Podcast: Mario Thériault On The Power Of Poetry, Politics And Building A Business
Host Mark Leger has always wanted to connect with Mario Thériault for a chat about his wide-ranging career. Mario started as a broadcast journalist in the early 90s, along the way became a published poet and short story writer, a communications adviser to his brother and one-time premier of New Brunswick, Camille Thériault, and for the last 20 years, the founder and CEO of the Moncton market intelligence firm ShiftCentral.
Mario sold the company to U.S.-based LAC Group in 2019 and stayed on as Chief Business Development Officer. Mark finally caught up with Mario after he was recently named chair of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. They talked about journalism, politics, writing, and building a business that reaches global markets from the Maritimes.
Mario built the ShiftCentral’s market south of the border, client by client, in Portland, Boston and New York. He’s long-believed growing export markets for goods and services was the key success for small regions like ours.
“It’s the only way a region like ours can survive,” Mario told Mark. “If you look at the local marketplace our demographics, our income, there is just no way that we can have a self-sustaining economy by just pitching products or services to the local marketplace. We can live here, we can have a great lifestyle, we can contribute to the community. But we need to find outside markets for our products and services.”
Listen to Mark’s conversation with Mario in the player above, or on your preferred podcast platform.
The Huddle “Home Office” podcast – available on Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher and Apple podcast platforms – features conversations with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia community leaders, entrepreneurs, analysts and Huddle reporters about the issues and events that accelerate and enrich the growth of the region’s economy and culture.
Check out the Huddle podcast archive for more conversations about the Atlantic Canadian economy, which include feature interviews with regional leaders like Frank McKenna, Blaine Higgs, and tech entrepreneurs Marcel LeBrun and David Alston, our very first podcast guests.
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