The 2025 BCBusiness 30 Under 30 Winners

You’d think that at some point we would start running out of fantastic young minds in this province. And then, every single year, we’re hit with another amazing crop of applicants for our 30 Under 30 program. For the 12th year in a row, we’re proud to showcase these incredible winners from across industries like food and beverage, manufacturing, finance, tech and so many more. Scroll down to learn about young entrepreneurs and professionals who are climbing the corporate ladder, starting bakeries, teaching university classes and changing the world.

2025 30 Under 30 Winners

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Maxwell Nicholson + Brandon Beavis | Age: 28 and 29

Co-founder and CEO; co-founder and CMO,  Blossom Social

The Journey: Maxwell Nicholson and Brandon Beavis met at a networking event for entrepreneurs held at an apartment in Vancouver. “We shook hands, and I think we both thought there was a connection there,” says Beavis. Nicholson, a former full-stack developer, had just co-founded Blossom Social, a social network for investors, while Beavis was one of the first YouTube finance creators in Canada. Says Beavis: “From a business standpoint, it made perfect sense with what I had built and with his vision to work together on this project.”

Beavis was made a co-founder shortly after the meet and the two, alongside fellow co-founders Annika Ng and Kartik Bhutani, have steered the platform since. There has been no shortage of competition in the landscape, but Nicholson and Beavis believe they’ve been able to thrive due to a long-term investment mindset.

“In 2021 there were lots of competitors raising way more money than us,” says Nicholson. “Commonstock was backed by [U.S. hedge fund manager] Bill Ackman and raised US$25 million. [San Francisco-based] Follow raised US$9 million. But when the bear market hit and things got tough in 2022 and early ’23, a lot of them saw engagement drop off. They aggressively overspent and didn’t focus on growth and community building. A lot of them focused on short-term trading. We focus on long-term investing.”

Beavis describes Blossom as “the ultimate app for finance and investors with a social element, an educational element and portfolio tracking all merged into one.” He thinks that connecting with the average Canadian millennial has been a key part of the company’s success. 

“When I started the YouTube [channel], there weren’t many out there so I got to do it my own way,” he says. “I was able to educate in a way that works for the average millennial out there, versus making them sit and watch a long lecture. That merge of the traditional information with the more modern asset of content creation seemed to resonate.”

Bottom line: Blossom Social has 18 employees and some 180,000 users, most of whom are in Canada. Its founders are eyeing a Series A funding round in the near future as they prepare to enter the U.S. market aggressively.—N.C.

Jenn Orr | Age: 29

Founder and CEO, Popoff

The Journey: Born and raised in Edmonton, Jenn Orr moved to Vancouver in 2018 because of her husband’s work. She trained to be a high school teacher and was teaching in Steveston when the pandemic hit and she found herself reevaluating what she wanted to do with her life. Then, tragedy in the form of her father dying unexpectedly in 2022 pushed the needle even further. “It got me thinking that if he had access to better options to eat and drink, he might not have had as many underlying health issues,” Orr says. “Growing up, I’d see my dad just popping pills because his body wouldn’t be able to function otherwise. It helped me find my purpose to try to change the natural food category from niche to norm.”

In March 2023, Orr, who doesn’t drink alcohol, began conceptualizing an idea to create a soda brand that could combine health and taste in one package. The North American market has been flooded with new soda brands in the last few years—think names like Olipop, Poppi and Culture Pop, not to mention the sparkling water craze spurred by Bubly and LaCroix, among others.

The raft of competitors didn’t dissuade Orr, who launched Popoff—which she calls the “first prebiotic soda that has vitamins and minerals infused into the beverage”—in June of last year. “We’re really trying to take the approach of creating something that is fun,” she says. “We’re doing that by creating a flavour profile that’s more cocktail- or mocktail- inspired and letting our brothers and sisters on the shelf take over the more conventional soda flavours.”

Bottom Line: Currently Popoff offers three flavours—mango passionfruit, peach and elderflower. In the first three months of business, the company hit over $35,000 in revenue. Currently, you can find Popoff, which is manufactured in Delta, in more than 50 stores across B.C. and Alberta, including Whole Foods.—N.C.

Corbin Kelley | Age: 23

External relations and advocacy advisor, Thompson-Nicola Regional District

The Journey: Corbin Kelley was 19 years old when he ran for the BC Liberal Party in Kootenay West in 2020. Vernon-raised Kelley had spent time working for MLA Peter Milobar while doing a degree in political science and economics at Thompson Rivers University and felt ready to take the jump. He didn’t win, but that didn’t dampen his enthusiasm for working in government.

