Keith Turner

Jessica Werb talks to Keith Turner, president and CEO of Meridian Merchant Capital Canada Ltd.

Do you always make a statement with your socks?
If I do, I kind of match them to the rest of the garb, and they do often become a subject of either discussion or hilarity, depending on who I’m with.

Those shoes look like they’re well loved.
Actually they’re quite new. They’re made by Mark Nason in L.A. They’re made to be a little bit stressed, so they don’t show the wear and tear. He also made my bag, which a good friend of mine calls a “murse” – a man purse. I have a collection of them. I don’t believe in carrying briefcases.

What do you keep in it?
What’s in my murse is everything I need to conduct business. I have my phone and my iPod, which I use to store business materials on too. I don’t drag a laptop around with me. I keep one in my office in Vancouver and one in Calgary. An iPod is basically a hard drive by another name.

You’re originally from Edinburgh. What’s it like there?
It’s way more European and way more plugged in. Scotland isn’t a fashion capital of the world, but it has access to what goes on across Europe and the stores make an effort. The young people I would consider better informed on fashion than in Western Canada. I also spent 11 years in New York City and three in Miami, which are big fashion centres, so I learned some fashion sense from my time there.

How do Vancouver and Calgary compare to each other?
I love Vancouver and I like the liberal philosophies, but there’s more of a focus on leisure than work; I don’t really rate it as a business centre. In Calgary, because of the presence of the major oil companies, there are a lot more American businessmen around. When it comes to fashion, you don’t really see a lot of well-dressed men walking around Vancouver – or Calgary, for that matter. Of course, when it’s minus 40 degrees out, who cares?