Somewhere between a sound business idea and permission to carry it out sits a person who can say no. A minister. A regulator. A community that has heard the promises before. GT, a Canadian public affairs firm, works in that interval. Its business is helping organizations understand the people, arguments and decisions that stand between an objective and an outcome.
One of its advisers has an unusually literal relationship with the rules. Steve Verheul helped negotiate the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement and Canada’s trade agreement with the European Union. He is now a principal at GT. In 2025, he became part of a three-country effort to advocate for the North American agreement’s extension. The person who helped build the arrangement was back, this time helping make the case for keeping it.
That is a useful introduction to GT. The firm brings together people who have worked inside government, newsrooms and regulated businesses, then sells their judgment to organizations confronting those worlds. The interesting part is what happens when that judgment has to become a coordinated public campaign.
Advice acquired a delivery department
GT dates its beginnings to 2013. Its explanation is admirably specific: the founders saw demand for senior strategic design and planning from clients investing over long periods. At first, the founders supplied the services themselves, drawing on a national network of hundreds of specialist vendors. Senior thinking sat at the centre; specialist execution could be assembled around it.
“In 2013, we saw an unserved market.”
GT’s account of its founding
As the business grew, the firm says, it became a campaign business. It added people in government relations, policy, crisis communications and digital work. The distinction matters. A consultancy can recommend a course of action. Running a campaign means connecting the recommendation to the messages, audiences and work needed to pursue it.
The current founding partners, Don Guy and Brian Topp, embody the senior-advice proposition. Guy’s biography describes more than 35 years across public affairs, communications and difficult executive decisions. Topp brings roughly four decades in strategy, negotiation, communications, labour and governance. Their experience makes sense for a client whose problem refuses to stay inside a single department.
GT describes its culture through a duty of care to colleagues and clients. That is the firm’s own account, rather than an employee survey. Its more concrete organizational choice is visible in the roster: hiring people with different kinds of institutional experience around a common advisory business.
The product is a team that understands the problem
Consider the energy practice. Partner Andrew Teliszewsky has worked on policy and commercial transactions involving nuclear power, electricity, oil and gas, and renewables. Principal Leah Holoiday’s career runs from journalism through senior government communications in Alberta and British Columbia into energy-sector work. One brings experience of projects and policy; the other brings experience explaining decisions in politically exposed environments.
Other biographies supply different tools. Shir Barzilay has overseen three Ontario provincial budgets and works across sectors including gaming and beverage alcohol. Sean Webster brings pharmaceutical and life-sciences experience, along with a former government and stakeholder relations role at Canopy Growth. These are useful distinctions for buyers: the relevant experience depends on the problem being bought.
Genevieve Tomney’s remit makes the communications offer tangible. Her work includes media and presentation training, corporate communications strategy, executive thought leadership, speeches and opinion writing. Her biography emphasizes asking tough questions and understanding journalists and digital media. Preparation starts before anyone steps up to a microphone.
The resulting menu includes policy advocacy, stakeholder engagement, digital campaigns, trade advice and crisis support. A client might need to explain an energy investment, respond to a reputational threat or understand a shift in trade policy. GT’s position in the market rests on bringing those activities into the same assignment. The alternative could be an internal team coordinating several specialist advisers.
An editorial reading of GT’s service mix, not a proprietary GT method.
Three countries give the strategy a shape
The Coalition for North American Trade offers a public example of how this work is organized. Launched in 2025, CNAT brings together businesses, associations and other stakeholders advocating for the extension of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. GT participates alongside the American law firm Akin and Mexico’s Agon.
The coalition pairs Verheul with Kevin Brady, the former chair of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, and Ken Smith Ramos, Mexico’s former chief USMCA negotiator. Its stated programme includes government advocacy, written arguments, media work, events and member coordination. The three firms supply staff and help prepare documents, arrange meetings and support the effort.
There are concrete activities behind that description. The Washington International Trade Association hosted the coalition’s three co-chairs for an August 2025 webinar. In December, it brought them together again at a reception at General Motors’ Washington office. Meetings and briefings make a campaign observable; they do not, by themselves, establish that it has achieved its policy goal.
For a reader trying to understand public affairs, the coalition is instructive. A shared commercial concern becomes a defined policy objective. Organizations coordinate their arguments. Experienced people interpret developments and address decision-makers. The work has a calendar, documents and named participants. It is considerably less mysterious than the word “influence” makes it sound.
A number you can put in the accounts
GT sells professional services to organizational clients. One unusually concrete glimpse comes from Surrey, British Columbia. The city’s statement of financial information for the year ended December 31, 2025 lists $78,750 in payments to GT & Company Executive Advisors Partnership.
City of Surrey · 2025 supplier payment total
Read that figure narrowly. It is an annual supplier payment from one customer, rather than a standard package price or a measure of GT’s overall revenue. It gives the business a tangible scale without pretending that every assignment costs the same.
The customer picture extends beyond municipal government. British Columbia’s May 2026 lobbying activity records associate Holoiday at GT with Gateway Casinos & Entertainment and Global Relay Communications. Those entries document activity for named organizations, rather than proving a particular business or policy result.
GT also says its clients collectively exceed $2 trillion in market capitalization. That is a company-reported description of client scale. It should be read as positioning: GT is presenting itself to organizations for which reputation and government decisions can carry substantial business consequences.
Start with the decision, then write the message
The practical lesson I draw from GT is to define the decision before commissioning the communications. Who needs to act? What do they care about? Which part of the proposal will they question? A polished explanation is more useful when it addresses the actual obstacle.
The same logic sets a limit on the service. If a project is commercially unsound, improved presentation does not repair its economics. If decision-makers reject its substance, access to experienced advisers does not confer authority over them. The client still needs a credible proposal and the willingness to respond to objections.
GT’s own evolution points toward the part a reader can copy: connect experienced judgment to people who can carry out the work. Its trade coalition shows what that connection can look like in public. Begin with a specific objective, assemble relevant expertise, and give the argument somewhere useful to go.