NSB Logo Jim Estill Jim Estill

Jim Estill

Speaker Exclusive

Guelph, Ontario, Canada

Innovator & CEO Leading Billion-Dollar Growth

Jim Estill leads by example to encourage employees to think differently and experiment with products and processes. He’s a serial innovator and technology entrepreneur who once grew a computer business from the trunk of his car to more than $2 Billion in sales. Jim’s praised for his philanthropic ventures which include sponsoring, educating and hiring Syrian refugees to help equip them with the tools to succeed for a new life in Canada. He’s currently the CEO of Danby (the leading refrigeration and specialty appliance company in North America) and Founder and CEO of ShipperBee (a cost-effective, carbon emission-reducing disruptor in the parcel delivery sector). Jim shows audiences how to use creativity and innovative thinking to grow their business and make a positive impact on the world around us.

Keynote Speeches

Innovation | Disrupting Big Industry

When Jim Estill took control of Danby Appliances, he didn’t see a  70-year old business making washing machines, dishwashers, fridges, and air conditioners, instead, Jim saw an opportunity to innovate. By changing the way the company thought, he was able to completely revitalize the company in less than three years, leading to a spike in Canadian revenues. Jim created an environment where employees are encouraged to think differently and experiment with products and processes.

His ability to encourage this mindset has led to breakthrough ideas like Danby’s Parcel Guard — the first smart mailbox to hit the market — and his new company ShipperBee — a crowd-sourced way to ship packages. In this presentation, Jim shows audiences how they can apply his entrepreneurial mindset to disrupt their industry. 

Key Takeaways:
• How to evaluate risk and take action to eliminate unprofitable channels. 
• Strategically develop an ecosystem where value is created for all within it. 

From Zero to $2billion - Success Habits

Based on his TEDx talk of the same name, Estill shares lessons learned from his time running 2 multimillion dollar companies. Estill has codified his life into a set of his “success habits.” He believes in small changes that can make a big difference – like spend 20 minutes outside every day, no matter the weather, and have a “creative oasis” where you can do your best thinking. Others are broader, like ‘do the right thing’— which can be seen in his actions to sponsor Syrian refugees.

 

How to use the Secrets of Leadership for Time Management

One of the reasons that time management is not enough is because time is not about quantity. Time is about quality.  Take a moment to think about your highly productive hours or days over the last year. You probably accomplished more in those short periods of time than over weeks or even months of less productive work. The key to time leadership is to maximize your number of quality hours. Leadership allows you to establish your priorities.  Estill shares his experience in learning to master not only efficiency skills, but also effectiveness skills.

The Business of Philanthropy
In this presentation, Estill shares insights as on how to bring a business mindset to the philanthropic world. He believes there are lessons learned that can be shared from business to social enterprises/volunteer organizations and vice versa: “My organization has 800 volunteers. If you can run a business with 800 employees, you can run an 800-person volunteer organization.”

The Business of Philanthropy

In this presentation, Estill shares insights as on how to bring a business mindset to the philanthropic world. He believes there are lessons learned that can be shared from business to social enterprises/volunteer organizations and vice versa: “My organization has 800 volunteers. If you can run a business with 800 employees, you can run an 800-person volunteer organization.”

Audience reviews:

  • He turned out to be exactly the kind of business person you want designing the systems that help people thrive.

    - Fortune Magazine

Speaker Biography

Jim Estill’s not your typical big-city CEO. With a home base in the innovation hub of Kitchener-Waterloo, he brings a humble, pragmatic and creative approach to growing a business. Jim’s been described as an unstoppable entrepreneur who “fearlessly experiments with new ventures while never losing sound business judgment in evaluating new opportunities.”

Jim’s a lifelong tech entrepreneur and an expert in distribution and problem-solving. His methods have been wildly successful. Jim started a $350 million tech distribution business, EMJ Data, as a student at the University of Waterloo. He then sold that company to SYNNEX Canada and served as CEO between 2004 and 2009, growing Synnex from $800 million to $2 billion.

Jim has invested in, mentored and advised many big-name technology companies including Blackberry. He was a founding board member before they went public and served for 13 years.

In 2017 Jim became the owner and CEO of Danby. His creativity and innovative thinking completely revitalized the company in less than three years. By developing an entrepreneurial and creative culture within the organization, Jim was able to future-proof the 70-year-old appliance business.

His latest innovation is ShipperBee, a more cost-effective and environmentally friendly shipping alternative. The company bypasses hub-and-spoke distribution centers and instead crowd-sources everyday people, who are already in transit, to deliver parcels. Jim’s system utilizes trips that are already taking place (and all the empty trunk space) to get parcels where they need to go without adding more carbon emissions. This method saves about over 70% of the greenhouse gas per parcel.

In 2015, Jim saw stories of war-torn Syria that left him heartbroken—and spurred him to take action. Over the past few years, he’s been involved in sponsorship efforts to settle over 89 refugee families in Guelph. This initiative also laid the groundwork for longer-term independence for these families through employment, ESL training & more. He’s spent upwards of $1.5 million of his own money to do so. Jim truly lives by his belief in doing the right thing for his company, community and around the world.