WHITEWATER REGION (Cobden) — Scott McLaren is a Forty under 40 award winner.
This is a prestigious award recognizing accomplished and rising business leaders under the age of 40 in the National Capital Region. It is presented by the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce and the Ottawa Business Journal.
Mr. McLaren, now 35 and living in Ottawa, grew up in the Cobden area, where his parents, Sue and Keith, still live.
He graduated with a marketing degree from Ottawa University and his first job was at Festival Promotions. After several years there, he quit and went elsewhere, but not for long.
“I quit and then went back and bought it (nine years ago),” he said.
The company sells branding merchandise, which means they brand and design merchandise.
“It’s like a marketing agency for that part of your business,” Mr. McLaren explained.
A national company, it has clients across the country, in every province and territory, he noted.
“Ottawa is actually not an easy place to do business because it’s a government town, so there’s a lot of competitors, a lot of government contracts,” he said.
At Festival Promotions, there are four employees, plus himself and business partner Lee Boyd.
“She was the operations manager of the company and I did sales,” he recalled.
Mr. McLaren decided to purchase the business for various reasons, including the fact he likes marketing and sales.
“I liked the idea of working for myself,” he said. “The opportunity to work for myself and sell marketing was a pretty good combination for me.”
The Forty under 40 award is a self-nominating award, he said.
“The amount of information you have to know about somebody to nominate them is more intimate than knowing your spouse,” Mr. McLaren said with a chuckle.
He decided to submit a nomination to get recognition for the company.
“A lot of what we’ve done as a company is pretty neat,” Mr. McLaren said. “We’ve changed the company from when we took it over. We wanted to have people recognize that. It also raises the profile of the company within the city.
“It’s a nice feather in the cap for the company and pulls us into some bigger circles.”
Mr. McLaren noted there were close to 300 applications for the 40 awards.
The recipients receive the award for various reasons, including business success, community involvement and performance over time.
This year’s recipients come from varied backgrounds ranging from craft brewing to technology, representing the diverse nature of the local business landscape, noted Ian Fairs, Ottawa Chamber president and CEO in a release.
“It’s fantastic to see the recipients hailing from different industries and backgrounds,” he said.
“These young business leaders demonstrate the enormous amount of talent we have in this city. Their pioneering nature and visionary thinking will generate economic benefits in the years ahead as Ottawa is fast becoming the centre of talent attraction and innovation.”
One of the major achievements for Festival Promotions was being the preferred provider for unofficial merchandise of the 2014-2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
“We did everything that wasn’t paid for by Adidas or Nike,” he explained.
Festival Promotions has also been designing team uniforms for Team Nunavut for the last eight games. Every province participates in either Canada Winter Games, Canada Summer Games, North American Indigenous Games orArctic Winter Games, he said.
The company does business in Nunavut, so it was a good fit, he said. Their three main colours are yellow, red and blue and new designs are created each year, he said.
Mr. McLaren said while it’s embarrassing to have won it, it’s a testament to the company he and Ms. Boyd has built.
“It looks good on the company, it gives us certain stature when dealing with clients,” he said.
Mr. McLaren admitted this is the first time the company has applied for an award. When he decided to nominate himself and the company for the award, he did it because “it’s a much more local thing for us, we’re able to interact with past winners, current winners.
“Whereas an industry award out of Toronto, it’s not the same.”
Looking to the company’s future, Mr. McLaren said Festival Promotions will continue to grow and work on their philanthropic initiatives, which includes Ottawa Monopoly.
“It’s exactly like it sounds,” he said. “We’re working with the official manufacturers of Monopoly to create an Ottawa edition.
“All proceeds will be donated to children’s charities in the Ottawa area.”
Mr. McLaren said from a business perspective, coming from the Ottawa Valley is pretty neat.
“The work ethic of people in the Valley, in general, is something that bodes well no matter where you end up in the world,” he said.
There are many businesses coming from the Valley, such as Whitewater Brewery (Cobden) and the Cottage Cup (Golden Lake).
“It’s a neat little business hub that gets under-looked in the grand scheme of things,” Mr. McLaren said.
Married to Lindsay, the couple have a 21-month-old daughter, Ava. When not working or spending time looking after a toddler, he enjoys golf and hockey.
For his parents, who are also business owners, they couldn’t be more proud. They attended the gala when the awards were presented.
“It was a proud moment, a proud mom and dad moment,” said Sue.
His dad Keith said, “He’s always had that entrepreneur side.”
With a laugh, he added. “He didn’t enter into the construction field, he went into another direction.”
Both of Mr. McLaren’s parents are entrepreneurs as well. For the past 37 years, Keith has operated McLaren Construction while his mom, for the past 10 years, has operated McLaren Health and Safety Consulting.
To read a full profile on Mr. McLaren, please check out the online edition of the Ottawa Business Journal.
