The headliner of BC HRMA’s 2011 Conference in Vancouver, capitalist titan Kevin O’Leary punched out the paradoxical theme and summed it up in a single word – money.

The profit factor firmly fixed, the two-day conference at the Vancouver Convention Centre turned its focus to the business of people for people in business.

Business needs to make money: for its shareholders, employees and survival. It’s not a wisdom. It’s a fact that everyone in business – especially HR – needs to not just accept – but embrace.

Green is good. People and passion are great. Hiring people with a passion for profiting your company is the key. Profit is not the fuel of business – it is the engine. Great hires provide the profit.

HR holds the key to the requisite internal combustion device. Most simply: people passionate about whatever it is you do or sell.

BC HRMA’s annual conference is where HR pros come to hone their driving skills with world class instructors of innovation such as Douglas Merrill, Richard Worzel, Dr. Brene Brown and Bill Jensen a.k.a. Mr. Simplicity. While none of them have ever woken with a particular Canadian Dragon’s zeal for ‘deciding who to pour boiling oil on’ any given day, each resonated with O’Leary’s underlying theme of personal freedom and intrinsic drive.