Your Path to Transformative Growth
Our immersive, hybrid program spans seven months, blending in-person sessions with hands-on learning and expert guidance, designed to equip your business with the tools and strategies needed for sustainable success.
Program Structure
Growth Catalyst is a hands-on program designed around innovation sprints, ensuring practical application of each module's learnings directly to your business. You'll engage with a cohort of ambitious peers, fostering a growth mindset and building trust and vulnerability to overcome limiting cycles. Together you will refine your strategic vision, explore new opportunities, and continuously report back on progress between modules. This supportive and challenging environment ensures accountability and accelerates your journey towards sustainable growth.
Team-based program
Each company forms a Strategic Growth Team (SGT) of four key leaders to participate in modules tailored to the 7 Scaling Strategies™. By involving your leadership team, you foster collaboration and ensure alignment towards your growth goals. This collaborative approach enhances team cohesion and drives collective success, recognizing that strategy thrives as a team sport.
In-person module delivery
On module delivery days, your team will engage in immersive, hands-on sessions that include interactive workshops based on the 7 Scaling Strategies™, with real-time strategy application, expert-led discussions, and collaborative problem-solving activities, ensuring immediate and practical implementation of your growth strategies.
Meetings in between each module
Meet with your SGT weekly to complete assignments and align on strategic direction. These meetings help maintain focus and momentum, preparing your team for each upcoming module.
Prework and asynchronous learning
Engage in an online learning hub with pre-work to prepare for each module. This component aligns your team and sets the foundation for success, ensuring you are ready to maximize the program's impact.
Innovation sprints
Participate in small-scale innovation sprints, known as Make A Difference (MAD) Challenges, within each module. These hands-on activities apply knowledge to practical, real-world scenarios, fostering a culture of innovation.
Rigorous pitching sessions
Pitch your Strategic Growth Opportunity to peers and expert advisors in dedicated pitching sessions designed to pressure-test your ideas. Gain invaluable feedback, refine your strategy, and build your confidence in presenting to stakeholders. Conclude by presenting your refined growth strategy to a panel of industry experts and peers. This final validation sets the stage for confidently implementing your strategic vision.
Key Takeaways of the Program
We’ve designed this program to help businesses, like yours, unlock their potential and achieve exponential growth with a practical, evidence-based approach. Value is achieved by educating and coaching a cross-functional company team using practical tools and affordable access to diverse experience in an accelerated and disciplined way.
Craft a Customized Playbook with 7 Scaling Strategies™
Develop a growth playbook to scale your business. By adopting innovation as a process, you and your team will leave with a repeatable process for growth, tailored to your business. Our 7 Scaling Strategies™ provide a structured approach to identify and capitalize on growth opportunities, enhancing your ability to achieve and sustain high growth.
Build Team Cohesion & Establish Alignment
The Growth Catalyst program fosters a transparent environment, helping you align your team around a shared vision. This alignment accelerates decision-making and builds confidence, enabling your team to drive growth with clarity and commitment.
Pressure Test & Elevate the Plan with Peer & Advisor Input
Our hands-on workshops, peer exchanges, and executive coaching ensure your plan is comprehensive and actionable. Gain insights, refine your strategy, and execute with confidence, supported by our extensive alumni network for continuous growth.
Program Design
The Growth Catalyst program takes you and your team on a structured journey based on the 7 Scaling Strategies™ framework by Dr. Simon Raby, Ph.D. Each module introduces new tools and insights for assessing different aspects of your business, enabling your team to identify growth opportunities, and converge on a strategic direction. You'll use provided tools and methodologies, supported by feedback from peers and advisors, to ensure your decisions align with best practices for sustainable growth.
SPARK!
Introduction
Kick off your Growth Catalyst journey by meeting the program team and fellow participants. This introductory module lays the foundation for your strategic growth journey.
During this initial module, you will:
- Embrace the role of a 'Growth Catalyst' and understand program expectations.
- Establish your Strategic Growth Team (SGT) for business execution and growth.
- Define clear growth goals and reflect on your journey to date.
- Network with peers in a relaxed environment.
- Gain insights into successful strategies and outcomes from program alumni.
Compass
Vision
Set an aspirational vision that inspires growth on both personal and organizational levels amongst your leadership team. This unit helps define your company's purpose and strategic direction.
