Sarah-Jane Griffith is a veteran of building from the ground up.
From a professional modelling career started in her early teens to the Banff School of Advanced Management, from the Young Woman of Distinction award to launching a construction industry trade magazine which is celebrating its first anniversary this month, Griffith has a blueprint for leadership already writ large on her resume.
And she’s only 25 — but don’t mention it.
“Age has never been an issue for me as far as what you can do and can’t do,” she says. “My age is irrelevant. I’m doing what I’m doing and I’m good at what I do.”
This self-confidence is a product of an early start in the competitive world of modelling in California, where Griffith’s dad lives. She started modelling for the Nina Blanchard Agency at age 14, and travelled extensively in Europe and Asia for the next six years while keeping up her schoolwork. “It was my first serious career and it was serious,” she recalls. “It was hard work and sacrifice.”
And evidently, a good grounding for her evolution into a businesswoman and publisher. As well as directing marketing initiatives for Calgary-based The Bolt Supply House, Griffith is the owner and publisher of Pro-Contractor Magazine, a 32-page quarterly magazine targeted at professional contractors and the construction industry.
“There wasn’t anything like it,” says Griffith, whose step-father John McCann heads Bolt Supply. “It was just a big gaping hole. And we decided to fill it.”
“Now we have a year under our belt and name recognition. We’ve caught a lot of momentum. The first issue was a major, major grind. But we had fun doing it, and that’s the key.”
With her small team of co-workers, Griffith has grown the free magazine’s circulation to 30,000 in the Calgary area, with plans to eventually expand the publication across the province. Earlier this year, the Leadership Calgary grad was recognized by the YWCA with a Young Woman of Distinction award for her entrepreneurial skills, leadership and charity work in the community. “It’s nice when you’re working hard in the community to receive an award like that and be recognized. It’s like a pat on the back,” says Griffith.
Her drive and self-described dedication to personal excellence was nurtured last year at the Banff School of Advanced Management, which accepted her to the executive program despite her age. She remembers the four-week session as “hard-core business, like a mini-MBA program.”
With both Bolt Supply and Griffith Publishing, she has learned the business of building from the basic nuts and bolts, and the importance of knowing your company from the bottom up.
“When I started with Bolt, I stocked the bolt bins,” she says. “I put bolts in bins. But I learned the product. How can I do the marketing without knowing what we carry? So I stocked shelves.”
Her own hands-on experience is echoed in her advice to other young entrepreneurs. “Work hard at whatever position you’re in, and you’re more likely to excel,” she urges. “Be willing at the front end of your career to put in the extra hours and do what needs to be done to make sure things happen.
“You’re investing in yourself, not just the company you’re working for. You’re putting those extra hours into yourself, your development and your future success.”
Griffith still does the occasional modelling gig — you can see her this month on the Waiters En Route flyer (she’s engaged to Waiters En Route’s Murray Heide, also CEO of Hot Chow) — and is pleased at her life’s pace.
“I think it’s my nature. I have to have lots going on, and I’m happy that way. This office is pretty peaceful,” she says, gesturing around the funky ground-floor 17th Avenue marketing studio of Bolt Supply House, “but there’s lots going on here. It makes it exciting and keeps it interesting.”
Also built into the Griffith foundation is a dry sense of humour.
“I always dreamed,” sighs the former California model, tongue firmly in cheek, “of being in the bolt business.”
