Chris Weir

Instructor

Business, Faculty of

Saint John

chris.weir@unb.ca



A native of Saint John, New Brunswick, Chris benefited from his family’s fishing and farming roots to learn entrepreneurial skills that have stayed with him his whole life. For example, when he was young, he sold dulse and fish with this brother. Chris used this money to pay for tuition for his first University degree (at UNBSJ).

Using a door-to-door selling model, he started a window cleaning and siding cleaning business (“Weir Windows Plus”), servicing clients in Saint John and the surrounding communities. He kept this business running with his partner and wife while working on the family blueberry farm, teaching in the public school system and managing a diverse team at Xerox.

Eventually he sold Weir Windows Plus to focus on his growing career at Xerox where he won the President’s Club award for sales and management excellence four times and an international Innovation Award that allowed him the privilege of running with the Olympic Torch in Athens, Greece in 2004.

In 2008 he left Xerox to join a start-up, Ambir Technology Group, Inc. (“Ambir”), as their Director of Sales and Marketing and helped it grow from $2M in annual revenue in 2008 to almost $10M in 2014 before it was purchased by EY.

In his current role at EY, Chris helps his clients grow their businesses in Atlantic Canada and abroad using sales best practices and EY tools such as “Growth Navigator” and “Growing Beyond Borders.” Even though he now works for one of the “Big Four” accounting firms as a Business Development Executive, Chris brings an entrepreneurial approach to everything he does.

One of his most recent ventures is the creation of Skyline Winery, selling dry and sweet wild blueberry wine under the McKay’s Blueberries brand in Pennfield, NB, with his brother since 2013. The fruit is sourced from the family’s wild blueberry and cranberry farm in Southern New Brunswick.

He graduated from the University of New Brunswick in 1993 (BA) and 1995 (BEd), and now holds a part-time position in the MBA program at UNBSJ as a member of the Graduate Academic Unit and as the instructor of a Sales course he developed.