Cocktails with KB | Sera Filice-Armenio

What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice I’ve ever received from numerous sources is to focus on your strengths and manage your weaknesses. We can’t do it all, and we can’t do it all well, so it’s really important to have support systems in place. It also forces you to be very self-aware— to ask yourself what are your strengths and your weaknesses. I’ve often heard this advice from people and read it in books… maybe put in different words but essentially saying the same thing.

Why Hamilton?
Well, why not? I was born at St. Joe’s, I did all of my schooling in Hamilton, from elementary to secondary school to getting three degrees at McMaster University. I started working at McMaster right after I studied there. After 13 years there, a tremendous opportunity came up to join St. Joe’s and of course, I have been at St. Joe’s ever since. It’s a real privilege to work for a foundation that supports a hospital that has been caring for the community for 125 years. For me, Hamilton has afforded me many, many opportunities for which I am really grateful.

Who has inspired you in your life and why?
My biggest inspiration has been my parents. I am the daughter of Italian immigrants. I always think about how courageous it must have been for two young people to come here, on their own, without knowing the language, without jobs, but simply with a vision and a hope for a better life for their future kids. And that for me, is something I never take for granted; the journey that they took to come here to give me an opportunity. It’s something I try to remind my kids of as well — it is important to never take things for granted.

What’s the best thing about what you do?
By far, the best thing about working at St. Joe’s Foundation is being able to witness every day the power of philanthropy and the impact that the contributions from the hospital’s donors make in the community and to our hospital. Whether it’s helping to build our new surgical centre in our Charlton campus or the new Margaret and Charles Juravinski Centre for Integrated Healthcare on our West 5th campus, funding research or a special piece of equipment, philanthropy really has the power to change a patient’s life, and to change healthcare in a significant way. For the foundation to be a part of facilitating that discussion between the hospital and its supporters and grateful patients is really a privilege and to see it come to fruition is very, very rewarding.