In this 6‑questions‑in‑7‑minutes interview, Professor Pete Alexander talks with Chris Collins, Vice President and Managing Partner of People2Go, a technology staffing and services firm operating across Canada and the US. Collins explains People2Go’s mission to help startups, mid‑size firms, and enterprises achieve operational excellence through skilled tech talent. He praises the tech industry for its rapid evolution and, more importantly, its people‑centric culture and camaraderie. When asked for essential business advice, Collins emphasizes a "people‑first" philosophy: invest in employee growth, be self‑less, lead by example, and manage by consensus. He links continuous professional development to a culture of trust, loyalty, and high performance. Collins also shares a personal anecdote about his first job as a 13‑year‑old youth‑soccer referee, describing how that early leadership experience shaped his approach to balance, fairness, and leading by example. The episode closes with Collins providing his LinkedIn profile and email (chris@people2go.com) for listeners to connect.
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This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do.
I'm Chris Collins. I'm Vice President and Managing Partner for a technology staffing and services company called People2Go, based in Toronto, but we provide our services across Canada and the US. Simply put, our mission is to provide, is to provide and enable startup companies, small to medium companies, and large enterprise organizations achieve operational excellence, user experience, customer satisfaction, and organizational growth. By leveraging skilled technology resources and services. My role at People2Go is to drive sales, to drive sales and organizational growth for the company. However, I prefer to say that my focus is on enabling our employees, help them grow as much as possible, making a more measurable contribution to the growth of our company. And that's something I take very, uh, take to heart in everything I do.
Chris, it's great to have you on your— on the show, and I just love the passion in your voice. Question number 2: what What's the best thing about working in your industry?
There's a lot of things about the tech industry that I love. The tech world is constantly changing and evolving, and it's difficult to keep up with the pace of it at the best of times. But what really makes the technology industry great is the people. Passionate, they're dynamic, they're absolutely committed to providing value-added and cost-effective solutions to their customers' problems and helping them achieve successful business outcomes. On top of it, it's the camaraderie in the technology industry. This is something that floored me in the early days. I've always thought of business as being very competitive, and it certainly is in the technology industry, but these— the Pete— the more people you get to know, you realize how small the community really is. And while you may be enemies business-wise, these are your colleagues, these are your peers, these are friends in some cases, and the amount of goodwill and respect is, is incredible. Right. But it's the industry. Great.
That's great. I love to hear that. Question number 3. I have a book with all the answers for business. What chapter would you think most companies should read?
Well, first off, I'd love to have a book that has all the answers. You know what, for me, you have to read the book from start to finish. Books tell a story. They take you on a journey. And for me, I don't want to miss any part of that journey.
I like that too. It's— it— you— that way you get the complete story.
Yeah, I, I think people's natural intuition would be to jump to that final chapter. I think my industry, people work very hard, they're stretched very thin, and they want to— they want to just get to the point as quickly as possible. But, um, I still like the feeling of a book in my hand. Maybe I'm old school.
No, I'm the same way, so I guess I'm old school as well. So question number 4: other than the generic work harder have a great attitude and care for customers. What advice or insight would you give to other business leaders?
Advice I give to other business leaders. Well, as Richard Branson says, take great care of your people first and foremost. I've heard many leaders before say we got to take great care of our customers. When you take care of your people, they will take care of your customers. Invest in your people, help them grow, help them develop, and you will reap the rewards of that business-wise for sure. Be selfless. Leaders have to be selfless, and they know that you— they— your people have to see that you're willing to make sacrifices in order to make things happen and put their needs before your own needs. And that's absolutely imperative for me in a leadership role. Working hard, that's almost a cliché statement for me. It's a given. I'm more concerned, I'm more focused on working smart, right? And training for me is massive. I put a lot of emphasis on this with everyone in our organization, and we live by a process of continuous improvement and professional development. That is a key component to our workplace culture and something we're never willing to compromise on. Um, you know, a good leader, of course, Pete, should lead by example, and that's absolutely critical. Um, I personally never ask my people to do something that I probably can't do myself, right? And I'm able to build trust, respect, and empathy with them, and And I've always found that to be a very effective way of leading. In terms of leadership style, everyone has a different leadership style. I personally manage by consensus. I like to bring ideas, strategies, new service offerings, recommendations, whatever it may be to the table and get my people's thoughts on this. And it's not just my people's thoughts in the sales team, but other people's thoughts in the organization, because they're all stakeholders in some capacity in the growth of your organization. Give them a voice, right? And I've always found it easier to execute when people buy in. You know, the old school thing in sales where you did $5 million in sales last year and your sales manager says, okay, now you got to do $7 million this year, and you have no idea how that's going to happen, right? So I think manage by consensus is absolutely critical. On top of it, you have to be, as a leader and executive, you got to be humble. You got to remember where your journey started, how you got there, and who helped you along the way. And everybody gets help along the way, and you can't forget that. Uh, you can't sit in an ivory tower and think that, hey, I did this all on my own, because that's not the case at all, one way or the other. Uh, learn from your mistakes. This is another part of being humble. Um, I personally have made every mistake a person can in their journey into a leadership and executive role, but I learned from those mistakes, and those mistakes helped define my personal professional character, right? And I will call myself out on a mistake Every single time in front of my people, if need be, because I want to send a message that we all make mistakes, learn from them, become better.
