Inside the Roots Leather Factory: A conversation with President & CEO Meghan Roach

As a child growing up in Pembroke, Ontario, Meghan Roach remembers driving more than an hour out of town to shop at a Roots store. “Roots was always something special,” she recalls, pointing to the durability of their well-worn products. “I love the Roots TUFF Boots. You would buy these things and you could not wear them out.”

Little did she know then that she would one day become the President and CEO of the iconic Canadian company.

With humble beginnings in Toronto in 1973, Roots has grown into an international brand, sharing Canadian-inspired products around the world and outfitting the likes of athletes, celebrities and presidents.

Despite its global imprint, Roots still makes all its leather goods by hand at the Roots Leather Factory in Toronto.

In a conversation with Goldy Hyder on the Speaking of Business podcast, Roach provides a tour of the factory and discusses the Roots legacy.

“My father said to me never forget where you came from, and this is exactly what I think of when I come to this factory every day,” she says. “This is a 50-year-old business and a 50-year-old brand and I’m a steward of it. I want to build and strengthen the foundation of this business so it’s here for another 50 years.”

More photos from the Roots leather factory:

Transcript

Meghan Roach:

This is a picture of the people who initially owned the factory, they’re called the Kowalewski Family, so this is the factory that they founded 50 years ago, and then Karl Kowalewski actually continued to run the factory until this year.

 

Goldy Hyder:

That’s Meghan Roach, CEO of Roots. She’s giving me a tour of Roots Leather Factory in Toronto.

 

Meghan Roach:

So one of the things also we have is cool, we do different things for different people. So this is all the different people that we’ve done molds for. So we’ve done things for US presidents, we’ve got actually the presidential seal in here, we’ve done cuffs for people like OVO.

 

Goldy Hyder:

There’s I see in here.

 

Meghan Roach:

Yep, you’ve got a wide variety of different people that we’ve worked with over time. So you can see this is the President of the United States.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Oh, wow.

 

Meghan Roach:

So we’ve done quite a few of those.

But it’s interesting to see just the scale and variety of the stuff that we’ve done, people that we’ve worked with over the years, and again it’s just a rich history that we all can come back to. It’s pretty cool.

 

Goldy Hyder:

The Roots Leather Factory is a bustling place filled with cutting tables, sewing machines, patterns, and of course lots and lots of leather, plus countless jackets and bags in various stages of construction. Lining the walls are posters that chronicle the well-known products Roots has been making for 50 years. Shoes, bags, jackets, sweatpants, Olympics gear, and so much more. Welcome to Speaking of Business, conversations with Canadian innovators, entrepreneurs and business leaders. I’m Goldy Hyder, President and CEO of the Business Council of Canada. Today we get an insider’s look at one of Canada’s most iconic companies, Roots. In 1973, 2 friends launched the company inspired by Canada’s wilderness. They met after all at a summer camp in Ontario’s Algonquin Park. Since that time, the Roots logo has made its way around the world. Today, Roots operates more than 200 stores in Canada and abroad, and it ships to more than 70 countries. But every leather product the company creates is hand made right here in Toronto at the Leather Factory. I was thrilled to see it in action with Roots CEO, Meghan Roach. Welcome to the podcast, Meghan.

 

Meghan Roach:

Thank you for having me.

 

Goldy Hyder:

All right, so you’ve given me this tour of this amazing facility. Tell the listeners what goes on here.

 

Meghan Roach:

So we still hand make all of our hand bangs and all of our jackets in Canada, in Toronto, and so what you’ve seen here today is all the amazing craftsmanship and artisans who are working on all these products that go out to all of our stores and they ship to the 70 countries worldwide that you mentioned.

 

Goldy Hyder:

I mean, it’s just amazing to hear that, that you’re hand-making them all in a time in which automation will probably allow you to mass produce.

 

Meghan Roach:

Yes, I mean it’s fantastic. I think there’s importance in terms of, you know, many, many years ago I went to boarding school, and my father said to me before I left, never forget where you came from, and this is exactly what I think of when I come to this factory every day. Never forget what we came from and we are artisans, we think about these things day-to-day. It’s an important part of our business. And so this is just something that’s always going to be part of us, and it’s always been important to the story of Roots.

