Is your goal as an employer to provide financial security, demonstrate leadership, develop employee skill sets, care for their emotional well-being and maintain confidentiality? If you ‘have congruency’ with at least three of these values, then you would be a ‘fit’ for The Personnel Department. These five values have driven the organization since inception and, aside from a definite oomph, one can sense a female perspective at work.

Meet Leslie Meingast, Founder, President and CEO of The Personnel Department (TPD), a Canadian company based in Vancouver that provides Human Resources services to companies around the world.

It is no coincidence that the first of TPD’s enduring values is financial security. Growing up, Leslie’s great grandfather was the Province’s Minister of Mines in the early part of the 20^th century; a pioneer arriving on the West Coast of Canada in the 19^th Century. Leslie’s paternal grandparents lost everything in the crash of 1929-30.  So, once again a rebuild was necessary, and this instilled the need for financial security in a young Leslie.

Through The Personnel Department, a company Leslie built from the ground up, thousands of people are put to work every year. The Galt Foundation - which Leslie chairs and also helped to found - provides, promotes, and expands employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities and other vocational barriers.  These individuals number between 24-30 million and are the largest minority group in North America.

The Personnel Department in partnership with Galt Global Immigration (GGI) has also taken on the fight against human trafficking.  In the last year Galt Global Immigration was instrumental in helping four Filipino women escape from a hotel where they were being enslaved. The steps taken by GGI speak to the culture of responsibility within all those who work with The Personnel Department and their demonstrated leadership in helping those who are vulnerable and uninformed. This aligns with Leslie’s belief system and she says,  ‘…at the end of the day nations are judged by how they treat their weakest.’

‘There are 12 million slaves in the world, 250,000 in North America and 15,000 alone in the province where I have my head office,’ she sighs disbelievingly. Together with a number of other large organizations, and supported by $20 million from the Canadian government, Leslie has taken the initiative ‘to do what we can to sort this out and clean it up; including co-op programs to help these people to get trained, then out into the workforce; immigration as it is meant to be.  I’m quite passionate about this; it is what Canada is all about. We’re going to fix this issue.’

TPD has strict hiring criteria, as the company provides a lot of support and training for its employees. ‘When someone is going to make it, they’ll make it here,’ is how Leslie puts it. She clearly brings out the best in her employees in order to make her company successful, and that’s just as well, how else would Leslie find time to pursue yet another passion; what she calls the ‘women’s market’, the nexus of businesswomen’s concerns, needs and perspectives.

Almost five years ago, Leslie accepted membership in the Women Presidents’ Organization, a non-profit membership organization for women presidents of multimillion-dollar companies. The members of the WPO, headquartered in New York, take part in professionally-facilitated peer advisory groups in order to bring the 'genius out of the group' and accelerate the growth of their businesses. It is dedicated to improving business conditions for women entrepreneurs as well as acceptance and advancement of women in all industries. As a platinum member, a grade reserved for those who run a business with average annual revenue of $25 million, Leslie did not require support in acceptance and advancement. So why did she bother in the first place? Certainly, by now, Canadian men must be accepting of women in the workplace? She laughs out loud. ‘You’d think?!’

She was reluctant to accept membership at first, but ‘oh gosh, how naïve I was!’ Now she is Director, International for WPO and she has certainly learned a lot. Women still earn only 77% of what men earn. The US, Canada and UK have the lowest percentage of female occupied Board positions in Western countries, with an average of 15%; in Fortune 500 companies that percentage falls to a measly 6%. ‘It’s shocking,’ Leslie muses. Contemplating it, she realized that, in her career history, this glass ceiling was one of her motivations to found her own company. ‘Part of the challenge is the women themselves,’ she observes. ‘65% of people in universities are women, but we’re losing them. We have a huge financial investment in these women from an educational point of view, but just at their peak we’re losing them for all kinds of reasons. I can help address that issue by getting into the women’s market and coming up with a model to keep them engaged, whether it’s a change in corporate cultures or a business of their own.’

Leslie is also a pilot member in WeConnect which is Canada’s diversity program (similar to WBENC), she sits on the SME Advisory Board reporting to the Minister of International Trade, is a Director of Foreign Investment Trade and Training, a member of the Institute of Corporate Directors, and a member of TEC/Vistage which is the largest CEO forum in the world. 

So what does an executive like Leslie Meingast expect from UnitedSucces? ‘Corinne and Tina are very impressive. They’re looking to build a network of successful global women. I don’t say yes to everything, it has to be speaking to what I’m passionate about, to when I can make a difference. It seemed to me that the footprint they want to leave is more significant. Women helping women, globally.’

Leslie’s dream –her ‘overarching goal’ – since she was a young girl, has been about world peace.  She considers a collaborative business culture that involves ‘the other half of the population’ in decision-making as a way to get there. Immigration helps, but above all is enlightening people, since discrimination stems principally from fear. To combat this, Leslie participated in the first APEC Women’s Economic Summit, where Secretary of State Hilary Clinton was the keynote speaker. And, she’s trying to get the United Nations to embrace the matter. ‘I will be vocal. I will focus on business processes’, making that part of ‘the fix.’

Given her track record, you can count on it.