Learning outcomes:
- Create a clear purpose statement for your organization.
- Set growth ambitions aligned with strategic goals.
- Reflect on leadership style to identify areas for improvement.
- Develop high-performance teamwork through collaborative exercises.
Coach
Leadership
The Coach module focuses on establishing leadership principles that promote growth. Your leadership team will develop high-performance teamwork, evaluate team effectiveness, and begin relationships with executive coaches. This unit fosters a leadership mindset necessary for guiding your team through growth phases.
Learning outcomes:
- Develop a leadership mindset crucial for navigating growth.
- Understand high-performance teamwork with your SGT.
- Evaluate and improve team effectiveness to optimize team performance.
- Establish leadership principles to guide strategic decision-making.
- Initiate relationships with executive coaches to further develop these skills.
Customer
Revenue Models
Rediscover your customer and understand your value proposition in the Customer module. Define the problems you solve, create priority customer profiles, and assess current data to plan for future needs. This unit emphasizes understanding customer journeys and validating insights to shape future opportunities.
Learning outcomes:
- Define clear and prioritized ideal customer profiles.
- Map customer journeys to optimize the customer experience.
- Validate insights to mitigate risks and enhance decision-making.
- Assess current data to anticipate future customer needs and behaviors.
- Develop actionable plans to capitalize on growth opportunities identified through customer insights.
Creativity
Ideate
Leverage your findings from Compass, Coach, and Customer to uncover -big- growth opportunities in the Creativity module. Work with advisors and peers to identify significant growth opportunities and evaluate your innovation strategies.
Learning outcomes:
- Evaluate and refine innovation strategies.
- Identify significant growth opportunities.
- Collaborate with advisors and peers to gain collective insights on opportunities for growth.
- Apply feedback and methods for evaluation to converge on your big Strategic Growth Opportunity.
IGNITE!
Evaluate
At the halfway point of the program, present your Strategic Growth Opportunity identified in the Customer module to a panel of peers and advisors. Engage in one-on-one sessions with industry experts to pressure-test and refine your plan. This evaluation ensures your strategy is thoroughly vetted before you and your team move on to create a go-to-market plan for the identified opportunity in the second half of the program.
Learning outcomes:
- Develop and enhance your ability to pitch your Strategic Growth Opportunity effectively.
- Rigorously evaluate and refine your growth plan with industry expert feedback.
- Gain actionable insights to guide the creation of a comprehensive go-to-market strategy.
Channel
Go-To-Market
The Channel module helps you build, brand, market, and sell more effectively. Your team will refine your company vision, evaluate sales-led or marketing-led strategies, and create growth campaign plans to go-to-market with your Strategic Growth Opportunity.
Learning outcomes:
- Review and update your company vision to align with market realities and growth ambitions.
- Evaluate and choose between sales-led and marketing-led strategies, leveraging the strengths of both.
- Develop actionable growth campaign plans focused on customer retention and acquisition.
Capability
Operating Model
Realign your operating model towards growth in the Capability module. Define processes that benefit the end customer, evaluate your organizational structure, and establish key metrics for tracking progress towards your goals. This unit focuses on building a scalable operating model with effective processes, technology, and assets.
Learning outcomes:
- Define processes that benefit your end customers, enhancing satisfaction and operational efficiency.
- Evaluate your organizational structure to optimize it for better support of growth and scalability.
- Establish key metrics to track your progress effectively and ensure alignment with your growth objectives.
- Build a scalable operating model with effective processes, technology, and assets to drive sustainable growth.
Capital
Finance
The Capital module, presented by TD, focuses on financial health and capital strategies. Learn to assess financial statements, determine the timing for seeking external capital, and craft compelling pitches for financing. This unit explores various funding sources and negotiation strategies to secure financial partners for growth.
Learning outcomes:
- Work with experts to assess your financial statements to identify strengths and areas needing improvement.
- Determine when to seek external capital based on your business's growth stage and financial needs.
- Craft compelling pitches for financing to attract potential investors or lenders.
- Explore different sources of capital to diversify funding options and mitigate financial risks.
- Build basic financial models and understand how they impact forecasting accuracy for informed decision-making.
- Review negotiation strategies to increase your success in securing a financial partner and favorable terms.
LAUNCH!