 

Goldy Hyder:

So how is this where you came from?

 

Meghan Roach:

Well, it’s interesting. I mean, I came from a small town named Pembroke and for me, I’d had to drive about an hour and a half to go and get clothes from Roots. And so we would do these school trips in September and I would think about what I wanted to buy. Being the youngest of four children, had a lot of hand-me-downs and Roots was always something special. And so being able to invest in a Roots piece like a TUFF boot or a jacket or something like that at the time was incredibly important. And so for me, this has been part of my childhood and now it’s obviously part of my adulthood too.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Do you have any favorite products from your childhood you still have?

 

Meghan Roach:

I love the Roots TUFF Boots. I mean, you would buy these things and they just, you could not wear them out. And anything you wanted to do was obviously able and capable to do within TUFF Boots. So I loved that. That was fantastic. And then the sweats, I mean unbelievably comfortable, great craftsmanship, great quality. So something I always have as part of my youth also.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Do you sometimes ask yourself, how does a young girl from Pembroke end up being the CEO of Roots?

 

Meghan Roach:

I ask myself that every day, every day.

 

Goldy Hyder:

What’s the answer to that?

 

Meghan Roach:

I guess a lot of hard work and perseverance, but fundamentally for me it has been a real privilege to be part of this brand. It’s something that is really representative of the Canadian community, and to be from a small town and then have gone and worked and lived internationally, to come back to Canada and be able to work for such an iconic Canadian brand has been really impactful.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Yeah, we’ll come to how you got here ’cause it was not necessarily a straight line and you may be surprised that you got here given where you were coming from, but let’s talk about the Roots story first because it’s such a Canadian story and it’s an iconic, as I mentioned in the intro, these two young boys from Detroit, they meet at a camp in Algonquin Park, they decide they want to share the essence of Canada’s wilderness with others, and it’s not easy with that history of leading a 50-year-old company, what kind of pressure does that put on you to maintain the goals that the company’s founders had while still trying to put Meghan’s stamp on the place?

 

Meghan Roach:

From one perspective, I would say it’s easy in that, when you sit down with the founders, and we did this when we celebrated our 50th last year, and you say, what was your plan? They will be very honest and transparent with you that they had no plan. Their idea was that at that time they wanted to start a business. They wanted to have one store in Toronto and one of them wanted to work for six months, then travel, and then they would switch and vice versa. And so when you think about that, their goals at the time were, let’s just start this store, and that continued in terms of the 50-year history, they never really had a plan.

They kind of did things that made sense to them, and that was so, not perspective, there’s a little bit of an ease of balance, but from my perspective, what I would say is that I’m not really trying to put my stamp on the company. This is a 50-year-old business and a 50-year-old brand, and I’m a steward of it. I want to build and strengthen the foundation of this business so it’s here for another 50 years. So for me, it’s about doing that, invest in the infrastructure, invest in the people, putting in place the things that it can allow it to be successful over the next 50 years, and it’s not about leaving Meghan’s legacy.

 

Goldy Hyder:

So tell us about the journey here then. I mean, you come from really private equity and capital markets and such. How did it suddenly become apparent to you? You know what I really want to do is I want to be the CEO of Roots.

 

Meghan Roach:

Well, I was part of the team that acquired Roots in 2015, and we took the company public in 2017, and I had been on the board for a couple of years. And in around 2019, our CFO left and I’m also an FCPA. And so we had some conversations, we said, let’s find the right CFO, and I said, you know why don’t I jump in the company? There’s a couple of things the company was doing at the time in terms of a distribution center implementation that were not really working out as best as possible. So I came in, focused on that, and then I got excited about the opportunity and we were looking for a new CEO and the group approached me and the board said, why don’t you become the CEO? And I said, I don’t know. I mean, do you think … can I be the CEO of this company? And he said, yes you can.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Why did you doubt yourself?

