96 business elite canada
H
NOV 2014
“We have to offer product technology and support it through service.”
dustry are causing the company to shift its fo-
cus over to products and technology. “We’re
maturing as a business enough that we can’t
be just a service business; we have to offer
product technology and support it through
service,” said President Keith Marshall. “That
would be the big directional shift; it’s not an
easy one when you’ve gone to market as a ser-
vice company for 30 years.”
Northstar is a family-owned business, though
Marshall describes the organization as a “busi-
ness family as opposed to a family business”
with an emphasis on professionalism and the
ability to separate family from business. But
Marshall wasn’t always headed down his cur-
rent career path. After earning a Bachelor of
Commerce degree from the University of Cal-
gary, he worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers
as a management consultant, gaining expe-
rience in finance, outsourcing, information
technology, procurement and supply chain.
Eventually, he decided to help his father with
the business, providing “a bit of energy to get
