Howie Wong is General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at Toronto Community Housing which is the largest landlord in Canada. Prior to joining Toronto Community Housing in 2005, Howie was a M&A lawyer for 19 years with Gowlings, a national Canadian law firm.
“Diversity refers to human qualities that are different from our own and those of groups to which we belong.”[1]
–University of California, Berkeley
Diversity can be defined in many ways. Similar to peace, diversity is elusive, but we definitely know when we’ve got it. Honestly, it wasn’t even a part of my vocabulary until much later in life. I grew up in Toronto’s inner city in a sea of immigrants, color and working-class values, where diversity would have meant bussing in white kids from uptown. We were a pretty homogenous lot and didn’t think the world was any different.
My first real exposure to diversity was in university. Like the famous “West Side Story” song, “Gee, Officer Krupke,” I didn’t know I was under-represented until I read about myself in a first-year sociology class. As the song goes, “Leapin’ lizards! That’s why I’m so bad!”
Called to the bar in 1986, I became a part of the 0.6 percent of Ontario lawyers who were of Chinese descent.[2] My uniqueness was further amplified when I chose to become an mergers and acquisitions lawyer. I entered a cloistered world of panelled boardrooms and martini lunches — pretty heady stuff for an inner-city Asian kid. Early on, I recall negotiating an international deal over the phone across many time zones. When it came time to close, I finally met the other side. Upon my grand unveiling, the first thing they told me was: “You’re Chinese! You don’t even have an accent!” Thankfully, we’ve come a long way from those dark ages.
For the last six years, I’ve been the general counsel at a public housing company and have had the luxury of building a legal team from scratch. With a bit of foresight and luck, I think we got it right: female-centric, youth balanced with experience, and a potpourri of ethnicities. Check out the pictures.
Now, my challenge is to discover the next big thing on the diversity agenda. What best practices are out there waiting to be discovered?
To answer that question, I am taking my blog posts on the road. I’m going to lunch with general counsel from businesses, government and nonprofits across Canada to find out their experiences with diversity. I hope you’ll join me for some “brown bag” learning.