E xecutive, lawyer, novelist, journalist. Anne Giardini packs a lot of roles into one small, hyperenergetic package. Last fall, she became president of Weyerhaeuser Co. Ltd., the Canadian subsidiary of the U.S. forestry giant - and she recently published her second novel , Advice for Italian Boys. In a sense, the novels come naturally for the daughter of the late Carol Shields, the beloved Canadian novelist. But make no mistake - the Vancouver-based Ms. Giardini, 49, is an original in her own ability to traverse boundaries between the corporate and literary worlds.
How do you do it?
I have lots of energy. Probably an overabundance. I have to do something, or I go mad.
Are you a weekend writer?
Weekends, evenings, trips. I don't dislike business travel because if I'm uncommitted for an evening, I have time to write. I don't know what people do when they are travelling for business and not writing a novel - that's what I want to know.
Do you write in hotel rooms?
And airplanes. First, I catch up on whatever reading I have, and then my reward is to do a bit of writing.
Is there something about you that likes precision - in law and in prose?
I think that's true, and the two careers reinforce each other. I've always believed that language in the wrong hands can be dangerous, and it's a powerful tool both for law and for creative writing.
You've been critical of the gender gap in management. Is it as wide as ever?
I think Weyerhaeuser is an exception. But I am always surprised when I look at gatherings of politicians or CEOs - the kinds of people we quaintly call the movers and shakers. Women are very underrepresented in those groups.
I s it because they take time off from their careers to have children?
It is partly that and it is partly cultural. Women still haven't grasped the nettle of assuming leadership for themselves - and with their own stamp. There are a lot of studies looking at why. One of my favourite books is by the U.S. writer Linda Austin, called What's Holding You Back? It's a very good analysis of the external and internal forces that prevent women from attaining senior management and board roles.
So what's holding you back is often yourself?
It can be yourself. It can be circumstances. For women of colour, with disabilities or in single-parent situations, it may be external factors. We're still in a world that pictures men more readily in leadership roles, but that's changing.
Do you still find yourself as the only woman in the room?
Sometimes I forget I'm a woman, which may be for the best. I don't think about it that much. But I'm conscious always that I have a different voice, and I mean that both metaphorically and literally. It's hard to forget when I'm about 5-foot-nothing. It might be easier if I were 6-foot-something.
Will the forestry industry ever again occupy a leading role in B.C.?
There is no upside in looking backward and trying to be what you were. I look at our mix of products, which include some pretty neat engineered-wood products, and those are tomorrow's products. What we can bring to market with strong margins will be what consumers really need. They are going to need new kinds of products, some of which we know now, and some we are going to work out going forward. This whole area of biofuels for example, is going to continue to grow in this sector.
I really am a huge believer in this industry - I wouldn't have taken on this role if I wasn't.
But will it all be done with fewer people?
Will there be a smaller percentage of the Canadian work force in this sector? I think that is the case. In the past we had a very great concentration in a very few industries and that will not be so in the future.
Have you had to personally close mills?
Yes. It doesn't make you very popular locally.
You have to keep your eye on the big picture. What will make the industry stronger as a whole? What kinds of investments will provide for a long-term sustainable business model? Often mills that have been in place 50 or 100 years have really outlasted their customers or their logical base. And so there has to be change - something will close and something will open.
Do you ever hear allegations that you are not tough enough?
There is a saying I like, 'Hard on issues, soft on people.' I am very caring about people. I never lose sight of the people who are affected by our operations or the decisions we make. Ever. I am conscious of them in every respect, whether in their safety as employees, their confidence in the future, how our retirees see us, how the public sees us. Having said that, I think all our stakeholders expect us to make the tough decisions when it is time to make the tough decisions. You can make friends in the short term by dithering perhaps, but that is not any kind of longer-term strategy.
How did you decide to be all these different things?
I was 35 when I had this startling realization that you didn't just have to be one thing. You could be several things. My mother was really a writer and she stuck to her knitting, as they say. And I knew I wanted to do that; she was an influence, absolutely.
But I also had a degree in economics and a degree in law, and I knew I wanted to use both of those as well. So I think the 'Aha' moment was realizing I didn't just have to be one thing, that I could do several things.
Was there one moment when you decided to be a writer?
I had known that ever since I was born. It was just in the air; it was in the water I drank. It was in my mother's milk, literally and figuratively.
And at 35, I decided I could do it. I had my children, I had this career, and I decided I could write as well. It is too easy to let yourself be defined by others and once you shake yourself free from that, it is quite liberating.
And you have to be ready to fail. You can publish a novel that can be an utter flop. If you are fairly tough-minded, which I believe I am, that is a risk you are prepared to take.
Are you superorganized?
I am not, but I am very highly enabled. We still have our nanny at home, notwithstanding our children are 20, 17 and 14. And I have good assistants at Weyerhaeuser. I don't know that organization is my main suit. I would say seeing things through to completion is what I do best. 'There is joy in completion' was one of my mother's mantras.
Will you eventually move into full-time writing?
I think I would hate that. What would worry me is the tyranny of the empty page. I can ignore that now because I'm busy at work. I really believe I do my best writing when I'm working on other things - so that when I come to write, I've worked a lot of it through. I have what I want to say fully formed. It more or less cooks on the back burner.
Your mother must have been proud to see a child become a writer.
I would think. Sadly, she died before my first book came out, but I think she felt confident there would be one.
It makes for a rich life.
And there are other things I'd like to do. My husband has become a golfer and I would like to learn how to play. I'd like to learn one of the local aboriginal languages. I have been a bit mortified that I have learned Italian and French, when there are these wonderful rich linguistic traditions right here in B.C. that I somehow skipped.
What do you lose sleep over?
It's very typical for people in roles such as mine to want to control everything. What wakes me up at night are variables that I have been unable to control. Because I have something of a creative and relentless mind, I often chew over ways to get control over larger issues or scenarios. Those are the kinds of things I would dwell on and try to come to some way of at least controlling pieces of things.
But a lot of things happen in your industry that you can't control.
Yes, but through thinking diligently and from all angles, something that may have appeared to be totally beyond your control will lend itself to some new approaches. I've learned that those musings or periods of stressful thinking can be fruitful. Rather than battling them or trying to avoid them, I've learned to pay attention to them and they can be a useful way of working through problems.