I think all those things that you're talking about, it all just builds not only trust but also loyalty of the people that report to you. Am I correct in making that assumption?
Absolutely. I think for me, I'm old school. I call old school loyal, is that it takes time to build loyalty like it does trust and respect. With loyalty comes commitment, comes dedication, comes commitment, comes work ethic, comes many other things that have a positive impact on people's individual growth and that of the company. And my people know I'm as loyal to them as they are to me. It's— we'd lay down in traffic for each other, right? And I love that about our organization, right? Second to none with respect to that. And the other leaders in the organization are exactly the same way.
I love that. That's so— it's so insightful. And I love hearing that about an organization run like that. Question number 5: What other business leaders leader like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?
Awesome. Great questions, Pete. Ah, you know what? I'll tell you that I can't name names. I will tell you, tell you offline. I have been very fortunate to work with a lot of very inspiring people in my time, and who I'd like to shout out to are the people who are going to become the next generation of executives in the technology industry. People I've grown up with. It's amazing the journey that we've all taken. Right. Thanks to LinkedIn, I've been able to follow some of their journey along the way. So there's a few people that have inspired me. Some of them are customers of ours, quite frankly, and there's internal people within my organization that I see huge promise with that I have the utmost confidence will become the next generation in leadership in our respective industry.
Great. I look forward to getting those people that you're referring. So thank you for that. Absolutely. Question number 6, please tell me about your first job.
My first job, I still remember it vividly. I was 13 years old and I was refereeing soccer. I am absolutely obsessed with soccer. It's one of my greatest passions. I call it football. Only in Canada and the US, the only two countries I'm aware of that actually call it soccer. But it was an amazing job. It was, uh, I get to do what I love, you know, I get to interface with people. And it was my first foray into the leadership world because as a referee You're not there to make a difference. You're there to create balance as much as possible and let things flow. And I've applied that in my leadership style from the very beginning. So, I mean, that's a job that still, I still remember very fondly. And I hope that when my son, my son is really attached to football now as well, soccer. And I hope to a certain extent he follows in his father's footsteps in that regard.
Oh, that's a great story. And I'm curious, if you were doing the refereeing at 13, so was it more challenging to deal with the parents or with players?
Neither back then, to be fair. I mean, this, you know, I'm going to date myself, this is in the early '80s. So back then, the parents were very respectful. Everybody was cheering on the kids, and it was just an amazing experience, and you wanted them to enjoy themselves, right? And a lot of sportsmanship and goodwill was— it was honestly second to none, and it was fantastic. As I got older and started refereeing kids at older age groups, that did change for sure. Came a bit volatile. But look, at the end of the day, you've got to inspire, whether it's your children, your friends, or your coworkers, right? And you know, you lead by example. So I tried to do the best of my abilities throughout, throughout my life, and it's made me who I am today.
Wonderful. Great story, Chris. Thank you so much for being on the show. How can people find you?
Email. I'm on, of course, on LinkedIn, Chris Collins, working for People2Go. My email address is chris@people2go.com. Collins@peopletogocom. That's P-E-O-P-L-E-T-O-G-O.com.
Perfect. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. For more insights and ideas, please go to LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, or iTunes and search for the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Thanks for listening.