 

Meghan Roach:

Going back to that kind of comment of being from a small town, I think you don’t really ever imagine being put in a position where you’re running a public company of the nature of Roots. And my entire background was finance and I just didn’t know. I mean, going from running a private equity team to then having 2500 employees across distribution, manufacturing, retail stores, I was entering into the realm of the unknown to a significant extent. And so a lot of it was more around, am I the best person for this job? I’d like to think I am, but at the time I just didn’t know. And so I was happy that I took the risk and I was also happy that the team supported me in being able to do that.

 

Goldy Hyder:

I’ll come back to your leadership journey because part of what shaped it, some of the crises that you’ve had to manage while you’ve been here, and there’s that old saying, never waste a good crisis. You’ve had to navigate many of them in the last four years since you’ve become CEO, including of course the Covid pandemic, now the war in Ukraine. Tell me how the business was affected by these cascading crises, and then I want to talk about how you personally were affected by them.

 

Meghan Roach:

Yeah, and what’s interesting about Roots is we have been affected by almost every crisis. And so I think a lot of times people think of businesses like Roots and they think of them just, it’s a Canadian brand, but the reality is we manufacture globally. We manufacture in Canada, we also have manufacturing in China, we have manufacturing in Ukraine. And so in February of 2020, we discovered that our distribution center for our China business was in Wuhan, and so that was the first impact. Then you roll forward and we had the two-month shutdown in China, at one point we were discussing as a business, are we ever going to have any inventory coming out of China? How are we going to get our sweats? Roll forward to the war in Ukraine, we made almost all of our socks in Ukraine, and so we had to think about resourcing that entire business over a short period of time. So really a lot of the macro things that have happened over the last couple of years, all of those have impacted Roots in some way. And so we’ve had to really pivot and adapt as a business.

 

Goldy Hyder:

And through it all, you’re still a young, early stages CEO. How did you do it?

 

Meghan Roach:

Well, I think with one thing I had learned, I mean interestingly enough, when I started university, I think I had bad timing. I started university right around the dot-com bust, and as a result, a lot of people were struggling to get jobs, and that impacted my thinking. The next thing when I started my career in private equity, I started when Lehman crashed, and so I had to think about who to deal with that. Moved over to Europe when the sovereign debt crisis were happening, so I had an experience with that too.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Boy, be careful to follow you around.

 

Meghan Roach:

So I have a little bit of a negative track record, I guess, in that perspective, but I think throughout it all and also the situation was acknowledging that every situation and every challenge is quite different. If you’re preparing for the last situation, then you’re not going to be successful in the future one. So it’s really around creating resilience and thinking about how do you create a team? How do you create as your individual yourself, how do you develop the skillset that allows you to deal with challenging situations and build that internal resilience, confidence, et cetera to be able to do that. So it was a lot about taking a lot of the experiences I had throughout these other difficult and challenging time periods and then applying them.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Now you bring a lot of passion and a lot of purpose to it. We had this tour that I mentioned right off the top, one of the things you of course observe is employs a lot of women.

 

Meghan Roach:

Yes.

 

Goldy Hyder:

As a woman leader yourself, how do you see yourself as a role model?

 

Meghan Roach:

I do see myself as a role model because I think I’ve been put into the position to be a role model, and I think about that a lot in terms of how I present myself, but from the other perspective, I think it’s important to also still be yourself and still not lose that piece of yourself. So I think it’s important to understand that the role of the CEO is just that. It’s a role that you play, but that doesn’t mean that’s who you are in its entirety. So there’s obviously different facets of your personality and your life that you have to continue to bring to the table.

And so for me, I really think about how can I be authentic in my personal life and my professional life and how do I maintain that consistency across both of them? And in terms of being that role model, I think that’s the most important thing, is being able to have that consistency across personal and professional. Because growing up and not having a lot of role models in the various places that I had worked, I wish I had someone who was there saying, listen, it’s not all easy. It’s hard. There’s a lot of things you have to do and give up to be able to accomplish the different goals. Having that consistency I think is important.

