Whether on the ice or in the boardroom, John Doig preaches the values of teamwork and respect.
The chief marketing officer at Scotiabank passes on the lessons he’s learned about determination and fair play in the corporate world to the hockey players he coaches with Humber Valley. “My job has afforded me a ton of opportunities to connect with the sporting community. And the values that transfer from the locker room to the boardroom are pretty obvious—the patience, the teamwork,” he said. “You don’t win every time in business, and you have to manage that loss in a way that is a learning experience. And it’s no different on the ice or on a soccer pitch or on a baseball diamond.”
Over the dozen years Doig and his wife, Carrie DeCosimo, have called Etobicoke home, they have watched plenty of Bloordale baseball and Islington Rangers soccer games thanks to their three sports-loving sons, Riley, Cuan and Owen. “And a whole lot of Humber Valley hockey,” said Doig, whose decision to get behind the bench to coach his eldest, Riley, meant he first had to learn how to skate. “I started coaching tyke when he was five, and that’s when I bought my first pair of skates.”
Doig credits team sports for developing good character in his boys and their teammates. “It’s great to learn the skill, it’s great to have the athleticism. But what values you take from that about being a member of the team and contributing at some level is huge,” he said. “Not necessarily having to be the most prolific scorer on the team or the fastest skater, but everyone plays a role.”
He’s proud to be involved with a local league that he thinks is different than most.
“The magic in Etobicoke is it’s a community place,” Doig said. “Humber Valley isn’t out recruiting kids from Markham because they can put more pucks in the net. And they put a good product on the ice.”
The camaraderie and friendly competition between teams is genuine, because kids are playing for bragging rights at school the next day. “I think there’s a respect piece there that’s huge, especially when you’re younger,” he said. “Anything you do, you’re going to see these people Monday morning. So it resonates very quickly that you have to be respectful always. I think, being a community-based organization, there’s a lot more respect in the stands, in the dressing room and on the ice.”
Now in his 17th year with Scotiabank, Doig has made respect a pillar of his corporate life as well. For a lifelong hockey fan who has fond memories of watching Hockey Night in Canada with his father every Saturday in the basement of the family’s Scarborough home, he was thrilled to have Scotiabank sign sponsorship deals with the National Hockey League and the NHL Alumni Association. Particularly special was a partnership between the three groups to host a pro-am tournament that continues to raise about $2 million annually to fund Alzheimer’s research at Baycrest Health Sciences.
“As soon as we inked the deal with the alumni, I pulled out hockey cards I had from when I was a kid and got Mark Napier to autograph his card,” Doig said, chuckling. “I had Napier’s rookie card from the Toros, and his first-year Montreal Canadiens card when he won a Cup with Lafleur. You would never let that one out during the conversations, but as soon as you sign the deal … they probably were a little shocked when I pulled out the hockey cards.”
Participants in the pro-am share his enthusiasm as they draft NHL alumni onto their teams and then get the chance to skate alongside their hockey heroes. “It’s pretty exciting—they get to pick the guys they were watching when they were younger,” said Doig, whose boys got to work the bench during the all-star game.
The research at Baycrest continues, including a project that tracks the effects of concussions on former hockey players. “The alumni help us out, and isn’t it great that we can help them out too,” Doig said.
Hockey may be Canada’s sport of choice, and Scotiabank also financially supports over 100,000 minor hockey players, the Canadian Women’s Hockey League, and Girls Hockey Fest. But the bank’s significant presence in Latin America prompted Doig to foster a relationship with CONCACAF, the governing body that oversees soccer in North America, Latin America and the Caribbean. “The CONCACAF deal allowed us to break into soccer in a very large way,” he said. Eighteen months in, “we have over 300,000 kids now being supported through soccer programs. It’s mind-boggling.”
One example of that support includes providing team jerseys so kids from lower-income backgrounds can have a sense of pride when taking on better-outfitted private schools. Doig recalled a coach in Chile who described how not having uniforms made his players feel as though they weren’t on a real team. In a letter after the bank’s sponsorship came through, “The coach was saying the kids came out on the field with their heads held high for the first time,” Doig said.
Away from the bank, Doig spent seven years on the board at Ronald McDonald House. He took a tour of the facility and was moved by how much it helps families from out of town to have a place to stay while their child undergoes medical treatment in Toronto. The house is actually more like a hotel, complete with classrooms and accredited teachers there to ensure siblings of children receiving treatment don’t miss out on school while they live in Toronto for weeks or sometimes months. “I’m really, really proud to be part of the group that was able to raise the money and build the new house, which is a state-of-the-art facility close to the hospital that can accommodate the unfortunate demand,” Doig said.
Some of the smaller-scale initiatives Doig has stickhandled to fruition are equally as meaningful. He tells the story of an underfunded Parkdale hockey team whose players brought their skates to the rink in plastic bags and didn’t have adequate winter clothes. At the coach’s suggestion, the bank outfitted the team with new winter jackets. Then there was a hockey team in Guelph made up of seven special needs youth. Scotiabank covered the remaining league fees, which allowed the team to exist. “They get on the ice, and the parents think it’s the greatest thing, because they have brothers and sisters on the other teams,” Doig said, adding that stories like these make his job worthwhile.
“It’s always a blend of philanthropic and business growth, and you’re doing these things because they have marketing value. But when you hit something like that, you know it’s a home run. Those are the moments, and we have those across the country,” he said. “If it wasn’t authentic, it wouldn’t work for me, or Scotiabank, quite frankly. I consider myself pretty lucky to have a job that allows me to put these things together.”
In a memorable trip in March 2015, Doig and Project North took the Stanley Cup to Nunavut, along with 25 bags full of new hockey equipment for Nunavik youth. The group hosted a charity hockey game and arranged lessons for local kids from NHL alumni Marty McSorley and John LeClair.
The bank sponsors the Toronto Waterfront Marathon and is a repeat sponsor of the Canadian Football League and the Grey Cup, with Doig and his colleagues brainstorming many creative contests to get fans involved.
Sports-based promotions are but one element of Doig’s crowded portfolio. As an advocate for the role of arts and culture in a thriving community, he has led the bank’s efforts to sponsor the Giller Prize for top Canadian literature, the all-night arts festival Nuit Blanche, BuskerFest at St. Lawrence Market, and the Scotiabank Toronto Caribbean Carnival, formerly known as Caribana. He is also the creator and CEO of SCENE, the Cineplex rewards program, working with president and fellow Etobian Dan McGrath, who Doig called “a huge community support guy.”
The busy executive is quick to point out that he is part of a team that is equally as committed to the bank’s philosophy of “making communities better off.”
“Well, a community’s better off if the kids in that community are engaged, which means doing something other than hanging out at the mall,” he said. “They’re engaged, they’re fed, and they’re physically healthy. If the kids aren’t engaged and they’re not educated, what’s the community going to look like in 20 years?”
Doig said he was flabbergasted when he got the call that he had been elected to join the likes of Mark Napier and “unsung hero” Mike Pelyk in the Etobicoke Sports Hall of Fame. “I didn’t expect anything like this, and I worry I haven’t done enough to warrant it,” Doig said. “Whatever I’ve done to get this kind of recognition, it’s pretty flattering. But I’ve got more work to do.”