Up Our Game Canada! Strategic Choices to Better Navigate the New Reality

PURPOSE
The Up Our Game, Canada! program is designed to empower senior leadership teams of Canadian businesses to strategically respond to U.S. tariffs and related trade barriers.

The program offers a two-phase approach where participants will develop, refine, and validate a tailored strategic plan. The program’s success will be measured by:

The completion of an initial strategic plan draft
Targeted feedback supported by expert insights and AI-powered tools

Participating businesses will be supported through in-person workshops, online learning materials, and the follow-up opportunity to access company-specific research projects that address cross-border trade challenges.

TARGET AUDIENCE
The Ottawa Board of Trade (OBOT) is offering program access to Canadian businesses that:

Have more than five and fewer than 500 employees
Are active members of OBOT
Know a new strategic approach is required due to the changing economic environment

PROGRAM PLAN
Phase 1: Strategic Plan Development – April 11, 2025
Participants begin by drafting a customized cross-border trade strategy. This phase includes:

A 1.5-hour executive lecture introducing key concepts critical to trade resilience, including:
- Diversifying customer and supplier networks
- Investing in digital and physical infrastructure for seamless cross-border operations
- Collaborating effectively with stakeholders across jurisdictions
A 1.5-hour interactive workshop where participants apply these insights to create a preliminary draft of their strategic plan
Post-session instructions to advance and refine the draft strategic plan

Phase 2: Expert and AI-Enhanced Feedback – May 9, 2025
Participants craft stronger, more actionable cross-border trade strategies. This phase includes:

Feedback generated by AI tools that participants integrate into their strategic plan
- Companies submit their revised plans before 11:59 PM on April 25
- Feedback generated by AI tools will be provided before 11:59 PM on May 2
- Companies incorporate this feedback and prepare for in-person presentations

Expert review panels assembled to produce high-quality and unbiased feedback on the strategic plans through in-person presentations delivered in private rooms
Only company representatives and expert panel members are permitted entry; all other individuals are not allowed

OUR PRESENTERS
Dr. Tony Bailetti
Tony Bailetti is the Founder and & Director of Carleton’s Technology Innovation Management (TIM) master’s program and new initiative Up Our Game, Canada! He holds a faculty appointment in both the Sprott School of Business and the Department of Systems and Computer Engineering. His areas of expertise include - development of products and services, technology entrepreneurship, sustainable growth of technology companies, technology product and service commercialization and product management.

Dr. Ian Lee
Ian Lee is an Associate Professor at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business, where he has taught Strategic Management and International Business since 1988. A former banker and policy analyst, he was the first Western professor to teach in post-communist Poland under an OECD-funded program and has since taught in executive MBA programs in over a dozen countries across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. He led key academic reforms at Sprott, including the creation of its professional MBA program. A frequent media commentator and public policy contributor, he has published widely in national outlets and has testified before Parliament on numerous occasions.

Dan Premachuk
TIM Program Administrator – Dan manages the TIM Program and oversees the daily operations of the department ensuring all programs are running efficiently. He specializes in office administration, project management, back-office operations, innovation management and developing and implementing new and improved processes and procedures to ensure continued success within TIM.

Eduardo Bailetti
Assistant Professor - Entrepreneurship, TIM Program - Eduardo is a faculty member in the TIM Program. Using his experience from industry and teaching, Eduardo facilitates workshops for the “Up Our Game, Canada!” program and supports business leaders to understand and apply the concepts to their unique situations. His research interests focus on transnational entrepreneurship, particularly in defining its distinctive features and developing new frameworks within the field.