still sort of humming and hawing, like, should I be at work? Should I be home? What should I be [00:18:00] doing? You know, all these things that as a new mom, you're thinking through.
[00:18:04] And my God, Godyne kicked ass. She, I mean, she had people, you know, we, I remember her saying one night we were late. It was like six o'clock. She goes, people are like let's order dinner, she goes, no, we're not going to order dinner. We are going to sit and we're going to negotiate this and we're going to get this done, and we're going to get out of here at a reasonable hour. And by the way, she goes, as you can tell, I'm very pregnant. We need, I need to eat. So, and oh my God, she commanded that room. And I just, it suddenly, I woke up, I remember coming home and saying to my husband, I said, I know what I want to do and what I want to be.
[00:18:33] And he goes, what, I said, I want to be Godyne. That's who I want to be. I want to be Godyne. Right? She commanded the respect of that room. And so, and I got to know Godyne and oh God, what a wonderful person she is. She's been a phenomenal mentor to me. So helpful in everything, every little aspect of my life and going through things, always checking on things.
[00:18:53] And now she's mentoring one of my sons, who's interested in being a lawyer. She is just a wonderful person. I want to be [00:19:00] Godyne when I grow up. I still aspire to that, which, all that she's done for me has helped me to try to do the same for other people, right? Primarily young women, as I said, like I'm happy to help out anyone, but you know, I tend to gravitate to young women wanting to try to help them out because sometimes I didn't have that in my career, as I said, very often, early days, there weren't as many women on the banking side of things. And that's one of the reasons I actually was really attracted to infrastructure 'cause I found a lot of women in the infrastructure space early on. For whatever reason, it seems to attract a lot of women and I loved that.
[00:19:35] Shormila Chatterjee: Yeah. And I wonder if there's like a, there's kind of like a service element to it that you feel like, okay, at least, you know, my capitalism is not in me. I'm actually working hard towards something a little more altruistic?
[00:19:49] Vickie Turnbull: A hundred percent. As i look at things and, you know, back in '08 when the financial crisis and bankers, you know, no one wanted to admit to being a banker. You were just horrible people using, you know, [00:20:00] derivatives, weapons of mass destruction, I think is what was called by Warren Buffett and I'm like, but I'm just, I said, I'm just like, I'm just a bond girl. I'm a bond girl trying to do infrastructure transactions. But for me, the exciting thing was actually seeing in the community the benefit of what I was doing to actually see these assets and what, how they improve people's lives. I can't tell you how excited I was when you'd find out someone who was like, Oh my God, I just went to the new Trillium Queensway, you know, the emergency there. Oh my God, it was fabulous. It was wonderful. I'm like, well, did you know... and give one of my stories, my kids would always want to crawl under the seats in the car when we, I'd be taking them to hockey and they have a friend in the car and I'd be like, you know, driving by Humber River Hospital as they're building it.
[00:20:49] I'm like, hey, did you guys know? And my kids would be like, oh my God, don't bring it up. And I'm like, did you all know this is going to be the first truly digital hospital in North America? Right? Like, I mean, it's modeled on some that have [00:21:00] been done over in the Scandinavian countries and my kids just want to die.
[00:21:03] And interestingly enough, I get some of these kids in the car who'd be really actually quite interested. And there's two in particular who have actually gone into engineering. And I've helped them. I've had conversations with them. They're like, yeah, we always liked what you had to tell us about the projects you were working on.
[00:21:17] So it's kind of exciting for me.
[00:21:21] Shormila Chatterjee: And just to touch on what you were saying about kind of the importance of mentorship, like as we've prepared for this podcast and we've talked to, you know, other potential guests, one thing that has struck me is the unequivocal sort of feeling of, these women being champions to other women, which is not necessarily common, especially, women who've kind of come up and you felt like there was just one seat and you, it was for your, like, what, did you have experience with women who were not kind of champions and then, I would just love to hear, you know, talking about your experience when, in particular, being, I guess, how did it come [00:22:00] about? What were those, kind of, that first round of drinks like? Would be interesting to hear.