After working for the Simpcw First Nation, he took the position of external relations and advocacy advisor for the Thompson-Nicola Regional District, which includes Kamloops. In the role, Kelley leads negotiations and relationship building with Indigenous communities over the 44,000 square kilometres of the region. “It’s larger than Switzerland,” he notes, “and spans the traditional and unceded territories of 25 First Nations. So it’s my responsibility to advance relationships with them and develop protocol agreements and memorandums of understanding with those communities.”

The role is clearly a non-partisan one and Kelley says that despite his past he has no problem operating in that capacity. That’s reflected in a story he tells about working with former finance minister Katrine Conroy, who beat him in the election.

“At last year’s Union of BC Municipalities annual meeting, I was very fresh to my role and we had a meeting with the ministry of finance,” he recalls. “I introduced myself and I could see the wheels turning in her mind like, ‘Oh, he looks really familiar, I’m not sure where to place him.’ I said, ‘I was the one who ran against you in 2020,’ and it actually led to a very friendly conversation. I think that speaks to what politics more broadly needs to be brought back to. I might not agree with everything the NDP government—or anyone who is in power—does, but at the end of the day we’re all people and we want  to build those relationships and do  good work.”

Bottom Line: Kelley’s role is brand new, and he’s already helped the district sign two memorandums, with two more reportedly on the way. “It’s great because we look to our partners around the province, other regional districts, and they just aren’t able to get what we’re doing across the finish line,” he says. “It’s exciting.”—N.C.

Dimitri Tsonev | Age: 29

Principal, Madness Forming and Construction Services Inc.

The Journey: Dimitri Tsonev was only 16 years old and newly arrived in Canada when he got his first job in the concrete forming industry. “I had a kid on the way and had to find out ways to make money,” he explains. “Taking the bus to work every day with all my tools, working 12- to 13-hour days just to prove myself.” By 19 he became a foreperson running a 30-person crew on a Downtown Vancouver highrise project. Later that same year he founded his own concrete forming contracting biz called Madness Forming and  Construction Services.

Madness Forming offers concrete-related services on large-scale real estate projects—including what’s slated to become Western Canada’s tallest highrise, Two Gilmore Place, along with Odyssey, the largest development in Saanich’s history—but it didn’t start off so grand. Tsonev founded Madness Forming with a small crew, but he used it to his advantage. “I really wanted to expose ourselves to different scenarios and situations so that we could collect the data and eventually grow into a big company,” he explains.

That data is what sets Madness apart from its competitors. Tsonev implemented a user-friendly software that tracks everything from daily progress to time management to safety requirements. The data is then analyzed to predict the systems and manpower that would be needed for future projects to ensure efficiency and quality, even with a smaller team. “Numbers speak louder than words sometimes,” Tsonev says.

Bottom Line: Over the past 10 years, Tsonev has grown Madness Forming from six to 150 field employees. In 2021 the business generated $3.5 million in revenue—and in 2024 it brought in $14 million. That growth is in part thanks to strategic partnerships with well-established contractors in the community, like Onni Group, Capwest Build and Ovis Group, which have facilitated Madness’s expansion through the Lower Mainland into Squamish, Whistler, Victoria and Vancouver Island.—D.W.

Madhini Vigneswaran | Age: 23

Co-founder, MEDIC  Foundation

The Journey: Growing up in Sri Lanka, Cameroon and Nigeria, Madhini Vigneswaran saw the kind of health care disparities underserved communities face around the world. She began volunteering at medical camps from a young age, and her grandfather—now a retired doctor—also ran a private clinic in Sri Lanka. Watching him work with limited resources is what inspired her to study biomedical engineering at UBC.

There, she met Anjali Menon, a fellow engineering student. The pair bonded over their passion for improving access to health care and, in 2020, they co-founded MEDIC Foundation to help people living with chronic conditions like diabetes, Crohn’s, Parkinson’s and anxiety and depression.

Vigneswaran’s duties at MEDIC are diverse: she’s developing a vibration therapy wristband for anxiety, overseeing diabetes and senior care projects and hosting STEM workshops for high school students. Her diabetes work includes designing a low-cost insulin pen (which she hopes to get into under-resourced communities in Sri Lanka) and exploring non-invasive ways to detect diabetic ketoacidosis (a life-threatening condition) early on.

