Page 12 - CCCA Magazine Summer 2014

{ ProFile } FocusIng on the rIght thIngs the values amee sandhu learned in childhood are the same ones she applies today as a mother, volunteer, and ethics and compliance off cer. By Michael Dempster ix can be a most impressionable age. importance of hard work and that there’s Amee Sandhu remembers it well. It was always work to be done.” sa time when she regularly helped at her The daughter of Tirlochan (Terry) and parents’ corner grocery stores in Winnipeg, Gurcharan (Sharon), Sandhu was a moth- packing food, stocking shelves and running er’s helper to her two younger siblings. As a the cash register. It was also a time when she self-described “typical child of immigrants,” told her dad a joke she’d heard in school. It she was studious, her days focused on made fun of a particular social group. She school, homework, housework and helping didn’t really understand it, but her father in the family business. There was little lei- did and it landed her in hot water. sure time then, and less so now as an adult. “My dad [he’s from India] made it very, But her legal career and CCCA activities very clear that you do not say things like sate an appetite that craves challenge and that,” she says. “You don’t discriminate collaboration. against people for their backgrounds.” Her plate is certainly full at SNC-Lavalin, These were the kind of moments that a Montreal-based company that is one of helped shape Sandhu’s values about hard the world’s leading engineering and con- work and respect for others—traits that still struction f rms, with off ces in more than help govern her life today. As an ethics and 40 countries. compliance off cer at SNC-Lavalin, chair of In October 2013, she accepted a job with CCCA’s national diversity committee and responsibility for the power group, joining executive member of CCCA’s Ontario Sec- 10 other compliance off cers in the compa- tion—all roles she’s accepted in the past ny’s department of ethics and compliance. year—she remembers those early life les- The department was created in March 2013 sons well. in the wake of a bribery scandal that led to “It was really unique to be a child and the resignation and criminal charges against see your parents at work,” says Sandhu, who senior executives including former CEO with husband Ewan is raising three children Pierre Duhaime in February 2013. under the age of four. “What it taught me Sandhu says her role is an opportunity to was that you have to put in long hours, the work with world-class leadership in the ethics 12 CCCa Magazine | suMMer 2014 été