[00:22:06] Vickie Turnbull: Yeah. So have I run into women who have not been helpful to other women? Yes. There's a quote that people know I use quite a lot and I think it's allocated to Madeleine Albright, which is that there is a special place in hell for women who will not help other women.
[00:22:21] And I'm a firm believer in that. Right? I mean, the challenges that you face when you're, especially when you're looking at the industries that are involved in the infra space where you've got, engineering, construction, operations. To a lesser extent, you know, I would say, sort of, the legal, the finance, the equity side, but you still have very male-dominated, right?
[00:22:44] I mean, how many times have I sat at a table and I'm the only woman there and it still happens to this day. So you know, you want to help other women out. I think some of the challenge and some of the people that I ran into, I think had the view that there was only [00:23:00] one seat at the table for a woman and they were taking it.
[00:23:03] And then you get some of that, you know, the imposter syndrome and I think they got some of that and they're thinking, oh my God, but you know, so I'm going to, okay, push these other women down because if people find out how good they are, then that's actually, they're going to replace me. So I'm going to get replaced.
[00:23:15] And I did face that and it was a challenge, right? And so you gotta work your way around it. You know, I was very fortunate I had some great male supporters, male colleagues, male mentors who were, very much promoted me, helped me out. It didn't sort of see me as a woman. I also have a big mouth. And I'll speak up if I see something that's unjust, right? And I remember like early days, I mean, God, I must've been 24 years old or something, and I think, you know, I worked with three men, we were, all four of us were analysts at a bank and the branch manager, this was a French bank, was going to take, we're going to take the three guys out to the baseball game.
[00:23:59] [00:24:00] And I found out, and I went to my boss, my boss goes, well, that's just not right. So he went and said, well, you got to take Vickie too, you know, you got to get that extra ticket. So he goes, well, what's she going to want to eat? And he goes, you're at a baseball game, probably hot dog and a beer would be my guess is what she's going to eat.
[00:24:14] But like, again, like that, as a woman, I would want to eat something different, want to do something different. Right? So, I mean, I spoke up about it and I made a big joke about it. I kind of sat down and said, so what am I going to eat? You know, cause my boss had told me this question. I mean, the look of horror on the manager's face, I'm like, just kidding. Come on. I'm going to have a hot dog and a beer. So I have, I've called people out on it, and that's just kind of who I am. Right? What you see is what you get.
[00:24:43] Riccardo Cosentino: I have to say that that's a, it's a bit of a reminder of how far we've come. Right? I mean, this is an interesting anecdote. I mean, there's still, we still have ground to cover in terms of equality and diversity, but I think, I hope things like that don't happen [00:25:00] as much anymore.
[00:25:01] Vickie Turnbull: I haven't seen anything like that in years. Right? Which is, which I'm grateful for. I mean, some of the horrific stuff I saw early on was that. And again, I've always tried to deal, in part, deal with it with a bit of humor, right? And putting people in their place. You want to do it nicely. You don't want to be rude about it because then, you run the risk that you get, you know, siloed and cordoned off, but, you know, if you do it in the right way. But I'm also not afraid to let people know where the line is.
[00:25:27] But as part of that as well, as I've gone through my career is speaking up on behalf of other women, right? And, I mean, it's interesting. I, you know, I was kind of doing my thing. I'd speak up for myself, but I didn't really think about a lot of those speaking up for other women, till I remember, so this is when I was in TD. So this would have been sort of the late nineties. Catalyst had just sort of come and was doing a number of surveys and they had done a survey of the number of women in what they called, you know, sort of senior positions within a bank. So at the sort of director or a managing director level.
[00:25:59] And I [00:26:00] remember sitting there at a big functional lunch and big splashy, you know, and I was looking at the PowerPoint and I'm looking at the numbers and I'm like going, I think the number was something crazy. Like 15 percent were women. And I was like, well, this is just an absurdly low number.
[00:26:14] Then I started to do the math in my head of what it was, my own organization, and it was below that. And I couldn't get out of there fast enough to like storm into the office of the global head of corporate banking and be like, this is what I've just heard. Like, this is just absolutely ridiculous.
