Industry
Hospitality
Number of Employees
1,200 - 4,000, season dependent
Who Attended Training
10 director level leaders
Recalc Courses
Custom Financial Acumen training
At a Glance
The Customer
Pursuit offers a collection of adventure travel experiences in iconic locations such as Alaska, Montana, the Canadian Rockies, Las Vegas and Vancouver, B.C.
Why Training
To build comfort and confidence in reviewing financial reporting for high-potential leaders as a key part of their leadership development program
Why Recalc
Engaging and dynamic content and delivery, ongoing support, and personalized approach
Key takeaways:
- Equipping leaders across the organization with strong financial acumen is key to driving business success
- Content delivery will determine success of training. Relevant, engaging content taught in a dynamic way will resonate much more and drive much greater impact with participants
- Limiting training cohort size and including individuals at similar skill levels will foster deeper discussion and understanding of the material
The Customer:
Pursuit is a global attractions and hospitality company that connects guests and staff to iconic places through unforgettable and inspiring experiences and strives to become the world’s leading provider of iconic attractions and hospitality experiences. Pursuit generates revenue and shareholder value as one of two business units operated by Viad, an S&P SmallCap 600 international experiential services company, traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol VVI.
Pursuit’s mission is to connect guests and staff to iconic places through unforgettable, inspiring experiences. We deliver rich travel experiences to the global market through our unique hotels and lodges, recreational attractions, retail, food and beverage, sightseeing, tours and travel products. Today, the company enjoys strong perennial demand with operations in or adjacent to Banff, Jasper and Waterton Lakes National Parks in Canada; Glacier, Denali, and Kenai Fjords National Parks in the United States; and our Flyover attractions, FlyOver Canada in Vancouver, B.C. and FlyOver Iceland in Reykjavik, and FlyOver Las Vegas in Nevada. A new FlyOver attraction in Chicago, IL is anticipated in 2024. May of 2021 brought the grand opening of the Sky Lagoon, a premier oceanfront geothermal lagoon experience near Reykjavik, Iceland. Through its Refresh Build Buy strategy, Pursuit is continuing its growth trajectory into new iconic locations around the world.
With a commitment to life-long learning, the company set out to pilot a course as part of their leadership development program to strengthen individuals’ financial acumen across the organization.
Why Training?
Financial acumen is one of five competencies identified by Pursuit that leaders across the organization need to be successful, not limited to just financial and operations roles. They distribute monthly financial reporting to a large group of leaders within the organization, and want these leaders to be able to digest the information and apply relevant takeaways to their businesses and teams. The objective of the training was thus to equip the leaders with greater confidence and comfort in understanding the monthly financial reporting.
Why Recalc?
Pursuit was looking to pilot the financial acumen training program with an external partner who could help them scale across the organization. Pursuit previously conducted the training in-house, with Pursuit’s executive team putting the content together and delivering the training. As they thought about scaling a tailored, high-quality training program to more team members, they knew it wouldn’t be feasible to keep in-house given the team’s bandwidth. So they sought a long-term external partner who could provide the expertise and resources to offer the same high-quality, personalized training multiple times a year.
Jamie Thorpe was first introduced to Recalc through People Leader Accelerator and had previously attended spreadsheet training with Katie. When it was time to find a financial partner for training, Jamie immediately thought of Recalc given Recalc’s financial training and delivery style that she knew would resonate with the team.
Engaging content delivered in a relatable way
Building financial acumen can often be seen as intimidating, overwhelming, or boring. But taught the right way, it becomes engaging and impactful. Recalc’s delivery style and inclusion of real life examples resulted in high-energy training that was interesting and relatable. At the end of the day, “the same content could be delivered in a few different ways, but not all might land and be impactful.”
Jamie Thorpe
Head of People and Culture
Hands down Katie’s delivery style is just one that I think resonates with just about anybody. I think she has a way of giving real world examples, which is really great because everybody can draw their own experiences and apply it to that
Ongoing support to ensure skills are put into practice
As part of the training, Recalc offered follow-up office hours for the teams. With office hours, Pursuit’s leaders can review their monthly financial reporting, bring specific questions relevant to their individual work, and walk away with better confidence discussing their financial results.
Personalized program tailored to the needs of the business
Recalc designed a program using both general and business-specific examples based on Pursuit’s financial statements to help participants digest and relate the material directly back to their businesses.
Course Participant
Katie was very personable and excellent at explaining basic financial concepts using direct and practical examples. It was extremely helpful to use actual Pursuit business financial statements in the hands-on exercises. The real-life scenarios we walked through are part of my everyday management experience so I left with practical knowledge that I utilized right away.