Our Approach combines four key elements to help our clients
understand and reap the benefits of cultural diversity.

We focus on invisible differences. Culture is often compared to an iceberg: with visible and invisible differences. Our focus is on the invisible. We help our clients understand why culturally different people interact professionally in ways that seem strange and wrong to them.

We believe most people have the best intentions at heart. Most people do not want to discriminate, to be unfair, or to be disrespectful. The challenge is that, when people do not recognize what they don't know, they usually place the blame on others for undesirable events. We want to help people understand how cultural differences are demonstrated in behaviours and work together to find solutions for productive interactions.

We approach cultural differences from a practical perspective. All our work is rooted in real-life experience in the workplace. We understand that, at the end of the day, our clients do not want to become cultural diversity experts – they want to get their work done and reach their business objectives within a multicultural context.

We provide depth of analysis. We want to make a measurable difference in the effectiveness of our clients by providing them solutions that are grounded in a root-cause analysis of the situation and have been extensively tested in other organizations.

Biography of MultiCultural Business Solutions Consultants

Lionel Laroche, Ph.D., P. Eng., Founder and Principal

Lionel received his education in France and the United States and started his career in Canada as an engineer. He worked with technical professionals from all over the world and in Germany and Italy on expatriate assignments. The cultural adaptation process, after immigrating to Canada and working on international assignments for multinational companies, taught him so much that he decided to use the knowledge to help professionals, from all over the world, succeed in Canada and Canadian organizations benefit from the opportunities brought by a diverse workforce.

Over the past thirteen years, Lionel has provided cross-cultural training, coaching and consulting services to a wide range of business, government, academic, professional and non-profit organizations in ten countries (Canada, the U.S., Bermuda, Mexico, Peru, Belgium, Switzerland, France, the UK, and China).

Lionel is a thought provoking and educational speaker / facilitator who presented at over 200 conferences and venues across Canada and the United States. He regularly teaches at several Canadian and American universities, including the University of Toronto's EMBA Program at the Rotman School of Business.

He is the author of two books and over 100 publications examining the impact of cultural differences on business at the organizational and individual level. His two books are entitled:

Managing Cultural Diversity in Technical Professions
Recruiting, Retaining and Promoting Culturally Diverse Employees

Lionel holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology, USA and a "Diplôme d'ingénieur polytechnicien" from the École Polytechnique de Paris, France.

Caroline Yang, CHRP, CCP, Partner & Human Resources Consultant

Caroline has fifteen years of human resources experience working with Nortel and Compaq in China and ATI (now AMD), TD Bank and MDS Inc. in Canada. In her role as the human resources manager, Caroline had the opportunity of working with a diverse workforce and supported multicultural teams of highly skilled technical professionals. Among her many accomplishments, she developed and managed international human resources policies and global mobility programs, developed and facilitated performance management training for managers and communication and teamwork training for engineers, and managed the recruitment process to hire and integrate employees educated in other parts of the world.

Since joining MCB, Caroline has assumed the role of program design, workshop facilitation, policy consulting, project management and business development and did work for various organizations including:

GE Canada; Advanced Micro Devices (AMD); Scotiabank; Total E&P Canada
Canadian Association of Staff Physician Recruiters
International Pharmacist Graduates Program, University of Toronto
Ontario University Registrars' Association; Ontario Regulators for Access Consortium
City of Kitchener; Royal Ontario Museum; Kingston Employment and Youth Services

Caroline graduated from City University of Hong Kong with a Post-Graduate Certificate in Business Administration and a Canadian International Development Agency training program at Simon Fraser University in translation. She is a Certified Human Resources Professional (CHRP) and a Certified Compensation Professional (CCP). Caroline was recently interviewed by Radio Canada International to share her experience of integrating skilled immigrants into the Canadian workplace. She has multiple publications on leadership, teamwork, global HR policies and total rewards by HRPA, WorldatWork and Canadian Employee Relocation Council.

Bob McArthur, TEFL, Cross-Cultural Training
Consultant and Coach

Bob has worked with IEPs (Internationally Educated accountants, engineers, pharmacists, nurses et al.) from more than 30 different countries, assisting them in understanding Canadian culture found in a work environment and communications as well as navigating the Canadian marketplace.

He has provided coaching and training to clients including:

PwC (Price Waterhouse Coopers) Canada
APEGGA (Alberta Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysicists)
Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto

Bob is a member of the Advisory Council of Diaspora Dialogues, a Toronto-based organization that promotes and facilitates the publishing and performance of writing by newcomers who move, from elsewhere in the world, to Toronto. He is a certified Teacher of English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) and has taught English at the International Students Centre at the University of Toronto and to international students in the MBA program at the Ted Rogers School of Ryerson University.

Formerly Director of the Research Business Development Office of the University Health Network and, previous to that, an Economic Development and International Officer for the City of Toronto, Bob has direct cross-cultural business experience as well as a background in research commercialization, economic development and social policy. He also served as a project officer in the federal government for the then Ministry of Employment and Immigration. He is a former member of the Board of the Toronto Public Library and the Canada-Japan Society of Toronto and a former President of the Toronto Biotechnology Initiative.

Bob is a dynamic and thoughtful public speaker and speaks Japanese as the second language.

Terry Compton, Cross-Cultural Communication Coach

Terry is a passionate and committed educator who has helped hundreds of new Canadians integrate into Canadian society and break glass ceilings within their organizations. Most recently, she has had great success as a workshop facilitator and coach at the Business Edge program for Internationally Educated Women Professionals at the Rotman School of Management and as a curriculum designer in MCI-funded bridging programs for internationally trained biotechnologists, finance professionals, project managers, and lawyers.

Terry is an experienced designer, instructor, and user of distance learning courses, online instructional platforms and a trained language proficiency examiner. She brings experience as cross-cultural communication coach and instructor for internationally trained individuals within a corporate setting and as an outstanding facilitator of cross-cultural and business communications workshops for newcomers and employers in the Ontario Public Service, the University of Toronto, Alternative Youth Employment Centre, and financial institutions.

Terry has co-authored chapters in TESOL publications on the use of educational technology to promote cross-cultural awareness and presented at the AFDECE Conference in Montreal, October 2010, on the critical role of Canadian Workplace Culture and Communication training in successful settlement and employment outcomes.

Mike Ma, Cross-Cultural Training Consultant and Coach

Mike received B. A. Sc. and M. A. Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from China and found his first engineering job in Canada three months after landed as a new immigrant. By definition, he himself is truly an Internationally Educated Professional (IEP). For the last 14 years, he has been working for large multi-national companies where he had the opportunity to work with engineering professionals from all over the world. Real life experiences helped him understand what challenges the IEPs are facing and what employers can do to help.

Inspired by Lionel’s work, Mike realized that the process of integrating into a new country and adapting to multi-cultural work environment should not be as painful as he has personally experienced if the IEPs were mentally prepared or the employers have had support programs in place. Now, Mike is in his mission to give back to the community. Mike spends his spare time training and coaching IEPs. Most recently, Mike facilitated a workshop funded by Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration (MCI), "Bridging Internationally Trained Engineers to Job Readiness in the Green Economy" for Ontario Society of Professional Engineers (OSPE).

Mike holds a senior engineering position in a large multi-national company, responsible for designing, developing and deploying technical trainings to internal and external engineering teams. He has conducted more than 100 training sessions in Canada, USA, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan. He is an active member of the Canadian Society for Training and Development (CSTD).