UWI Vice-Chancellor Award for Kevin Hibbert
May 8, 2023
There was a time when Kevin Hibbert thought he was going to be a great basketball player even though he had a minimal role with his school teams.
Brian Moseley-Williams, his Grade 10 Accounting Teacher who was also the basketball coach, let him know in no uncertain terms he was not good at the sport.
Excellent at numbers without realizing it, the teacher suggested the student consider an accounting career.
Born and raised in one of the city’s priority neighbourhoods, Hibbert had no clue what that was.
“The teacher said I could be a Chartered Accountant and I told him I didn’t know what that is,” he recounted. “When he explained it to me and said I could do really well for myself if I work hard in that space, that was the first time I realized there was something else outside sport I can do to better my life and that of my mother.”
When Hibbert transferred to Northview Heights Secondary School, the Accounting Teacher also observed his proficiency in the subject.
“She told me I should consider becoming a Chartered Accountant and I let her know I was told that before and I didn’t know too much about it,” he said. “Out of the goodness of her heart, she had her husband, who was an Audit Partner at Coopers & Lybrand, come to our school for a Career Day and show us how the career path would look. We also went to his office for a site visit and that was the first time I had ever been in an elevator that didn’t smell like urine. It was the most beautiful space I had ever been in and it was like I was in heaven. I said to myself that I am going to be in an office like that one day.”
In 2015, Hibbert – then 38 – was appointed Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Sprott Inc., making him the youngest CFO of a publicly traded management firm in Canada.
He was bestowed with a University of the West Indies Vice-Chancellor Award at the 14th annual ceremony on April 29.
The honour, Hibbert noted, is an incentive to do more.
“When I looked at the list of past recipients and what they have accomplished in their careers and their contributions to the broader society, I knew I was in illustrious company,” he said. “However, instead of being comfortable with this as a reward for what I have done so far in my career and I am humbled by that recognition, there is a lot of runway left for me to cover and I view this award as motivation to keep going.”
Through honourary co-patron Wes Hall, Hibbert was turned on to the annual gala that raises funds for Caribbean students pursuing higher education at UWI that is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year.
“We are friends and he does a great job of promoting the event,” he said. “When I dug further into the university and what it is all about, I realized it is a world-class institution and one that is a bit different than others that leave it up to alumni to come together and fundraise or go after alumni who have done well to see if they could provide a major grant. What is really neat about this effort is that the university has adopted a broader approach to fundraising by going out to organizations and trying to entice them to partner with the university.”
Seeing the profound impact that the money raised has on young people’s lives also motivated Hibbert and his company to align themselves with the fundraiser.
“I went to the University of Toronto and it is very hard to see how you are giving impact to people at a very granular level,” he said. “Just hearing from UWI students how the scholarships help them to continue their classes and graduate is very powerful and I wanted to be part of that along with everyone at Sprott. I have not seen other universities operating at that level where they are very clear about the impact you can make.”
Sprott has been a Diamond Sponsor since 2020.
Founded in 1981 by Eric Sprott who was an early champion of precious metals investing, the company is a global asset manager providing more than 250,000 clients with access to precious metals and energy transition investment strategies.
Hibbert joined the company in early 2014 after its earnings hit rock bottom in the final quarter of 2013 as resource markets collapsed.
“They were right in the middle of one of the longest and most protracted precious metals resource bear market in recent memory,” he said. “I knew about the company because I did their first audit when the founder spun off his asset management business to start what is now Sprott Inc. They had huge success in the early 2000s all the way up to about 2011 before things fell off in the precious metal space all the way through to 2014. What attracted me to Sprott was that they were in the right area at the wrong time. I felt that if they could hang around until the next commodity super cycle, it could be a very special organization.”
Hibbert was right.
Sprott survived the commodity drawdown and, in 2022, generated $2.8 billion in net sales.
There was another reason for Hibbert to remain with the company that manages over $30 billion in gold, precious metals and energy transition assets.
“It is the people and the culture,” he pointed out. “We are family-oriented, we have a chip on our shoulders and we strive to show our competitors that we can be one of the fastest growing and most profitable organizations that people would like to work for. It was a great company that was doing very good, it was at a low point and I figured that was the best entry point possible. You get in when things are not going well and you help turn things around. You could be surprised at how well you can do in that situation.”
Hibbert is Sprott’s Senior Managing Partner, CFO and Co-Head, Enterprise Services. In the expanded role, he co-leads the company’s Enterprise Shared Services Group with specific responsibility for external financial reporting, investment operations, tax, treasury, financial planning & analysis, investor relations & corporate communications, information technology, office facilities and administration.
After graduating from the University of Toronto with an honours degree in Business, he spent just over four years as a Staff Accountant with Ernst & Young Financial Services sector.
Soon after learning he was being promoted to Audit Manager, Standard & Poor’s recruited Hibbert to be their Chief Accountant. After three years in that role, he joined CIBC’s Chief Accounting Division as Head of Finance, Policy & Advisory.
He was RBC Dominion Securities Financial Controller and RBC Direct Investing Chief Financial Officer for nearly four years before joining Sprott nine years ago.
Hibbert’s brilliant leadership and excellent business acumen have not gone unnoticed.
In 2019, he was elected by his peers as a Fellow of the Chartered Professional Accountants (CPA) Ontario, the highest honour an accountant can achieve from a professional accountancy body in North America.
The savvy business executive was recognized last year with a Report on Business Best Executive Award that is an annual program celebrating excellence among non-Chief Executive Officer leaders at the Senior and Executive Vice-President and C-Suite (or equivalent) levels.
Not bad for an only child raised by a single parent in the Jane & Finch community.
Winsome Reid, an immigrant from Jamaica who turns 70 on July 2, did everything she could to ensure her child felt loved and was an outstanding societal citizen.
“She worked in a factory for over 30 years,” Hibbert, who is a University Health Network Board member, said. “She took the bus to get work for her 6 a.m. shift start and she would come home and put her feet up because it hurt from standing all day operating a machine. Sometimes, I saw her sitting on the couch with tears in her eyes, rubbing her feet or putting them in an Epsom Salt bath. She did everything to put food on the table, buy Christmas presents for me and save whatever money she could so I could have an enjoyable summer. Seeing how hard she was working made me feel like I am the last person that would want to make her life more stressful. I made sure I would be the best student, I would not screw up at school and no law enforcement officer was going to show up at her door in the middle of the night.”
Kevin Hibbert (r) with his wife Ann-Marie, mother Winsome Reid and son Caleb (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
His wife of 22 years, Ann-Marie Hibbert, is the other important woman in his life.
She encouraged him to do a fifth-year of secondary school and acquire the Ontario Academic Credit (OAC).
“I was going to stop at Grade 12 and go to college,” the former Dixon Hall Neighbourhood Services Vice-Chair & Treasurer said. “I followed her advice and ended up getting the highest mark and winning the most awards before going to U of T. All the way up to today, she has been my counsellor, advisor, confidant and friend. She has been by my side when I had to make some tough decisions during my career. As much as my mother was the catalyst and the teachers were the enablers, my wife is my secret weapon.”
The couple, who have a 16-year-old son, met at Revivaltime Tabernacle Worldwide Ministries where they were choir members.