 

Goldy Hyder:

You must have mentors in your life or sponsors in your life and/or you’re being one to others, how important is that in general, but particularly for women?

 

Meghan Roach:

I think it’s important because I think it’s important to have a person to have the conversation with. I think oftentimes what we do is we set people up for failure because we put them in these positions and then we just hope that they can figure it out for themselves how to do it. Having mentors, having supporters, it gives people a sounding board, and oftentimes, especially when you’re in a role, whether you’re a woman or somebody else who may be part of a minority group, you don’t feel like you can ask the questions because you feel like it’s going to indicate to somebody else that you don’t know what you’re doing. So having the mentorship programs in place or having a partner or someone to support you in that regard, I think is incredibly important because it gives you that avenue to ask the difficult questions or ask the questions that you may doubt of yourself.

 

Goldy Hyder:

And again, mentors and sponsors can be men or women.

 

Meghan Roach:

A hundred percent, 100%.

 

Goldy Hyder:

But I was just curious…

 

Meghan Roach:

And I mentor both men and women too. I think it’s important.

 

Goldy Hyder:

One of the areas that I find very revealing in a podcast like this, speaking to the kinds of people that I do, is when I ask them about adversity in their life or failures and challenges that they’ve had to overcome. Anything you want to share with this audience about your own journey that helped you get to where you are because you experienced that?

 

Meghan Roach:

I think I’ve had an opportunity to face a lot of different avenues of adversity. I mean, whether that was obvious things like just failing at something very basic to putting myself forward for various jobs, careers and having discrimination of certain ways or different types of things. And then facing things like the pandemic or facing different risks, moving from private equity to moving into the CEO role. But fundamentally, what I think is really important there is I’m not a person that reflects on regrets. I don’t have any regrets in my life. I think all of those situations have made me tougher, stronger, more capable.

And so when I look back on those things, was it difficult? Sure. But actually am I happy that it happened to me? Yes, because I would not be in the position I am today if I had a very easy path. And I don’t think anyone who has an easy path is actually a great, successful leader because the reality is that being a leader means you have to make difficult decisions and you have to have had the experiences where you have been on the other side of that and failed and had some challenging decisions made to you to be able to understand what it’s like to make those decisions.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Yeah, I think that’s one of those lessons I always ask about because I think today’s generation needs to hear that a bit. There’s a sense that life’s a straight line and it certainly isn’t.

 

Meghan Roach:

Definitely isn’t.

 

Goldy Hyder:

We both know it’s very curvy. One of the things that CEOs take great pride in is their own company’s culture, their own corporate culture.

 

Meghan Roach:

Yes.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Tell the listeners about the culture of Roots.

 

Meghan Roach:

I have lunches with all new hires, and the first thing I say to them, how is the company different to what company you worked at before? And the number one thing they say is it feels like I’m part of a family. And I think it’s incredible that over 50 years for a brand like Roots that represents the Canadian community that has been able to stay there. And I think because one of our key values is community, that it percolates throughout maintaining this kind of family culture. It’s not so family to the extent that you can’t get work done, but it is something where people feel like they’re part of something more than just themselves.

 

Goldy Hyder:

And in terms of talent, in terms of, as you said, some of the skill sets that are being deployed in this factory are very specific. How do you find that talent in Canada or is it coming from outside of Canada as well?

 

Meghan Roach:

Well, I think when you walked around the factory you saw that it’s incredibly multicultural. So there’s a lot of people here who are first or second generation Canadians and they’re bringing talent from different places. And I think that’s something that’s always been incredibly attractive about Canada is the open arms we put out there to say, please come join us. And Roots is no different in that way of trying to attract that kind of international talent. What we are doing from a domestic perspective is that we are trying to work with different schools to bring those artisans into the factory, give them training programs, and then keep them on full time. But it’s difficult because a lot of the skill sets that we employ here are not skill sets that people are necessarily going after aggressively now.

 

Goldy Hyder:

And one of the things about Roots of course is, I mean it is, screams Canada.