Elevate
Conclude your journey by presenting your refined growth strategy to a panel of industry experts and peers. Validate your plan, showcase your progress, and set the stage for implementation.
During this final module, you will:
- Pitch your Strategic Growth Opportunity (SGO) effectively to a panel of experts, demonstrating clarity and persuasive communication.
- Receive constructive feedback from industry leaders and peers, enhancing your strategy with diverse perspectives.
- Showcase and celebrate progress achieved throughout the program, highlighting key milestones and achievements.
Program Requirements
Are you ready to reinvigorate your company’s spark in an open and diverse learning environment, create your next Strategic Growth Plan, and scale up your business? Here’s what you need to participate:
Apply for the Program Today
Discover how our strategic growth program can help your business thrive. Join us for seven months of immersive learning experiences, workshops, and coaching sessions to develop your personalized growth playbook.
Trusted by Established Business Leaders
Our company has been around for a few years, and my only regret is that we didn’t have a program like this 15 years ago. After a while within a company, you sometimes lose or narrow the vision of where your company should go. This program will widen that vision and you’ll see things maybe you didn’t see before.
Omar Hamdon
Hamdon Energy Solutions
The Growth Catalyst program has had an awesome impact on vrCAVE and it really helped us focus on working on the business instead of in the business. If you’re at the right stage of company, this is a great place to both train and to also communicate as a leadership team and them to also look much more towards the future boldly and look at opportunities on the horizon.
Alex Rossol
vrCAVE
The way we were able to engage with other companies in a variety of industries, not just technology, has given us a really holistic views of the challenges businesses like us face. But we all often hear the same kind of approach to these business challenges, which creates kind of an echo chamber. So the Growth Catalyst programs was much more holistic in many regards, and hearing those perspectives I think gave us new ideas of how to approach the problems.
Luke Statt
EWI Works
FAQs
Find answers to common questions about the Growth Catalyst program.
Who are the Advisors/Faculty and what kind of expertise do they have?
Our advisors and faculty are thoroughly vetted professionals with extensive experience in various fields, including market expansion, leadership development, finance, innovation, and strategic growth. Many have a strong background in scaling businesses both in Canada and the US, providing invaluable insights tailored to your growth needs.
What is the time commitment?
The program spans seven months, with a minimum time commitment of attending ten 8-hour in-person sessions, completing approximately 4-6 hours per week on program activities.
What makes you different from other business accelerator programs?
Growth Catalyst stands out due to its team-centric approach, sector-agnostic strategies, and evidence-based curriculum. Our focus on practical application, peer collaboration, and access to seasoned experts ensures that you receive comprehensive support tailored to your unique growth challenges.
Who from my team do I bring to participate? Why?
Your Strategic Growth Team (SGT) should include four key leaders from your senior leadership team, such as the CEO, CFO, CMO, and COO. These individuals should be high-potential leaders, committed to strategic growth and able to invest time and resources in the program.
What kind of company is the program for?
The program is designed for established businesses generating 7 to 8 figures in annual revenue, looking to scale and achieve sustainable growth. Companies from various sectors that are ready for significant expansion will benefit most.
Can we talk to past alumni?
Yes, we can connect you with past participants who can share their experiences and the impact Growth Catalyst has had on their businesses.
How much does it cost?
The cost to deliver the 7 month program is $40,000 CAD per company. Thanks to our generous funders, the program fee is partially subsidized to $20,000 CAD, with scholarships available for qualifying companies. This cost includes participation for four team members to attend 10 program delivery days, access to our Growth Navigator Network, and participation in our online learning hub.
Who are your funders?
Growth Catalyst is powered by Mount Royal University's Institute for Innovation and Leadership, and funded by TD Bank, the Government of Canada through PrairieCan, and Alberta Innovates.
Is Growth Catalyst suitable for startups?
No, the program is tailored for established businesses ready to scale, typically those generating 7 to 8 figures in annual revenue.
Is the sole focus of the program on increasing market share?
No, Growth Catalyst aims for diversification and sustainable growth, not just market share expansion.
Is Growth Catalyst similar to a club, lecture, conference, or seminar?
No, Growth Catalyst requires active participation, homework, and practical application. It's an immersive and interactive experience.
Is the program only for the CEO?
No, strategy is a team sport. Participation from key leaders, including senior management and directors, is crucial for success.