[00:26:31] And he goes, we know Vickie and we're working towards it. He goes, but what are you personally doing to help here? And I, it suddenly hit me. It was like, oh my God, yeah. Why am I expecting everyone else to do something? I need to step up. I need to do this. So I stormed out of there. I think there were four women working in corporate banking at the time within the Toronto office, and I grabbed them and I said to them, I said, we're having lunch tomorrow. Tell your boss you're having lunch with me. They're not going to argue with you. They don't want to argue with me. And that's when I really started. [00:27:00] And I said, like, ladies, so, what is going on?
[00:27:02] What can I do to help you? And that's what sort of kickstarted the whole thing. Because I realized I needed to reach out more. I needed to do more for people. Combine that with, I think a year later, meeting Godyne, and I was like, no, I really need to I really need to step it up. I need to help people.
[00:27:19] What would I have wanted to have been told at the various stages of my career? And what I realized as well, I mean, I wasn't super senior then, but what I also realized is that, you know, as I say, some of the young women who come into the business, who are, who've been at, in infra or in banking for a year or two, they're like, well, you know, I couldn't mentor. I'm like, but you can, you've got a year or two of experience. Just think about what you, when you showed up your first day, how hard that was. Reach out to those women. So I said, you should always have a mentor, no matter where you are in your career, but you should also have mentees 'cause you also learn a lot from your mentees as well. And you will expand on those, on the people who were in those little buckets as you move [00:28:00] up through your career. But you got to help people out through the entire piece. You really do.
[00:28:05] Shormila Chatterjee: And, and in terms of kind of helping people in your career, how have you found, so now you're going through a career shift yourself, and did you have people to kind of guide you through this? I'm sure, every phase must have its own sort of opportunities and challenges. And how have you kind of found that this precipice where you, I hope you can kind of look back and be like, wow, I really put my DNA on this country, but also, you know, there's, personally, I'm sure, it must be such a kind of uncharted territory. And how has that been navigating?
[00:28:42] Vickie Turnbull: It is. And it's kind of, you know, it's one of those things where it's exciting, it's scary, but it's always one of the, I am one of these people, I always need to be learning. I always need to be just a little bit uncomfortable with what I'm doing. If I'm comfortable with what I'm doing in any, then it just, where's the fun in that?
[00:28:56] Right. You don't, you don't get the creative juices. You don't really start, you [00:29:00] know, really delivering on something. So for me, that's important. I've got a phenomenal network of women who Godyne calls the kitchen table. Who was at your kitchen table? Who is helping you? And of course, Godyne is there for me in helping me steer through the right things.
[00:29:16] It's amazing because there's a whole group of women sort of, of my vintage who have just come out who are now sort of looking at their 2. 0 for some of them it's their 3. 0, their version and they've been very helpful in all different aspects. And again, one of those things I always tell people when you're looking at helping people out, it's not just the big overall issues.
[00:29:37] Sometimes it's the super small, little minor, little weenie teeny, little things that you're taking a look at and how you're managing that. One of the best pieces of advice I got is you need to learn to say no. Because I'm really bad at saying no. It was always yes. And again, you know, working for a bank, it was like, well, of course the answer is yes.
[00:29:54] And I'll figure out a way to get that done. But now that I've got a number of people who are looking, take [00:30:00] advantage of my experience to learn from that and to benefit from that, I can't do everything. I was, you know, I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised. But I left the banking space, the number of people who called and wanted me to help out with this and do this and you kind of want to do it all.
[00:30:15] But there aren't enough hours in the day to do it all. So I need to sort of pick and choose what it is I'm doing, and just because I'm saying no today, doesn't mean I'll say no in four to five years time. I think one of the most important things is that there isn't just like a, you know, a Vicki version 1. 0 and then she retires and that sits on a beach.
[00:30:32] My skin coloring. I can't sit on the beach. I need to be busy. I need to be doing things, right? So there's version 2. 0 There'll probably be a version 3. 0 If you're looking at all these exciting things and I feel bad for my husband who's kind of like geez like I kind of want to be doing what you're doing now.
