Shannon Byrne Susko is hoping the third time is the charm.
The longtime Whistlerite has been nominated for a prestigious YWCA Metro Vancouver’s Women of Distinction Award on two previous occasions, but looks to finally take home a win at this year’s gala, taking place at the Westin Bayshore in Vancouver on May 9. Susko, nominated in the Business & the Professions category, is the sole Whistler local out of the field of 78 nominees and 12 categories.
“I think it’s an incredible event to recognize women leaders in Vancouver, and not only Vancouver but in B.C. making a difference,” she said.
Marking their 40th anniversary in 2023, the annual awards aim to celebrate women generating positive change within their communities, while simultaneously raising funds and awareness for YWCA programming. Whistler’s former mayor, Nancy Wilhelm-Morden, was also nominated in the Business & the Professions category last year.
Susko spun her background studying business and computer science into success co-founding, building, and selling financial technology businesses. She created Paradata Systems Inc. in 1995 alongside co-founders she met in the Sea to Sky—what effectively became a payment platform and FinTech company in a time when “honestly, that word didn’t even exist,” she laughed. She sold that company in 2006, before moving on to found Subserveo, Inc, a post-trade automated compliance platform for broker-dealers, in 2008, which sold in 2011.
Since, she has turned her attention to helping others grow their business, including thousands of corporations like Telus Health and Aspen Skiing, using her tried-and-true “Metronomics” strategy and a team of more than 80 CEO and leadership coaches based in Canada and around the world.
“As a CEO, when you’re growing a company and building a company, it’s all about growing yourself and growing others, and that’s what I get to do every day—grow myself and grow others,” Susko explained.
She has also authored three business books, The Metronome Effect, 3HAG Way (that stands for three-year, highly achievable goal) and Metronomics.
“A lot of people laugh when I say this, but I actually retired after the sale of my second business 12 years ago. Everyone goes ‘well, you’re not retired’ and I go, ‘I am retired.’ Every day I get up and decide that I’m going to make an impact to other entrepreneurs who are stuck, who want to get to where they need to go,” she explained.
“I have an incredible Whistler-based team. We have team members who are other places in the world, but we have a great physical office in Whistler right in the village, because we believe in Whistler and we believe in making this global impact from where we are. Why not?”
The Women of Distinction nominations are far from the first accolades to accompany Susko’s name. She was recognized as one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women in 2018, 2020 and 2022; named to Canada’s Top 40 under 40 list in 2001; and won the Sarah Kirke Award for Canada’s Leading Women Entrepreneurs in 2006, to name just a few of them.
“Being recognized is amazing—super humbling, when you look back and look at the list of all these incredible women, making an impact every day,” she said. But with that in mind, “anyone who knows me knows that I look forward to the day that we actually are recognizing all these great leaders as leaders, not necessarily gender-oriented.”
While “there’s been great work done, there’s lots more to do,” Susko added. “These types of awards and events and recognition are so important to recognize the people who have pulled really hard, pushed really hard to really get out there and courageously are making a difference in their fields. It just always blows me away. I love, love, love meeting all these people, whether it’s women-oriented awards or leaders in general—we’re all putting ourselves out there. Yes, women have had to climb quite a mountain, and there’s more to climb.”
Every Women of Distinction nominee, regardless of category, is also up for the YWCA’s publicly decided Connecting the Community award. The community is invited to cast votes online until April 12. The nominee who earns the most votes will see Scotiabank donate $10,000 to the YWCA program area of the winner’s choice.
After the YWCA gala, Susko will quickly turn her attention to the first-ever Metronomics Tip Top Global Growth Summit, scheduled for May 16 and 17 at the Westin in Whistler. The Summit is set to welcome hundreds of CEOs and business coaches to hear from speakers like Arlene Dickinson of Dragon’s Den; author and strategist Jack Stack; and Everest expedition captain Alison Levine, among others.
“I’m just so excited to bring this type of business-thought leadership, these people who make an impact every day globally to our town, to our place, to our entrepreneurs,” she said, adding, “I’m just so stoked about this. It’s been a long time in the making.”
Head to metronomics.com for more information about the summit, or vote for the Connecting the Community award here.
