Episode
Canada's $3 Trillion Blind Spot: Kendra MacDonald on the Ocean Economy
- Published
- Jul 7, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1356
- Processing state
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- https://episode.flightcast.com/j8zhgrgdtewrqj63mn5hdbrn.mp3
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Summary
The global ocean economy is doubling in size to three trillion US dollars. Canada, a country with the longest coastline in the world and the fourth largest ocean territory, sits at roughly fifty billion. Kendra MacDonald calls that gap the opportunity of a generation, and she left one of the largest professional services firms on the planet to go after it. In this episode of the SME Strategy and Leadership Podcast, host Anthony Taylor sits down with Kendra MacDonald, CEO of Canada's Ocean Supercluster and former Chief Audit Executive of Deloitte Global. After twenty five years at Deloitte, Kendra stepped out of a 275,000 person organization to become the first employee of a not for profit built to grow Canada's ocean economy. She talks candidly about why she made the leap, what it takes to align competing industries and countries around a shared goal, and why leadership in this moment looks different from what most people picture. The conversation moves from the raw economic case for the ocean economy to the messy reality of collaboration at national and international scale. Kendra explains how a supercluster functions as a network of networks, why the devil is in the details when it comes to budgets and intellectual property, and how she keeps fishing executives, oil executives, researchers, and government partners focused on a common objective instead of the friction between them. She also shares a personal turning point that shaped her whole career, and makes the case for stepping into leadership even when you do not feel ready. What You Will Learn in This Episode How Kendra frames the size of the ocean economy opportunity and why Canada is significantly undersized relative to its coastline. Why collaboration is harder in practice than it sounds, and where partnersh…