[00:30:48] Shormila Chatterjee: Oh, wow.
[00:30:49] Vickie Turnbull: I'm doing, right, variety of different things that you can do.
[00:30:52] Riccardo Cosentino: Shormia, you mentioned, 'cause I heard the story from somebody else, but you asked about the genesis of [00:31:00] the Women in Infrastructure Network Toronto. I, I've heard that story and I think the listener would really enjoy, would really enjoy that genesis cause now, now it's a big, now it's a big deal, right? But it was not a big deal.
[00:31:13] Shormila Chatterjee: You take it for granted that it's always there.
[00:31:13] Vickie Turnbull: It's always been there. Literally. I mean, I can still remember it was before they redid the Royal York. I think there were, I think there were. 13 of us that got together. And it's very different. I mean, you had someone who are people who are more senior than me, people at my level, people who are more junior.
[00:31:29] We got together for, I literally think it was for two hours. I think it was from five to seven. And I think we were all kind of sheepish and embarrassed. It was like, I got to go back to the office. Every single one of us went back to the office to do work. Like we were in the middle of something. It was, it was amazing.
[00:31:43] And from that, it was like, okay, now how do we, how do we formalize? How do we get more things done? Now, I didn't join the committee early on, although I did say, hey, you know what, and at that point in time I was at Royal, I was like, I would love to sponsor something. So that was one of the things.
[00:31:57] And one of the things that was near and dear to my heart, I mean, there [00:32:00] were so many different events that can take place. I wanted to do something that was a bit thought-provoking, right? So we would do panels up on the 40th floor of World Bank's offices. Lovely view and just a nice space to do these events and just to have, you know, people come in and talk about it.
[00:32:17] And I had, a member would have senior women come and talk about things and I, people were shocked. I mean, people still talk to me today about some of the events that we had and some of the things that we talked about, but, but I mean, and this is one of the biggest challenges though, is that when it's all done through sponsorship, there's no big pot of money that sits there.
[00:32:34] I mean, there's, you know, a fair chunk of change that comes in from the awards, but you know, that gets spread out over the various different events that we host. And I always liked doing, and I always liked to have trying to do at least one event a year, hosting and having people. And again, again, it costs money, but as I looked at it and, you know, I always tell people like, you know, when you ask for the sponsorship, I said, I've never been turned down, who's going to turn you down internally that you want to host an event, [00:33:00] do it on your own premises, if you'd like to do it, have that event, and you can pick and choose whatever you want and I said, if you want it to be a promotion of your own company, go ahead. Right? A lot of it is, to have a bit of a discussion, but as well to have that networking, which is so very important. And I can't tell you how many fabulous women and men that I have met through these events. It's interesting with the men too, and the men coming, because a lot of men are afraid. I remember I had one colleague that I had invited to an event that RBC was hosting, and I saw him come up, come into the room, sort of circle around, look, and then leave immediately.
[00:33:38] Shormila Chatterjee: Oh my God.
[00:33:40] Vickie Turnbull: So the following morning I went down and I said, yeah, I, he, I said, you didn't make it to the event last night. He goes, oh no, no, I was busy. I said, but I saw you come in, circle and leave and he just kind of like, oh, he goes, he goes, he goes, I got to tell you, Vickie, it was just, it was daunting to me to come into a room and I was the only man and I'm like, [00:34:00] how do you think most of the women in this industry feel when they go into the room and they are the sole woman, right? I said, so think about how uncomfortable you feel, how that felt to you. Now, apply that whenever you go into a room, right, and you see a soul woman there, right?
[00:34:21] Shormila Chatterjee: Wow. Wow. Illuminating. That's so funny. I just wanted to ask, like, when you have a quiet moment to yourself, Vickie, do you feel kind of an immense pride? Do you feel like a master builder? Do you sit there and say, cause I think one thing, I don't know if it's for all women, and I know for me, it took me, you know, at least a decade to feel pride and kind of, that sort of satisfaction of like, oh, no shit. I did that, you know? And I would just love to, like, how do you really, or like, does it settle with you of like, how we feel and you know, how Riccardo was saying, that you [00:35:00] are a mentor, like you are a Titan, you know, you're one of the few names that comes up when we do the roll call of the people who've kind of created this industry in Canada, like, does that resonate with you? Do you feel it when you sit back? No?