She also puts together MEDIC’s monthly magazine, which keeps readers informed on biomedical and chronic disease-related innovations. Subscribers have grown from 10 in 2020 to 250 in 2024.

While juggling school and business hasn’t been easy, helping underserved communities keeps Vigneswaran motivated to break barriers in health care. “I’ve seen how lack of access to health care affects people’s quality of life… that’s why I’m driven to use STEM to bridge those gaps and inspire the next generation,” she says.

Bottom Line: Vancouver-based MEDIC (Medical Engineering Students Designing Innovations for a Cause) partners with UBC faculty, labs and global organizations to support ongoing projects. It’s partnered with three senior homes in B.C., and its base of volunteers has grown from three to 90 over the past five years.—R.R.

Shawn Gauba | Age: 29

Owner, Gauba Group of Companies

The Journey: Shawn Gauba was earning his degree in business administration at the University of the Fraser Valley when he took a job at a Rogers Communications kiosk in Chilliwack and found his calling. Abbotsford-raised Gauba, who entered the workforce at the age of 12 when he started working at his uncle’s gas station, found himself handling one of the busiest locations in the telecom’s massive portfolio. He climbed the corporate ladder, working as a store manager while going to school full-time to support his family as best he could.

After a few years, he decided he wanted to do his own thing and reached out to Bell. “These types of businesses, they don’t advertise franchise opportunities to people—if you know someone in the industry, they’ll let you in,” says Gauba. In 2019, Gauba and a partner took over a friend’s Bell dealership in Port Moody. “The location was heavily underperforming, so we went in to see what we could do,” he recalls. The pair increased sales by 200 percent within a year. “I was doing flyer runs, cold-calling businesses, anything I could to generate volume.”

The success there led to Gauba taking over another location, this one in Maple Ridge. Then a contact told him he planned to retire and sell his seven locations. Gauba decided to take those locations on, solo. “I knew I had to do whatever I could—the opportunity for seven locations comes up once in a lifetime,” he says.

Bottom Line: In February, Gauba’s company, Kelowna-based Connects Wireless, was set to acquire its 10th location. It’s the largest Bell dealer in B.C., with outposts in Kelowna, Langley, Maple Ridge, Salmon Arm, Williams Lake, Castlegar, Nelson, Squamish and Quesnel. Gauba, who also has his real estate licence and owns two mechanic shops and one gas station in Parksville, hit over $25 million in revenue across all of his companies this year.—N.C.

Daniel Gardiner | Age: 29

Senior vice president, KPMG Corporate Finance

The Journey: Daniel Gardiner grew up in Nanaimo raised by a single mom. “I saw her as a role model of being expected to work and grind and figure things out,” he says. “She was in the arts so her one rule growing up for me was that I couldn’t go into the arts. So I said, ‘OK, I’ll go into business and finance.’”

Gardiner got a scholarship to Vancouver Island University. “I took a big bet that I could come over and break into Vancouver without graduating from one of the big brand-name schools,” he says. He did just that and got a job at KPMG shortly after graduating. “I felt like I had a chip on my shoulder. Our starting class at KPMG was probably 105 people—99 were from either SFU or UBC. I just thought, ‘I’m going to be the first one [at the office] in the morning and I’m going to outwork everyone and let the world know that it doesn’t matter what school you go to.’”

Gardiner spent a few years in the company’s audit practice before taking his CPA exam and finishing with the top score in B.C. He’s now a vice-president of the company’s corporate finance team. “It’s been about betting on myself and my career and having strong motivations for social mobility because of the way I grew up,” he says. “I love this organization because it’s meritocratic and there are merit-based opportunities to get promoted early. That’s what’s kept me around, to be honest. It’s the perfect cultural fit for someone with my personality type who is aggressive and wants to push and grow.”

Bottom Line: KPMG’s corporate finance team has 22 employees in B.C. and nationally is the largest and most active middle market investment banking team in Canada. It advises on some 50 transactions a year, most of which are helping private companies buy and sell businesses. Gardiner alone has led or contributed to 15 successfully closed M&A transactions representing B.C. shareholders.—N.C.

Jenny Yue | Age: 29

Co-founder, OHME! Foods Inc.

The Journey: Like many entrepreneurs, Jenny Yue used the downtime during the pandemic as an incubator for innovation. After the effects of lockdown had her feeling unhealthy (“Our relationship with food and fitness took a serious hit. I gained around 55 pounds,” she says) she made a New Year’s resolution to focus on eating healthier. For Yue, that meant starting every day with an oat bowl, though she soon found them bland: “I wanted to make them more delicious, more healthy and more fun in general. That’s when I discovered freeze-dried fruits.”

