Céline Séguin – Core Values at Heart of Sports and Entertainment Success
Written by Randy Pascal, SPAD 1985
Born and raised in Elliot Lake, the daughter of hard-working, self-employed parents, Céline Séguin was instilled early with the core values that have shaped her very successful career in both the sports and entertainment industries.
Sliding over to her role as Vice President – Business Administration with the Juno Awards last November, following almost a decade spent within the Canadian Football League (CFL), including her ground-breaking working as Grey Cup director, Séguin has held near and dear to some key tenets in life, including one particularly memorable quote:
“I was raised to treat the janitor with the same respect as the CEO” (Tom Hardy)
“I would have to give all of the credit to my parents for that,” said Séguin. “They taught me and my brothers to work extremely hard for what we have. They understand the importance of customer service and being able to navigate with all different types of people.”
As coordinator of sponsorship with the Hamilton Tiger Cats, not long after her graduation from SPAD, Séguin would put her values to the test. “It was important that I was treating the gentleman who was responsible for putting the signs up in the stadium the same as I did my contacts with Scotiabank.”
“I couldn’t make that happen without the signage company. Everybody plays a role and they are all important – because without one, you don’t have the other.”
Séguin does not see her recent career move as a drastic change of course. “Sports and entertainment are very closely related; they usually go hand in hand,” she said. In fact, her role with the Junos merges quite nicely with the career progression the still-young 33-year-old envisions, looking to the future.
“When this position came up, I viewed it as a really great step for me, as it relates to experience,” she said. “I was really focused around major events with the league office (CFL). I really like operations, I really like being part of general business decisions, whether that’s marketing, whether that’s social, whether that’s digital, whether that’s events.”
“This provided me that next step.”