[00:35:13] Vickie Turnbull: I feel like I'm a part of it, right? Like I feel like I'm part of it. And what, what did I contribute? I contributed what I'm good at. Right? I'm good at reading documents. I'm good at analyzing risk. I'm good at arguing points, but also moving things along and trying to come to an agreement on something.
[00:35:30] For me, I feel like I'm part of these projects that I've seen that have gotten done. My kids don't understand why my name's not at the top of it. And I, have to tell them that we're very discreet and humble people. And we just, we don't, we don't want to do that. To which my husband was like, oh my God, you know, and then I have to say, well, you know, there's government rules. They won't let you just throw your name up there. So my kids may be bragging a bit for that sort of stuff. I mean, for me, it's all, it's a team [00:36:00] effort. I mean, I think that's one of the things I really love about the whole infrastructure space is it takes a village to get these transactions done.
[00:36:06] I think that's been part of the fun part for me is that I have so many different people that I talk through as I'm working on a transaction. Right? And you've got all these people that you can interact with. And again, you get that whole diversity. People are looking at things from various different ways.
[00:36:19] And at the end of the day, we've got these fabulous assets that are getting built for the use of Canadians and replacing, you know, things that really needed to be replaced. There's a lot more that still needs to be done. So I'm a part of it, but I don't see myself, like I, it's hard and I don't know whether that's just
[00:36:36] how I think through things, how I look at it, but I do really, like, it does take a village to get these things done and I couldn't do it alone on my own. Absolutely not.
[00:36:48] Riccardo Cosentino: But you, you are a master builder. Just in case it doesn't resonate, you are a master builder. That's why you're on this podcast and you know, on this podcast, just because me and Shormila came up with a list, we [00:37:00] spoke to various people in the industry
[00:37:01] Shormila Chatterjee: Selfishly, we're giddy.
[00:37:04] Riccardo Cosentino: We're happy that we get to do this, but like there is a consensus of there's a group of women that have really shaped this industry and we, you know, there's a list and you're on the list.
[00:37:17] Vickie Turnbull: Thank you. I appreciate it.
[00:37:18] Shormila Chatterjee: Your name is on a list. Tell your children, your name is on the list.
[00:37:22] Vickie Turnbull: Yeah, exactly. They'll have to send me the actual list like posted on a website or something like that so my children will actually, although I will admit my kids understand what I do better than my mother does. And for me, so this is, this is a funny, stupid story.
[00:37:38] We were, you know, privileged people problems on a Disney cruise. And my son wanted to enter this contest. We had to play it. Basically it was like a Jeopardy type game. So he and I went up and we answered quite a few Disney questions, right? Like, you know, how many Disney castles are there? Well, there are two. I know that and I think I had to do some other [00:38:00] math question, and you know, it was very easy to answer. The horrible part is the winning question that we won was, it was based on something like the name of Chip and Dale's girlfriend. It's Clarice. And of course, nobody knew the answer.
[00:38:13] And then the guy who was asking the question goes, you know, your parents may know this from Silence of the Lambs, at which point it dawned on me, Clarice. So, my son and I won a Disney contest by knowing the name of the FBI agent from Silence of the Lambs. Horrible. But the following day, and my son at the time was 12, there was an aggressive 13 year old girl who was trying to pick up my son. It was a complete pussy I wanted no part of this. And she comes up to my son and she goes, she goes, yeah, your mom's really smart. She must be a teacher. And my son looked at her and goes, my mother is not a teacher. She is much more important than that. And no offense to teachers. Teachers are fabulous. But he, his opinion, he goes, my mother raises money to help build hospitals, schools, roads, transmission [00:39:00] lines, transits, subways. My mother's very important. And I just like, at that point, oh, he gets it. He understands what I do and he thinks what I do is important. And I'm going to cry now. I mean, it just, it was just, to me, it resonated. So my kids get what it is that I do. And I think they also realize again, as you know, working in infra.
