Susie Algard
Susie Algard: Revolutionizing the Online World
By Michelle Kim
Susie is Canadian-born and educated, who now lives in London England with her husband and three young children. She is the current CEO of Office Space and is the co-founder of WhitePages.com. A successful businesswoman, a mother, and a wife, Susie shares her story on growing up as a second generation Canadian Korean.
Susie’s parents decided to immigrate to Canada in the early 1970’s. Their decision was based on the pillars of hope and opportunity that their children would have a better life in Canada. The sacrifice of adapting to culture shock and working odd jobs, such as the time Susie’s father worked as a car mechanic where customers were quick to find out that this gentleman had zero experience, when their car was still malfunctioning and their mechanic could not identify any of the parts, ultimately turned into a success story for Susie and her brother Howard.
Susie met Alex as a young high schooler where they dated briefly. 1998 was an exceptional year as this was the year Susie and Alex rekindled their romance and it was the year where the Internet phenomenon was gradually emerging. Alex boldly purchased WhitePages.com and reached out to Susie for help in operating the domain. Susie, recognizing a worthwhile opportunity, swerved on her path that was headed to law school and instead agreed to take on WhitePages.com. Within six months, there were 1 million users using WhitePages.com and for the next ten years, WhitePages would be the home base for a successful business growing at an exponential rate.
Upon the birth of her first child, Susie decided to leave WhitePages and to seek out a new opportunity. She took over as the CEO of a small company called OfficeSpace.com in 2010. In May 2017, Susie was accepted into the Forbes Real Estate Council for her contributions to making OfficeSpace the fastest growing online commercial real estate marketplace that connects tenants and brokers.
What are her values? Hard work and grit. Success in business is dynamic and can be volatile at times; but it is this experience that builds grit.
Has her identity as a Korean or minority been a major influence in her career? There are built in stereotypes of women and ethnic minorities that can seem debilitating. For Susie, she used that to propel her forward in her career. If society framed Asian women as high-achieving and hard-working, why let them down? People have now begun to notice how far the Asian community has come in the past few generations and nations like Canada have established a culture that is weighted on the core principals of diversity and inclusion.
On Canada turning 150? Proud to be a Canadian! Susie has now lived in multiple countries and is currently residing in London, England. She explains how it is an interesting time to be living in London at the moment in light of all the tragedy and terror attacks. However, there is no such thing as turning back; we cannot retreat, we can only move forwards. This is the mindset that is shared by both Canadians and the Korean people as well. Canada is an incredible country and is the leading example of a nation that is strong because of its diverse communities, and that is something to be very proud of.