Colleen Baldwin has dedicated her career to using design strategies to transform spaces, ensuring they meet practical needs and enrich the lives of those who use them.  

With a Bachelor of Interior Design from the University of Manitoba, her expertise spans workplace design, real estate strategy, and inclusive design practices. As the leader of Scotiabank's Global Design Strategy & Transformation team, she oversees a vast real estate portfolio spanning 22 million square feet and supporting 90,000 employees worldwide. 

Colleen's commitment to innovation is evident in her pioneering work on workplace transformation. She has consistently driven impactful change, from co-founding a Toronto-based design firm to spearheading global initiatives at Scotiabank. Her leadership extends beyond her professional roles, with significant contributions to organisations such as CoreNet Canada and OCAD. 

In this interview, Colleen shares insights into how Veldhoen + Company helped Scotiabank reimagine its workplaces with Activity Based Working (ABW) and reflects on the challenges, successes, and enduring impact of this transformative partnership. 

Colleen Baldwin: Veldhoen + Company helped us with the end-to-end strategy of consolidating 27 buildings to 4 connected campuses, which affected about 15,000 employees in the Greater Toronto Area alone.   

The scope of the V+C's involvement was immense and included real estate, technology and behavioural changes focusing on better employee experience, heightened collaboration, and choice. 

V+C introduced things we had never done before which encouraged us to think broadly about solutions. It was a thorough process where we didn't skip steps or jump to conclusions.  

CB: We have forever changed the way our non-customer-facing groups work.  

Before starting the project, we did European tours of ABW workspaces, giving executives big A-ha moments. Senior executives came together with the department heads (HR, ops, tech) to witness activity based environments that didn't yet exist in Canada.   

It helped to make concrete the idea that people can work outside of traditional desk spaces. The confluence of a partnership between human resources, real estate, tech, and operations working together to think broadly outside the real estate-specific challenges was key. 

Later, V+C's program influenced how we built out the ecosystems to test out customer-facing spaces like large bistro spaces to experience the financial benefits of these spaces as that third place where people work. 

CB: Having come together in advance on the norms made us nimble when we came into COVID. It was excellent when solving for the future of hybrid work.  

While many companies struggled to adapt, we had already built up a certain amount of flexibility and tools (VPNs, laptops, FollowMe printing) as part of the shift to ABW. 

We set up a full change management team to onboard ABW. That change management team never went away. We changed our delivery model to be more inclusive of our partners - ops, security, and marketing. As we built up DEI, we ensured they were part of the process. It forever changed how we build out space and how we run programs. 

We had already pivoted to agile before hiring V+C, so then the question became, can we do agile within ABW?

That's when we hired Louis Lhoest to redefine what that looked like. Louis' approach deeply resonated with my approach. Seeing how other large organisations have done this, coupled with the test and honour methodology, resonated with me. 

CB: The years of V+C's history helped us feel safe exploring ABW since it's different for Scotiabank to be the first to try something.

It was the maturity of the organisation and the credibility of what Veldhoen + Company had previously done (even with added complexity) combined with the validation that ABW works

We recognised that other consultancies did not have the larger-scale projects that Veldhoen + Company had in their portfolio.

The personalities of the consultants are excellent and approachable. It's not purely transactional (as we had experienced before).

"The wise counsel that V+C provided allowed us to transform how over 10,000 employees experience the workplace at precisely the right time.

Our people work more collaboratively and digitally. Our space flexibly supports our post-COVID needs, and costs us less!

Thank you for being great partners and for teaching us how to think about how we work in a whole new way!"

Gus Sciano
Scotiabank | VP, Global HR Technology 

We appreciated the comprehensive nature of the program that Luc delivered. It meant that when we brought architects on board, it was easy for them to pull everything together and translate the consultant's vision. V+C was able to create a process that made this much more straightforward. 

We love the communication in general - to this day, we've kept the gateway open, which feels like a true partnership. 

CB: I was appreciative that Veldhoen + Company was able to demonstrate the 'why' behind their approach. 

Taking time to think through the ideas ahead of time, imparting that methodology, and using a cross-functional approach is always my preferred way of working. Still, it helped that they could showcase to key stakeholders how important it is to the project's success. 

CB: Congratulations on the success! Veldhoen +company is the kind of company I resonate with, so working with a like-minded group of big thinkers was a great experience. 

To this day, whenever we come up against challenges, we go back to the reasons we made this change (and investment) in the first place, and it helps to centre us back on the best solution. 

CB: Choice and flexibility are important because we constantly must adapt. 

Since I started the journey with the bank 11 years ago, it has been the one thing we've consistently focused on. Whether it's the hours of work, our locations, the type of environments we build, or leadership–we are trying to solve for a diverse group of people, personalities, and abilities.   

The business world is in constant flux, which is exciting because, thanks to the co-creation with V+C, we have an expertly guided, flexible process that supports our business goals and team.