Age: 39
“It’s important for me to be clear and public about what is important to me and then live it.”
Sean Halliday is a self-described organization freak. When he walks into a business, he immediately susses out the clutter. Paper piling up on desks and file boxes stacked in hallways – it’s all just one big, inefficient system waiting to be streamlined.
Halliday is in the business of organizing information and his company, NeoStream Technologies, has modified software that electronically scans, sorts and files information. An invoice that is faxed, for example, gets stopped at the fax machine, is scanned for information like a project name and is sent directly to the person who can approve it. That same process can be customized for any department, from human resources to asset management, with all the information being searchable using a dashboard on your computer that is prettier to look at than boxes in the hallway.
“You can watch what is happening in your company,” says Halliday. “And have the tools to quickly approve an invoice properly or drill a well in the right place. We create workflows that transact at the right time with the right information and don’t advance until all of the pieces are in place.”
Halliday’s business targets the energy sector, where large projects with multiple contractors make for a lot of moving parts and lost documents don’t go over well with industry regulators. “The oil and gas industry is dying for someone to deliver what we have,” he says.
His company started as Imagine eDoc Solutions in 2004, with three employees working out of Halliday’s basement. This past spring, Imagine eDoc Solutions merged with Turbo Decisions to create NeoStream Technologies. Today, the company has annual revenues of $5 million and Halliday gathers his staff of 30 in a 7,000-square-foot office space for daily business updates and shout-outs of success. He has an ambitious plan to boost annual revenues to $25 million in five years and rarely fails to deliver on public proclamations. “It’s important for me to be clear and public about what is important to me and then live it,” Halliday says.
One of those proclamations is to give back to the community. Halliday’s contributions include serving as vice president of the board for the Alex Community Health Centre, as well as being a member of the Calgary Stampede Royalty sponsorship sub-committee, which works with 42 sponsors to help fund the 400 events the Stampede Queen and Princesses attend every year.
“The Stampede is part of Calgary, and a core piece that not every city has,” says Halliday. “Because I feel so passionate about it, I feel a responsibility to make sure that it is carried on.”
Why he’s the top: He writes code for software that scans and e-mails paper documents, like invoices or work orders, and files them into a searchable electronic library. It saves companies millions of dollars and prevents paper cuts.
Key to his success: His smash shot. Halliday was on Canada’s national badminton team. “I grew up an athlete, and one of the truths is that working hard produces results. That is something that is engrained into how I work.”