As a social entrepreneur, Chantelle Buffie saw working in the corporate world as a nine-to-five gig, with little creative freedom and even less fun. Her misconceptions were thrown out the window when she stepped through the door at TELUS.
While volunteering with the Enactus team at Simon Fraser University, Chantelle discovered her passion for making a difference and even co-founded her own social enterprise, Fusion Kitchen.
This vision and community leadership resulted in Chantelle being named Canada’s 2013 HSBC Woman Leader of Tomorrow. It also made her TELUS’s top choice as a full time Business Analyst.
An entrepreneur at heart, Chantelle was initially concerned about taking a corporate job, but the entrepreneurial and team-based culture at TELUS has shown her a completely different view of the private sector.
“I don’t feel like I’m going to work and I enjoy going here because of the people,” says Chantelle. “I love the overall collaboration and it feels very entrepreneurial as well – brain storming and bouncing ideas off of each other.”
The leaders at TELUS have also been very influential in Chantelle’s career path as has her experience with Enactus, which she credits as the biggest reason why she got into TELUS in the first place.
“They saw my passion for what I was doing at Enactus; the excitement I had when I spoke about it,” says Chantelle. “I took a lot of what I learned about being a leader through my roles at Enactus SFU to my role at TELUS.”
With her corporate and non-profit experience as well as various awards and community praise, what advice does Chantelle have for Enactus students?
“Go out and talk to people,” insists Chantelle. “Leverage being a student, being part of Enactus and the network that Enactus has.”
“Some students are scared about hierarchy and status, but remember that these senior professionals and c-suite executives are human too.”
Stepping out of your comfort zone can be scary but it opened up wonderful new opportunities for Chantelle who put herself out there and began a fun and engaging career with a great Canadian company.