Three business figures with Manitoba ties will be inducted into the Manitoba Business Hall of Fame next year, including the late founder of the province’s largest hotel chain.
Leo Ledohowski, who built Canad Inns from a single property into a hotel chain with locations in Winnipeg, Portage la Prairie, Brandon and Grand Forks, will be honoured posthumously. He is joined by Mark Evans, executive chair of financial planning software company Conquest Planning, and Michael Pyle, chief executive of Exchange Income Corporation.
“Each of their stories is very unique,” said Greg Leipsic, president of JA Manitoba, the non-profit that oversees the hall of fame and selects new inductees each year.
The three will be formally recognized at an April 6 gala at the Victoria Inn Hotel. Tickets for the event cost $325, and organizers say the venue will accommodate more than 600 guests this year, up from the usual 525, after the gala moved from the Metropolitan Entertainment Centre.
From Software Startup to International Growth
Evans said he was honoured to be inducted alongside Pyle and Ledohowski. He previously created NaviPlan, financial planning software that was adopted by major financial institutions in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, before selling the business to Zywave in 2011.
He went on to co-found Conquest Planning, which builds artificial intelligence-driven financial planning software. According to JA Manitoba, the company has expanded internationally and raised more than $150 million over the past six years.
Evans has continued working through cancer treatments over the past 18 years, including kidney, lung and liver cancer, as well as a brain tumour diagnosed last year. He said immunotherapy treatment for his current liver cancer has been “extremely successful.” One of his nominators for the hall of fame honour was Doug Harvey, a fellow Business Hall of Fame member and CancerCare board member who died earlier this month. Evans said Harvey is “not in the world anymore, but still making an impact.”
Aerospace Company’s Growth From $8-Million IPO
Pyle pointed to the growth achieved at Exchange Income Corporation, a company involved in aerospace, aviation and manufacturing, including aviation services to Canada’s North. He said the company began with an $8-million initial public offering and has since grown in value to $10 billion.
“The awards are individual, but they’re really about a group of people and what was accomplished with our company,” Pyle said.
Both Pyle and Evans said they take particular pride in the charitable contributions made by their respective companies.
Ledohowski, meanwhile, is remembered for transforming Canad Inns from a single venue into Manitoba’s largest hotel chain. The City of Winnipeg honoured him last month with an honorary street naming on Jefferson Avenue, between McPhillips and Watson streets.
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