[00:39:21] Sometimes the hours are not your own. When your bid is due, your bid is due, and it's due to the hundredth of a second. You know, to those who have, you know, submitted bids eight seconds late have found out to their detriment. You need to put in the hours. You need to do what you need to do. So there were times, yeah, I was away from my kids.
[00:39:37] I wasn't there for them. Right. And they, but they understand that. They understand the trade offs. I was also there for them a lot of times when it did matter, but I had to balance that, my career and my family. And I've been very fortunate to have a fabulous husband, who helps me out in that perspective, but yeah.
[00:39:55] Shormila Chatterjee: What does your mother think that it is you do then? [00:40:00] We're turning this into a therapy.
[00:40:03] Vickie Turnbull: Yeah, no, it's just that she says something related to finance. It's all that stuff. Yeah. She's very much more of an artistic, creative person. It doesn't understand the nuance details.
[00:40:13] Shormila Chatterjee: How beautiful.
[00:40:14] Riccardo Cosentino: I think it was a great conversation and I think I have to ask this question is a tough question, but because you have kids. And so you'll, you'll know why it's a tough question, but what is the best deal you worked on? What is the deal that sort of is your favorite deal? And I know it's like.
[00:40:33] Vickie Turnbull: That sounds to me who my favorite kid is, right? It changes daily, sometimes hourly. Yeah, there were different deals that had different things that were like big high points and even some of the smaller deals.
[00:40:45] I mean, cause I got to work with some great people. But like, if I'm going through sort of a, sort of a history of the infra deals, I mean, like, look that original 407 ETR deal, even though we didn't win, that's what got me like, oh my God, I love this. Like this, this is fabulous. This is fun. I love the [00:41:00] infrastructure.
[00:41:00] Love going through the documentation. And I was like, so what? So now I'm going through the concession agreement and then we're gonna drop it down to the design build and drop it down here. Like, oh, this is interesting. I love that one. I loved, you know, my, you know, the oil, I did two big oil sands deals.
[00:41:16] And I learned a lot like it was trying to sell a deal where you need West Texas Intermediate to be at $24 and it was currently at 12. And I managed to get us to hold, you know, I was pleased with that. I look at, one of the first big deals that I did in Canada, the E30 deal that closed, I believe it was three days after Lehman went under.
[00:41:39] And that was like, I think that was the last underwritten bank deal done in Canada, where there was actually.
[00:41:43] Riccardo Cosentino: Twelve banks, right?
[00:41:45] Vickie Turnbull: Yeah.
[00:41:46] Riccardo Cosentino: I think there were 12 banks, massive syndicate.
[00:41:49] Vickie Turnbull: It was crazy. We had an inflation swap. I mean, it was crazy, you know, everything that was going on at the time and that we were able to get that done,
[00:41:59] you know, I was [00:42:00] pretty impressed. I look at things like the CSET transaction. So that was for the new spy shack in Ottawa. And, what was interesting with that one is because we were dealing with defense, we had to deal with the Five Eyes. So that, which is a World War II, which is, you know, Canada, the U.S., Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand.
[00:42:19] So, you know, not only with the equity, but the investors had to be from there. And so all of a sudden you're limiting the pool of investors I can go to. Or even worse, you've got a scenario where say you had, you know, an insurance company in the U.K. who had bought the bonds. Sure. No problem. If that insurance company at some point in time in the future gets sold to say a French insurer, they can no longer hold the bonds.
[00:42:39] And they have 90 days to divest of it. And this was just, this is unheard of. I don't know of any other transaction where you actually, it was actually a punt the bondholder clause. It was crazy when we managed to sell it. You look at, you know, the Alberta power line transaction, a transmission line where we actually had sort of a project development agreement period and then running a funding competition.[00:43:00]
[00:43:00] Just sort of a new way of looking at things and trying to figure out how to get that done. I look at the Gordie Howe Bridge. I mean, like, and you have to understand as well with me, is like, I just, I love looking at these projects. And how they're putting it all together. I can't tell you how many, you know, the video cams and watching things and as they're building everything, fascinates me.
