Perviz Thaver

Perviz Thaver is the director of Learning & Development at Loblaw Companies Limited. Having spent more than a decade with the organization across talent management, leadership development and learning roles, he focuses on helping employees and emerging leaders build capabilities that match the demands of a large and complex workforce. His work reflects a view that leadership readiness is developed over time rather than at the point of promotion.

Preparing Talent for Bigger Decisions

When it comes to developing leaders, it is always problematic when companies take the issue in terms of addressing the problem of vacancies. Such an attitude will lead to the emergence of an imbalance, especially among those who have been given greater responsibilities despite the fact that they have not had much experience in dealing with them.

The work carried out by Thaver is aimed at minimizing this disparity. In addition to offering employees the right training, the mandate entails finding people with leadership skills as well as giving them the necessary development paths and assisting them in building their judgment skills. It is especially important within a workforce consisting of employees from stores, supply chain functions and corporate departments. 

Making Development Relevant at Scale

One of the main problems of large firms is that although there can be plenty of learning programs available for thousands of employees, the success of these learning programs relies on the employees' ability to apply their acquired knowledge in their daily practices.

In Thaver’s role, he maintains both consistency and relevance. Development programs should be structured enough to accommodate a considerable number of people, but still be relevant for the employees.

His leadership development initiatives illustrate this focus. Programs designed for high-potential leaders emphasize business exposure, coaching and real-world application rather than treating leadership development as a purely academic exercise. The objective is to help future leaders gain experience that prepares them for greater responsibility.

That emphasis becomes increasingly important as organizations navigate workforce mobility and evolving employee expectations around career growth. Employees often look for visible pathways to advancement, while organizations need confidence that future leaders are ready for expanded roles.

Keeping Learning Connected to Business Reality

Many learning functions struggle when development priorities become disconnected from the realities employees face every day. Training may be completed successfully while behavioral change remains limited.

Thaver's work sits closer to the business than the traditional model. Leadership development efforts are designed around capability gaps that affect performance, team effectiveness and long-term talent strength. The challenge is not creating more content. The challenge is ensuring learning supports the decisions employees are expected to make.

Within a retail organization operating at a significant scale, it requires ongoing collaboration across business functions. Learning priorities must evolve alongside workforce needs, business objectives and changing expectations placed on leaders.

Building a Stronger Leadership Pipeline

Succession planning is often discussed as a workforce strategy. In practice, it depends on whether organizations consistently invest in developing people before leadership transitions occur.

Thaver's contribution lies in helping create those conditions. His work reflects a sustained focus on leadership readiness, capability building and talent development across a broad employee population. Rather than concentrating solely on immediate learning needs, his approach addresses the longer-term question of how organizations prepare people for responsibilities they have not yet assumed.

For executives responsible for workforce development, the lesson is straightforward. Strong leadership pipelines are rarely built through a single program. They emerge from sustained investment in learning experiences that help employees grow into larger roles long before those opportunities appear.