Vice President, People & Culture

Location: Victoria, BC

For 60 years, BC Ferry Services Inc. (BC Ferries) has been providing safe and efficient ferry travel throughout coastal British Columbia. Headquartered in Victoria, BC, it moves more than 60,000 customers and 23,000 vehicles every day. Operations began in 1960 with just two ferries providing service on a single route. Today, BC Ferries is an independent company that operates one of the largest and most complex ferry systems in the world. BC Ferries is an integral part of British Columbia’s coastal transportation system. Its 5000 staff operate 37 vessels (and growing) serving 47 terminals and 25 routes that stretch over 1,600 kilometres of coastline. BC Ferries carries more than 22 million passengers and 8 million vehicles every year.

BC Ferries is seeking a Vice President, People & Culture to lead the company’s HR strategy, programs and initiatives and build a high-performance culture. Reporting directly to the President & CEO, the Vice President, People & Culture will be an essential member of BC Ferries’ Executive team and play a key role in supporting the CEO and Executive team in fostering open and collaborative communications with the communities BC Ferries serves, the Board of Directors, BC Ferry Authority, stakeholders, unionized employees and provincial government. Fostering a progressive organizational culture, enhancing employee engagement, prioritizing deliverables within the human resource’s function, introducing business analytics, and ensuring constructive relationships with the union are all key deliverables.

The Vice President, People & Culture will collaborate with leaders across the company in key areas such as HR strategy, labour relations, talent and performance management, and equity and inclusion to ensure priorities are set and aligned with business needs. In harmony with BC Ferries’ pillars of safety and customer service, the VP, People & Culture will reinforce BC Ferries’ vision for employee engagement and be responsible for creating a culture that creates a high performing workforce and takes pride in living BC Ferries’ vision, mission and values in its interactions with each other and the public. This role supports the CEO, Executive, and Board by communicating proactively with executive team colleagues, the GHRC Chair, and the Board Chair on HR governance matters.

The ideal candidate is a senior, progressive and mission-driven Human Resources executive with experience in a large, complex, and ideally unionized operation where they have elevated the People strategy, shaped culture, created key performance metrics, and delivered change. The preferred candidate will be able to build trust and foster a resilient organization with a culture of service and pride. As a positive and empathetic leader, the ideal candidate will have the ability to build and inspire a team, champion change initiatives, prioritize effectively, and lead with a high degree of personal ethics and integrity.

The role is ideally located in Victoria, BC, or alternatively in Vancouver with regular travel to Victoria.

To explore this opportunity further, please contact click apply.

We thank all applicants for their interest in this position. Please note that we will only be in contact with those individuals moving forward with our client.