Thursday (Kitco News) - If you take a look at Sandstorm Gold Ltd.’s (TSX:SSL)(NYSE MKT:SAND) president and chief executive officer Nolan Watson’s academic and professional achievements, it’s an impressive read.
However, the 34 year-old Watson won’t tell you he had a special gift, or any tricks to success, in order to achieve what he has at a young age.
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| Nolan Watson, President, CEO Sandstorm Ltd. |
“People see this one side of me with a list of accomplishments, but they don’t know this dumb kid in school, who was below average and worked his way to get here,” Watson told Kitco News during a phone interview.
Watson grew up in Surrey, British Columbia where he attended elementary and high school. By his account, he was not the most gifted student at a young age.
“I didn’t do well in elementary school and it wasn’t until grade 7 that I started to understand ‘hey, wait a second, I could just outwork these people,’” he said. “In grade 7, I won the award that I am most proud of in my life, which is the most improved student award. I went from being the dummy in the class to moderately above average.”
Watson excelled in high school, using his ‘outwork everyone’ philosophy, which earned him the right to address his graduating class as valedictorian.
After high school, Watson attended the University of British Columbia, where he said struggled at the beginning as university was a step up from high school.
“I struggled a little bit in my first year, then I met a guy who was on a full-ride scholarship, had straight A’s, in his fourth year,” Watson recalled. “I asked him what’s the secret to doing well in school, and he said the secret was to know everything. I thought ‘great, thanks for the wonderful advice.’
“But I came to realize its true,” he continued. “There’s no magic, it’s not about being smarter than other people, it’s about working harder than other people.”
Watson earned a full-ride scholarship at university and graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce- with honors.
Later he enrolled in the Institute of Chartered Accountants; he was awarded the ‘BC Gold Medal’ by scoring the highest mark in Western Canada in the final CA exam. He also became valedictorian there. Shortly after, he also earned his Chartered Financial Analyst designation, drawing praise from CFA magazine.
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During this time, he was working at Deloitte and Touche, with a focus on mining and metals, something he didn’t think he would be involved in further down his career.
“Candidly, what I always thought I’d end up doing was working in the private industry, just starting up my own companies and running smaller enterprises that were mine,” Watson said. “I never saw myself in the public capital market as a public company CEO, or in the mining industry.”
But, a job offer from Wheaton River at the end of 2004 saw him join the team and work on a concept the he would eventually use to create his own company; metals streaming.
“Ian Telfer was CEO of Wheaton River at the time,” Watson said. “I had got a job offer from Wheaton River to help run this Silver Wheaton thing that they were creating at the time. They hadn’t even fully created it when I got the phone call. It was a no brainer for me to go work with people of that caliber.”
Goldcorp Inc. would acquire Wheaton River in March 2005, but Watson stayed on with Silver Wheaton, quickly becoming chief financial officer of the company.
But, as Watson hinted earlier, he wanted to build and run his own companies. Watson left Silver Wheaton in 2008, and founded Sandstorm, with his business partner David Awram.
“I have the personality that I prefer to build things, and not just maintain them,” Watson said. “That was certainly one of the main factors in doing that.”
Having achieved so much, with a work ethic that demands time, Watson said now his biggest obstacle comes from what brought him success.
“The most difficult thing I’ve had to deal with is the whole concept of work-life balance. Historically, for me it wasn’t an issue because I didn’t balance it,” he said. “Now that I have three daughters, wanting to always outwork people is just tough to do when you want to be a good dad.
“So that’s what I face and fight on a daily basis; performing at a certain level while giving my kids not just quality time, but quantity time,” Watson said. “My family has been my success thus far.”
While Watson remains modest with his accomplishments, his philanthropy is another quality of his where he takes a unique approach.
In 2005 he founded Nation’s Cry, which provides education for underprivileged children in Africa.
“I’ve seen over my short life a lot of different wealthy people state that when they are done their careers, they’re going to start giving back,” Watson said. “They always talk about it as if it’s something they could do in the future.
“I remember thinking not knowing if I would live that long, and I didn’t want to die without making a difference, and so why not just start it now, in my 20’s,” he said. “Maybe it’ll have less impact now but nevertheless it’ll still have some impact and I’ll grow that as I grow my career.”
And when people ask Watson how he accomplished what he has, what’s that special thing that sets him apart from the rest?
“What I really respect are people that are humble, and by humble I mean not thinking worse of yourself than you actually are, but understanding one fundamental human trait that there is nothing any one of us can’t do that other can do,” he said. “That old saying of grandparents telling their grandkids that they could be anything they want to be, I believe it’s true. Not because any of us are particularly great, but because none of us are any greater than any one of us.”
http://www.kitco.com/news/2014-04-03/Sandstorm-CEO-Nolan-Watsons-Simple-Philosophy-Outwork-Everyone.html
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