[00:43:20] How everything gets done. Now they have to dumb it down when they explain some of the construction stuff. As someone tried to explain to me once as I was going and they were pouring concrete and I'm like, well, like, how does it come out? How do you, like, doesn't the wood stick to it?
[00:43:31] And they said, I don't know even what, what it is they sprayed on it. And I was like, what is that? And they go, Industrial PAM. Okay. Industrial PAM, I understand. Right? So they're going to dumb things down for me so that I can understand it. I can't tell you how many times I've read through a technical report and been like, is that a typo?
[00:43:48] Is that a word? Looks kind of rude. Maybe I'll Google it when I get home. I don't wanna Google on the computer or get flagged for something. Right? It's a lot of things that, uh, you know, I, I've [00:44:00] learned. But yeah, so those are some of like some of the high points of some of the big points, but I could, I couldn't pick just one.
[00:44:06] Because they're all, they just, they all have little things to them that I really liked about them and I, you know, and they get to see a lot of them too. So when, when they're actually finally done and actually use them, although I did not appreciate it, we'll put this right away, one of the equity partners, when I asked to see, when we did the Durham courthouse, I said, I really much wanted to see the courthouse after it had been completed.
[00:44:27] And he said, commit a crime in Durham County, and you can see it. I think that was very funny.
[00:44:32] Shormila Chatterjee: Oh my gosh.
[00:44:34] Riccardo Cosentino: Vickie, this was a terrific conversation. Shormila, I think we're at time. I don't know if you have any last, last questions, comments.
[00:44:46] Shormila Chatterjee: It just sort of resonates to say, like, I know maybe you don't feel it, but we really do.
[00:44:51] And I, I know that the listeners will feel like you've been on, you know, over 80 deals, I don't know what it is, but, like, a huge number and each one of them, like you said, [00:45:00] has had an impact on you, but has an impact on Canadians, which is, which is just phenomenal. So I did, nothing else to say, but thank you so much for your time today, but for your time
[00:45:11] to the industry, for your time with women, especially I know it doesn't go unnoticed. Like, you're on on a list of of master builders, but you're on a list on being such a somebody who's so generous with your time to women of all, kind of diverse sort of backgrounds and experiences. So really just thank you so much for everything you've done and continue to do.
[00:45:30] And I really am looking forward to all the different iterations of the Vickie's, the Vickie's 2. 0 and 3. 0 that we get to see. So, I really appreciate it.
[00:45:40] Vickie Turnbull: Look, it's my absolute pleasure. I enjoyed doing this. I hope it's been somewhat informative to people, or at least they got a bit of a laugh out of it. So.
[00:45:47] Shormila Chatterjee: No, it was amazing.
[00:45:48] Vickie Turnbull: You know what? Like you gotta have fun. If you're not having fun in what you're doing, why do it? ,
[00:45:54] Riccardo Cosentino: Okay. Well, thank you again. And please tune in again for the next podcast. We're going to have a series of [00:46:00] fantastic master builders coming to talk to us. So this was the first one. We started with a bang, but there's more to come.
[00:46:07] Thank you, Vickie. Thank you, Shormila.
[00:46:08] Shormila Chatterjee: Thank you.
[00:46:09] Vickie Turnbull: Thank you.
[00:46:11] Riccardo Cosentino: That's it for this episode of Navigating Major Programmes. I hope you found today's conversation as informative and thought-provoking as I did. If you enjoyed this conversation, please consider subscribing and leaving a review. I would also like to personally invite you to continue the conversation by joining me on my personal LinkedIn, @Riccardo Cosentino. Listen in to the next episode, where we will continue to explore the latest trends and challenges in major programme management.
[00:46:42] Our next in depth conversation promises to continue to dive into topics such as leadership, risk management, and the impact of emerging technology in infrastructure. It's a conversation you're not going to want to miss. Thanks for listening to Navigating Major Programmes and I [00:47:00] look forward to keeping the conversation going.