 

Meghan Roach:

Yes.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Everybody thinks of Roots and they have to think about Canada. And you mentioned, you’ve got international operations, not just in China and Italy, but in Turkey and other places around the world. In some cases, Canadian companies go out and lose their Canadiana.

 

Meghan Roach:

Yes.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Are you able to retain the Canadiana roots in these other markets?

 

Meghan Roach:

Yes, because I think we look at Canada and think about what does it really stand for as it relates to values? And so the values that we have as a brand are community, integrity, authenticity, freedom. And I think Canada still represents a lot of those things. And so we take those values and we take them to a global stage. I also think that the one thing that we always have here is just resources. The natural resources of Canada are unbelievable, and that’s something that brands internationally are trying to replicate. They’re trying to show that they’re part of the outdoors. We started in the outdoors, we will always be part of the outdoors, and that’s something that Canada also represents globally.

 

Goldy Hyder:

So in some ways you’re helping with tourism.

 

Meghan Roach:

Yeah, we have done a lot of partnerships with tourism in the past from a Canadian perspective, but yes.

 

Goldy Hyder:

How is the Canadian brand or itself do you think seen now around the world?

 

Meghan Roach:

I think that’s a constantly evolving thing. And I think that as an individual who has a chance to travel extensively and then as a person who runs a brand that has an international presence, I think going back to those values, I think people still do believe that Canada represents those values. I think that in the last few years, I think what’s been changing is more how do we deal with our partners and how the dealings with our partners are impacting brands who have global presence. And that’s definitely something we’re seeing more of impact us in different markets now.

 

Goldy Hyder:

One of the questions that often gets asked about Canada is whether we compete hard. That America is a place where you compete hard, Canada’s a place where you compete with a small C.

 

Meghan Roach:

Right.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Is that how Roots is doing it?

 

Meghan Roach:

So funny enough, when you talk to the founders and you say, why did you found Roots? Why was it important to make a brand about Canada? They say exactly that. They say, we were these two Americans who came from the US and saw all these people.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Isn’t that ironic by the way, two Americans…

 

Meghan Roach:

Two Americans…

 

Goldy Hyder:

That helped Canada become more Canadian.

 

Meghan Roach:

And they said, we saw what the US was doing in terms of representing itself in a global stage, and we said, Canada has all these amazing things. Why aren’t you speaking about it more?

Goldy Hyder:

God bless these two guys.

Meghan Roach:

Yeah, I think inherently our brand is competitive in that way in terms of saying, let’s advertise how amazing Canada is for sure. And we’re about much more than just Canada, and I think we are competitive as a brand. I think it’s great when you see other Canadian brands be successful. And I think really when I look at that, I think, I don’t think, wow, I wish we could be more successful than them, I think I wish we could all be as successful together because I think there’s a lot of things that Canadian brands can offer on a more global stage.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Yeah, it’s such a frustrating thing to hear, let me tell you, as an immigrant to this country who I think our family thought were coming to compete to win, not to settle, not to be good enough. And even here the stories of two Americans who are coming to shake us up and say, hey, you guys, you got this amazing country here with these amazing resources so let’s go out and own it. Well, look, I’m glad we had that conversation because I think we have to have more of that kind of a conversation about Canada. How do we build more champions? What is it that’s holding Canada back from succeeding?

 

Meghan Roach:

I think it’s a good question. I think it comes down to the structures and infrastructures we put in place in terms to support young talent. Do we have the investment programs in play? Do we have the political systems to support them? There’s a lot of different, I think nuances from a country perspective that we have to think about in terms of how do we make it okay for people to take risks and fail? How do we invest in the education programs? How do we invest, how do we make it attractive to make investments in Canada such that people want to come to this country and they want to start new businesses?

So there’s a lot of different things I think we can do that will continue to drive and excite that entrepreneurial spirit. But we have to be excited about being competitive, as you said, we have to be focused on making sure it’s an attractive place to make investment, and we have to make sure that we leverage the things that we already have here and celebrate those things on a global stage. And we have to continue to do that in a loud way because Canada has a lot of amazing things and other people need to know that more and more.

