Elevating Finance from Compliance to Collaboration

Organizational Goal

Cascades, a Canadian leader in sustainable packaging and tissue products, was undergoing a significant internal shift. Following rapid restructuring and strategic change, Cascades wanted to reposition finance from a traditionally compliance-focused function into proactive, value-added business partners aligned with internal stakeholders in sales, operations, and supply chain. The priority was to equip 14–15 finance leaders with the mindset, language, and tools to collaborate more effectively and embed a more strategic, empathetic way of working.

Solution 

Led by Ivey Executive Education facilitator Shakeel Bharmal, the session was co-designed with the Finance VP, Stephanie Dussault. The session facilitated a highly participatory, practical learning experience tailored to Cascades’ context and objectives, with co-creation as a core principle. Rather than teaching a generic framework, the session used experiential activities (including a “Colorblind” team challenge) to surface real collaboration dynamics, leadership tendencies, and barriers to effectiveness. From these insights, participants generated their own guiding principles and co-created a “Collaborator’s Mindset” model grounded in servant leadership, business ownership, and relevance to internal stakeholders’ goals.

The experience then shifted from concepts to application: participants built real stakeholder personas and crafted value offers designed to improve day-to-day partnering, ensuring the learning translated into concrete behaviours and next steps.

Outcomes

The session produced immediate and lasting impact: clearer role understanding, increased confidence, and stronger alignment with business counterparts, along with a shared vocabulary for business partnering. With the Collaborator’s Mindset integrated into the team’s ways of working, finance began showing up differently across the organization—supporting broader cultural change and helping build a more connected, agile, forward-looking Cascades.

“We’re now seeing the language of business partnering show up across the country, even at the plant level. The team is always asking, ‘How do I become a better business partner?’ And I’m hearing this not just from my team, but from line managers commenting on how finance shows up differently.” — Stephanie Dussault

To learn more about the longstanding learning partnership between Ivey and Cascades, download the full case and enter your information to get in contact with our team.