Nick Rockel

Canadian business owners believe shrinking their environmental footprint is the right thing to do, even if they have to pay the tab. That’s one of the key findings in a new national study by Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC). For A...

Herschel Supply Co. looked far and wide for its first-ever CEO, only to find the right person in its backyard. “We hired a New York–based search firm to go scout out the market,” says Lyndon Cormack, co-founder of the Vancouver-headquartered bag maker...

In B.C. and across the country, COVID-19 has created winners and losers. Among the winners is the luxury real estate market, which is booming in Canada’s major cities, thanks to a transformation driven by the pandemic. That’s the takeaway from a...

Quick, name a few male CEOs who founded the company they lead. Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Tobi Lütke—there’s no shortage of dudes. OK, now name some female founding CEOs. Not so easy, hey? Shahrzad Rafati is the right person to help change that...

Closing its own gender pay gap was just the start for Unbounce. The Vancouver-based tech company is also challenging other businesses to pay women as much as men—and helping them make that a reality. It all began three years ago, when Unbounce—a landing page platform that marketers use to convert leads online—analyzed compensation across the business. “We unfortunately did find a couple of instances of a pay gap where some women were not being paid the same as men,” says...

Jennifer Twiner McCarron had no illusions about becoming an artist when she began her film and television career in 1999, as an office production assistant at a local animation house. “But I loved to be around creative people,” recalls the CEO of content production studio Thunderbird Entertainment. “I quickly found that my passion was trying to create an environment where people could feel safe and honoured, no one felt like a number, everyone was treated equally, and they could do...

Who launches a restaurant during a pandemic? If that sounds like a crazy idea, Elizabeth Mah, Melissa Steacy and Kelly Ann Woods should convince you otherwise. The three partners will open Cordelia’s Locket, a downtown Squamish café, wine bar and pantry, in May. Besides offering career opportunities to women who have been left jobless and time-strapped by coronavirus outbreak, the female-led enterprise will take a new approach to running a restaurant, drawing on lessons learned from COVID...

“We’re at a stage now where we’re turning science fiction into reality,” says Tamer Mohamed. The president and CEO of Aspect Biosystems isn’t kidding. Since the Vancouver biotech company co-founded by Mohamed launched commercial operations in 2016, Aspect has steadily advanced toward the goal of implanting its 3D-printed tissues in...

If you call your consulting company Retail Prophet, you’d better have something useful to say. Doug Stephens doesn’t disappoint with his third book, Resurrecting Retail: The Future of Business in a Post-Pandemic World. The Toronto-based retail futurist, who’s advised players ranging from BMW to Disney to Walmart, argues that the COVID shock has completely changed his industry. We asked Stephens how brands can survive and thrive in this hypercompetitive new landscape—and which B.C. retailers are ahead of the game.

Frank Giustra knows a thing or two about gardening. “I grew up as a son of immigrant Italian parents who came to Canada with not a lot of money and who had a very large garden,” recalls the Vancouver-based financier, entrepreneur and philanthropist, noting that food plays a key role in all aspects of his life. “We grew up with a cornucopia of vegetables in a one-acre plot. I can tell you for a fact, not only was the food...

Alex Hemingway isn’t the first person to call for a wealth tax on the rich. But he has a modest proposal that would let most affluent Canadians off the hook. Hemingway, an economist and public finance policy analyst with the B.C. office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), just published a paper laying out his argument. Drawing on the latest data and academic research, he shows that a 1-percent tax on Canadians with wealth over $20 million could generate...

When Laurie Schultz joined what is now Galvanize as CEO in 2011, some people were skeptical about the business, she remembers. Then called ACL Services, the Vancouver-based audit analytics software maker had been struggling, so former chief executive Harald Will...