 

Goldy Hyder:

And one of the things that Canadians are kind of known for is we feel validated when externally people validate us. So one of the things we noticed when we walked around here, of course, is all of these celebrities that have been here and wearing, I didn’t realize, tell the listeners about some of the ones that you showed me and the ones that make you feel like, wow, isn’t this cool? X person is wearing our jacket.

 

Meghan Roach:

Yeah, I think what’s so interesting about it is that when you come into a brand like Roots, you see a juxtaposition of different people that you wouldn’t necessarily see in any other place. So we were talking about how upfront you’ve got kind of Karl Lagerfeld, you’ve got Elton John, you’ve got Drake, you’ve got the Weeknd, and I think there are very few places you see all those together. The fact that we’ve done so many things with international teams, different celebrities, different sports teams, for instance the Leafs or…

 

Goldy Hyder:

Entertainers, hockey.

 

Meghan Roach:

Entertainers, everything. We’ve kind of done all of it. And I think that’s very, very unique. And for me, again, what’s interesting about coming to the Leather Factory is that most of these people come to the leather factory, they see this amazing craftsmanship and all the things that we do here, and they fall in love with the brand and they want to do more with us, and that’s why we’ve been so successful as a business.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Everybody that I speak to has a cause that is important to them, something that they care about. What’s yours?

 

Meghan Roach:

I’m involved with a number of different charities. I’m one of the vice chairs of the Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Foundation. I’m also actually on the investment community of Nature Conservancy of Canada. And so for me, that’s a balance between, I’ve always had a passion for nature and I’ve also had a passion for children, and it’s been amazing to be involved in both of those organizations and see all the great work that they’re doing. And I think in both cases there’s a lot of opportunity to continue to, again, from the Nature Conservancy perspective, continue to bring awareness to this great land that we have in Canada and the great opportunities we have to maintain it. And from the Holland Bloorview perspective, 22% of the Canadian population has disabilities and we don’t talk about it enough. We don’t bring it to the forefront. And so to support children who are early on in their journeys to make sure they have the best opportunities I think is important to me too. And so being involved with that has been a really valuable part of my last few years.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Well, as a father of a child with disabilities, thank you. You’re absolutely right about that. Now, you mentioned being a mom and, of young children that is, and advice for women who are career-oriented. How did you manage all of that and what advice do you have to women who are in that situation?

 

Meghan Roach:

I get asked this question a lot, and I think it’s important to be honest about it and transparent. It’s very challenging. It’s very challenging to have children and have a career, especially at a high level. And one of the things we don’t talk about enough is how important it is to have a great support system. So if you need to get help at home, if you can have a supportive husband, et cetera, that’s incredibly important. But some days you have to make difficult decisions and some days you’re going to be a great mom and some days you’re going to be a great CEO. That’s just the reality of it. And so I think that sometimes that balance is there and sometimes it’s not. But I have in my career made decisions to get where I am today and made those decisions while still having a family, so it’s possible. It’s very possible, but I think we have to understand that it’s not easy.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Yeah, I think everybody struggles with the balance piece. I mean, men and women.

 

Meghan Roach:

Yes.

 

Goldy Hyder:

It’s very difficult. You had, I think, inspired by your children, correct me if I’m wrong, but there was a Barbie made.

 

Meghan Roach:

Yes, that’s right.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Tell us the story behind that Barbie. What inspired you to make it the way that it was made?

 

Meghan Roach:

We launched a Barbie collaboration this year, last year, actually, sorry, for our 50th. And then we followed on with actually a Barbie collaboration for their 65th this year. And we decided to make a Barbie doll, and it was incredibly important to me as a mother of multicultural children, my husband’s family’s from Guyana, to make a Barbie doll that actually reflected those children, my children, and also many children across Canada. So the Barbie doll is a mixed child. She’s got a darker skin color. She’s got kind of a half blue, half brown eye to reflect my children.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Fusion going on.

