Post by Suzanne Grant, CD

What are your social capital goals and scaling approaches for 2026? I’m sharing my hacks and list of 2025 connector greats below. Building relationships and trust can take years of giving without asks Relationships are not transactional of course, but when you’ve invested, what you find is you become a highly resourceful person. My approach 🌎 Say Yes to speaking opportunities 🇨🇦 put your hand up and offer to connect people 🙉 listen beyond the words - perspective, empathy, sharp targetted questions, body language ⁉️ stay curious - ask questions - strategic and be interested in the human 🔑 know your value Boundaries are needed to protect givers energy though. I do this by 💫 being savage about limiting 90% of my meetings to 15 minutes (20% of those wrap up 5 minutes early) 💫 opting out of meetings where I’m not needed / don’t have a role 💫 being prepared to both delight and disappoint people 💫 being selective / focussed about bigger lift asks - it’s OK to say no too! 💫 understanding what business social environments fill or drain my energy - selecting accordingly Shouting out some people who are brilliant givers / connectors. Thanks for your friendship and support and proactively connecting within my orbit in 2025 My 2025 list of superb connectors * Bryan Watson Kenny Crandlemire, CFA Danielle Brewin Graham Kate Tomen, PMP, MMIE Veronica Farmer Alessandro D'Angelo, CPA, CA Albert Wong Michael Curran Victoria Lennox, MSM Megan Cornell Victoria Xu Marisa Fosco Naomi Morisawa De Koven Ernest Barbaric Dane Bedward Maura Campbell Jeff Smirle Frederic Boulanger Bharat Rudra Dan Premachuk Brock Murray Sean Cochrane Jim McCaw Joseph Beals, PhD, MBA, FAMIA Amy Johnson Feiran Zhou Scott Runté Randall Howard Tom Kaneb Darryl Bandoro Imad Kaddoura, MBA, CBE Katia Abboud Harry Koundakjian MBA BSc Cher Powers Andrew Hudon Lance Laking Eric Agyemang, MBA Mark Zekulin Elza Seregelyi Shannon Graszat