Skip to main content

Speaker

Gary MacFarlane

President

Dynac Inc.

Job Description

As the President and Founding Partner of Dynac, my role is to oversee the overall wellbeing and growth of Dynac. My wife, Linda, and I are directors and are responsible for Strategic Corporate direction. Recently we formed a Leadership Team comprised of myself and 3 key investing managers to oversee the day to day running of Dynac and to prepare for succession, both planned and unplanned. More about Dynac at the end of my career story.

Relevant School Subjects

  • Business

Areas of Expertise

  • Financial/Insurance/Banking

Career Story

Graduated high school with grade 13 and went on to McMaster University to become a serial Intrapreneur / Entrepreneur for life.

Stelco, Sales Engineer and Management Trainee 1975-1985: Applied Civil Engineering design principles to develop new and innovative user of steel. Experienced several business roles as a participant in Management training. Reached the bureaucratic ceiling in 5 years and realized that a traditional career company was not for me. Spent the next 5 years looking outside for a satisfactory exit strategy.

TESMA, a Division of Magna International 1985-1988: Magna is Canada’s largest Automotive Parts Manufacturer founded by entrepreneur Frank Stronach and built on a company-wide intrapreneurial foundation. In the capacity of Director of Product Development and Marketing, I blossomed as an Intrapreneur, overseeing product development that led to 3 new bricks and mortar plants. Turned the Inside Sales team into a high-powered group of problem solvers supporting Sales and Marketing.

ORTECH International 1988-1989: Contacted to launch a Manufacturing Center of Excellence. Had the opportunity to travel the world looking at manufacturing excellence concepts. Brought the best concept of Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) to a team of consultants. Went through a corporate reorganization that saw me exit with the CPI team. A large Automotive Improvement Initiative consulting job led to my next opportunity.

APEX Metals 1989-1996: Transition from a Consultant to President and minority owner as part of a management succession plan. Grew the company 300% over five years. Two key success factors were, 1. Negotiating a new partnership with the CAW unionized workforce and 2. Developing a strong Engineering Process and Product group. Sold the company to a Publicly Traded Automotive Components company, remaining as President of Apex and Vice-President of Engineering of our new parent. Sad to say this arrangement seldom works and I left the company for my next opportunity.

OLYMPIC Gear 1996-2001: Purchase 80% with a 20% vender take back (vendor continued to own the building). Supplied all the drive training gearing to General Motors Diesel Light Armored Vehicle (LAV III) program in London Ontario. Grew the company 300% over five years including being successfully unionized by the CAW. Ultimately exited in voluntary bankruptcy when the US Senate put in place a “cease all production for 6 months” to review that fairness of awarding the US military contract to a Canadian company. Toyed with buying another manufacturing company while developing Corporate Financial Planning and Analysis methodologies, leading to my current activities.

DYNAC Inc. 2002-present: Developed Dynac™ Corporate Performance Management application for Financial Planning and Analysis. The application synchronizes with any Accounting GL/ERP application, providing a full suite of Reporting and Planning modules. We service North America based companies, from startups to publicly traded companies with worldwide activity. WWW.Dynac.ca/videos provides a high-level overview of Dynac™ a CFO’s best friend.

As always, I am excited to see what the future brings and love talking about Intrapeneurship vs. Entrepreneurship!

Back to top

We use cookies to make interactions with our website and services easy and meaningful, to better understand how they are used and to tailor advertising. By using our website or clicking "accept", you are agreeing to our Privacy Policy.