Blaize Horner Reich receives WXN Top 100 Most Powerful Women Award

Professor Blaize Horner Reich, Dean of the Beedie School of Business, has been named a Women’s Executive Network (WXN) Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Award winner.

Launched in 2003, the WXN Top 100 Awards celebrate the accomplishments of Canada’s top female executive talent as well as their organizations and networks.

Reich, who will receive the PwC Public Sector Leaders Award for women who hold senior positions in Canada’s public sector organizations, will be honoured during a gala celebration at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on November 26.

Reich joined the Beedie School of Business in 1991, and is the School’s RBC Professor of Technology and Innovation. She became Dean in 2014, and has since overseen the continued growth of both the undergraduate and graduate programs.

During her tenure the School has launched the Graduate Certificate in Science and Technology Commercialization, the Executive MBA in Northwestern BC, and an interdisciplinary undergraduate Certificate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

An internationally recognized expert in IT governance and technology-based organizational transformation, Reich worked as an industry consultant in both Asia and Canada before entering academia.

She has made many contributions to business within Canada, serving as academic leader for the national Business Technology Management (BTM) program and as board member of the CIO Association of Canada, the Information and Communications Technology Council and the Canadian Women in Technology.

In 2012 she received Business in Vancouver’s Influential Women in Business Award.

“As a longtime supporter of women in business it is a great honour to receive this award from the Women’s Executive Network,” says Reich. “Women’s contribution to technological innovation in Canada has been significant, and I am proud to have played a role in this as a leader and as an educator.”

Reich is joined by Beedie Executive MBA alumna Amiee Chan, President & CEO of satellite communications company Norsat. As a previous three-time winner in the Scotiabank Corporate Executive category, Chan this year enters the WXN Hall of Fame.

After graduating from the Beedie Executive MBA program in 2003, Chan took on the top position at Norsat in 2006, and has since more than tripled the company’s revenue and substantially expanded its product portfolio.

She is a member of the Beedie School of Business Dean’s Advisory Board, where she advises the Dean and faculty on strategy, and assists the school in the accomplishment of its mission and objectives.

The WXN Top 100 Awards serve to recognize talented leaders in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors and to inspire the current and next generation to push the boundaries of what’s possible.

“For these highly accomplished women, receiving a Top 100 Award means much more than recognition or a chance to share the spotlight with other remarkable Winners, it’s an opportunity to pay it forward,” says WXN founder, Pamela Jeffery. “WXN Top 100 Award Winners are powerful women both in their careers and their potential to transcend boundaries to have a greater impact on the communities around them.”

Reich and Chan join a prestigious community of past Award Winners, including Canada’s most iconic women trailblazers: Margaret Atwood, best-selling author; Dr. Roberta Bondar, astronaut; Arlene Dickinson, chief executive officer, Venture Communications; Christine Magee, president, Sleep Country Canada; Michaëlle Jean, former Governor General of Canada; Heather Reisman, founder and chief executive officer, Indigo Books & Music; and, Kathleen Taylor, chair of the board, Royal Bank of Canada.

The full list of WXN’s 2015 Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Award Winners can be found at www.wxnetwork.com/top-100/top-100-winners