Automotive News Canada - August 2017 - 12

* AUGUST 2017

Finding technology talent (hackers) in unusual and clever ways
By MICHAEL GOETZ

TORONTO CORRESPONDENT

TED GRAHAM

GOOD PEOPLE ARE OUT THERE,
BUT LOCATING THEM . . .
HE JOINED GM CANADA
about a year ago in a new position as head of open innovation. His background is not in
automotive and is somewhat
eclectic.
Ted Graham was the former
innovation leader with auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers
(PwC) and he was a strategy
consultant with management
company McKinsey. There,
his focus was on understanding and leveraging people networks to influence the spread
of ideas.
In those roles, he was a
speaker on technology and
change, sharing
what he learned
about disruptive
innovation from
his experience as a
driver for ride-hailing company Uber.
Those thoughts are
now parts of his
book, The Uber of
Everything.
At GM,
Graham's focus
is to identify partnerships that will help build
new forms of mobility, including autonomous and connected vehicles. As such, he is
involved with recruitment
and the search for talent. For
example, under his watch ear-

Ted Graham's focus at GM Canada is to identify partnerships
that will help build new forms of mobility, including autonomous and connected vehicles. ( P H O T O : G M C A N A D A )

lier this year, GM Canada initiated an online "coding challenge" to identify
Android and Java
developers. And
this summer, GM
Canada launched
its first "hackathon." Held at
Ryerson University
in Toronto, teams
of two to four members competed to
create an artificial
intelligence (AI)
powered "virtual assistant" that
would enhance the way people
live in an autonomous age.
"The future is going to be
AI driven, and it will impact
all our lives," said Graham, in
a news release about the hackathon. "Events like hackAI are

the prefect platform to engage
with the ecosystem of current
and future entrepreneurs and
foster out-of-the-box ideas."

ROBERT WICKENS

STELLAR MERCEDES-BENZ
STAFFER WORKS WEEKENDS
THIS ONTARIO NATIVE IS A
full-time salaried employee of
Mercedes-Benz, but his position there is not one of those 9
a.m.-to-5 p.m. things.
He works plenty of weekends, but that's part of the
deal when your job is to pilot
a Mercedes-Benz racing car
in the European Deutsche
Tourenwagen Masters (DTM)
series. The race cars are based
on the silhouettes of current
production cars and the series
is contested by Mercedes-Benz,

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Audi and BMW.
Wickens was on track to
be a formula race car driver. He won championships in
Formula BMW and Formula
Renault, and was competitive
in F1 feeder series such as GP3
(series runner-up in 2009) and
Formula Two (series runner
up in 2010).
He made the switch to
Touring Cars in 2012 when
the invitation came to join the
M-B DTM team. The offer of
steady racing employment in
an exciting car in an exciting
professional series was just too
tempting to pass up.
Since then in DTM he has
racked up 13 podium finishes, including five wins and
five pole positions. He finished
fourth in the overall standings
last year and currently sits
11th in the 2017 standings.
Suddenly there is uncertainty about Wickens's racing
Robert Wickens's job is to
race for Mercedes-Benz
in the hotly contested
European DTM series,
which involves working
weekends.

(PHOTO: MERCEDES-BENZ CANADA)

New Porsche HQ houses
dedicated training facility
The new Porsche Cars Canada headquarters opened July 31 in
the same building as a new 50,000-square-foot
(4,700-square-metre) dealership. ( P H O T O : P O R S C H E C A R S C A N A D A )

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By KELLY TAYLOR

WINNIPEG CORRESPONDENT

quorumdms.com

877.770.0036

future - and the entire DTM
series - with the news that
Mercedes-Benz will pull out
after the 2018 season to put its
efforts behind a new Formula
E team for the 2019 season.
M-B says that the "all-electric" Formula E racers
embody the transformation that is under way in
the industry and will give
the automaker the chance to
demonstrate the performance
of its battery-powered vehicles under the EQ technology
brand. - ANC

PORSCHE CANADA'S
new headquarters near
Toronto is more than a business office: There's also a technical training facility and an
adjoining company-owned
dealership. The facility will
train Porsche dealer technicians from across Canada.
Previously, Porsche Cars
Canada was headquartered in
an office complex on Airport
Road in Mississauga.
"We are thrilled to move
to our new home in Toronto,"
company CEO Alexander
Pollich said.
"Our new Canadian headquarters now incorporates

a dedicated training facility,
which will enhance the level of
service we provide to our dealer personnel, further supporting the brand's commitment to
the Canadian market and customers."
The building will house
more than 40 staff in sales,
aftersales service, finance,
marketing and public relations. It shares a site with
Porsche Centre North Toronto,
a new 50,000-square-foot
(4,700-square-metre) dealership. It's owned by Porsche
Cars Canada and is the fourth
Porsche dealer in the Toronto
area.
The new dealership has
room for 26 new vehicles and
has two customer delivery
areas and a 17-bay service
shop.
Porsche Cars Canada set a
record for sales in 2016, with
7,061 sales in Canada, up 10 per
cent over 2015 sales. - ANC

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Automotive News Canada - August 2017