 

Meghan Roach:

Fusion going on, she’s got curly hair, she’s kind of a normal body size, which is really important. So all of those things were incredibly important to me in doing that. And when we launched the Barbie, the number of people that came up to me and said, this is the first time my daughter feels like she’s represented and it being a Canadian, it was the only Canadian Barbie doll was launched last year in collaboration. It was really important and impactful.

 

Goldy Hyder:

That’s a great story. It’s a reminder, especially as a father of daughters, the importance of what you just said, even just the normal size of things that are out there. I’m going to conclude with the fun part of this podcast, which is really rapid fire questions and there are no wrong answers. Favorite Roots product?

 

Meghan Roach:

I would have to say my Roots Varsity Jacket.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Favorite part of Canada?

 

Meghan Roach:

I would have to say Algonquin Park.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Best way to relax?

 

Meghan Roach:

Reading a book.

 

Goldy Hyder:

What kind of books?

 

Meghan Roach:

I read a lot of different types of books. I have a really good book that I like, which was, it was a biography on Catherine The Great was one of my favorite ones. So maybe a little bit boring for people, but a lot of different things.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Well, that’s good. It wasn’t an MBA book or something, so that’s good. Favorite sport to play?

 

Meghan Roach:

Rugby? Yes, I played rugby for a long time, actually.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Oh, wow. What do you like about it?

 

Meghan Roach:

It’s very strategic. They call it, I think it’s the gentlemen’s sport that’s played like hooligans or something like that.

 

Goldy Hyder:

It’s the one sport I’ve never played, actually, so you got me on that one.

 

Meghan Roach:

It’s an interesting one. So it’s very strategic, it’s very athletic. I loved everything about the whole sport and it’s something that being part of the Commonwealth, it’s played internationally in a lot of different locations and so had an opportunity to play it to start my career.

 

Goldy Hyder:

All right. Favorite sport to watch?

 

Meghan Roach:

Golf.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Golf?

 

Meghan Roach:

Yes.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Do you play?

 

Meghan Roach:

I try.

 

Goldy Hyder:

You try? That’s the rest of us too.

 

Meghan Roach:

It’s a great sport to watch.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Yeah. What do you like about golf?

 

Meghan Roach:

I like being outside. I like the challenging yourself to do something that’s never going to be perfect. And I just like the exercise. I like the association with nature and the outdoors.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Yeah, it’s a great sport. I mean, I don’t take it seriously. For me, it’s more about the camaraderie and the walking but it’s interesting because you’re playing against yourself really, right?

 

Meghan Roach:

Yes. Yes.

 

Goldy Hyder:

You’re not competing except against yourself. Favorite food?

 

Meghan Roach:

Cookies.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Sorry?

 

Meghan Roach:

Cookies.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Cookies, geez, I wasn’t thinking that’s a food, that’s a requirement every day. You’re speaking to the right guy when it comes to cookies. What’s the one thing you wish that more people outside of Canada knew about Canada?

 

Meghan Roach:

I wish they appreciated how multicultural and how open and welcoming it is. I think that that’s a perception, but when you get here and you experience it, I think it’s much more than people actually even understand from the outside.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Anything keeping you up right now at night?

 

Meghan Roach:

There’s a lot of things keeping me up at night.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Uh-oh. Well, let me know if you get some sleep.

 

Meghan Roach:

Everything is a lack of sleep for four years. Let me know in the next pandemic, war, recession doesn’t happen, then I’ll be sleeping pretty well.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Well look, thank you for doing this. The facility is just awesome. We really appreciate you giving us the tour, and I’m sure the listeners will really learn a lot from your podcast. Thank you.

 

Meghan Roach:

Well, thank you for having me.

 

Goldy Hyder:

Meghan Roach is the CEO of Roots. If you would like to see photos from my tour of the Roots Leather Factory, just go to our website at TheBusinessCouncil.ca and click on the podcast link at the bottom of the page. That’s TheBusinessCouncil.ca. While you’re there, why not subscribe to our Speaking of Business conversations with innovators, leaders, and entrepreneurs? You can also find us by searching for Speaking of Business wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, I’m Goldy Hyder, thanks for joining us.