She began to notice that the freeze-dried fruit offerings available in stores were mostly imported berries with very little variation. “I felt like there was a gap in the market for variety and that light-bulb moment hit,” she says.

Yue and her husband, Han Yue, founded OHME! in 2023. The brand was originally called Oat Me, she notes, because “initially we were trying to find toppings for oat bowls.” In 2024 the company rebranded as they realized customers were getting confused (“Our product doesn’t have any oats in it,” Yue explains), but since the beginning they’ve made the decision to use fruit from local B.C. farms whenever possible, and freeze dry them locally, too. 

Bottom Line: In less than one year on the market, OHME!’s revenue went up tenfold, from some $2,500 a month to around $25,000.

The founders are planning to capitalize on that growth through new launches, which will diversify their offerings and strategic partnerships. Last year, OHME! introduced a new product—freeze-dried yogurt crunch snacks that combine concentrated fruit flavour with creamy yogurt in a snackable, bite-sized portion.

Within the next five years, OHME! hopes to expand into the U.S. market by building partnerships with key retailers in health-conscious regions.—D.W.

Boaz Chan | Age: 29

Co-founder and CEO,  Coastal Reign Printing

The Journey: Even in elementary school, Boaz Chan was a businessperson. “I’ve always liked buying and selling things,” he says. “There was a junk food ban at school and we’d sell snacks out of our lockers. Just finding the demand and then looking for the supply for it.”

In grade 12, Chan and his friend Eddison Ng noticed a demand for custom clothing. Their first product was their own graduation hoodies. “We went on YouTube and learned how to screenprint,” he says with a laugh. “Honestly, the print wasn’t very nice, but that’s what got us started.” Over that Christmas break, Chan and Ng did prints for their friends and classmates out of Chan’s living room. Soon, business started booming and the duo created Coastal Reign Printing before they graduated high school. “We were doing all the customer service, so we would be in class and then they would call us and then the call would go direct to either Eddison’s phone or mine,” Chan says. “I’d always be sitting there in class hoping he answered it.”

The pair went to university—Chan did marketing at BCIT, Ng did computer science at UBC—and continued to build the company through their studies. “After university ended we got all our own equipment and we found this person who was ready to retire and asked him to teach us everything: how to print properly, embroidery, all that,” says Chan. “So he showed us the ropes and then ended up giving us some clients too. Then we were able to make a really powerful website thanks to Eddison.”

Bottom Line: Vancouver-based Coastal Reign has some 40 employees and facilities in both Vancouver and Toronto. The business does a lot of bulk printing for large organizations and has worked with companies like Netflix, Amazon and Microsoft.—N.C.

Vivian Tsang | Age: 28

Executive director, Qi Integrated Health; research director, Roots to Thrive

The Journey: After completing her medical degree from UBC, Vivian Tsang started experimenting with drugs at work (not in that way,  come on). In 2019, she joined a research team that studies the  effects of therapeutic cannabis use in pediatric populations (and still serves on that committee today). She also joined Vancouver clinic Qi Integrated Health and helped develop its first ketamine-therapy program, PsyQi, in 2022.

Tsang’s interest in novel therapeutics for mental health conditions stems from her medical training in psychiatry. In addition to her MD, she also holds a master’s degree in public health from Harvard. Seeing gaps in treatment options made Tsang curious about innovative programs, and her work in this realm includes leading research at Nanaimo nonprofit Roots to Thrive—which offers ketamine, psilocybin and MDMA– assisted therapies—and pursuing a DPhil in evidence-based care from Oxford University.

“I get questions all the time  about the legalities of my work,” Tsang says. “From patients and  from friends and family as well.”  Her psychiatry training, she adds, helps her break down complex  information. But B.C.’s evolving drug policies will likely raise more questions in this regard as some programs (like MDMA therapy) could be affected by policy amendments. “Interestingly, all of our work is novel and new because of B.C.’s changing drug policies,” says Tsang. “The decrim policy changes have encouraged us to offer therapeutic services for patients who may be at risk of using alone or in suboptimal settings.” 

Regardless of what happens, she argues, the ketamine programs will stay. “Ketamine is completely legal and used in ORs across the country,” she explains. “There are so many patients who are very much in need, who’ve exhausted every other form of therapy, and this is an opportunity for them to try something that might be effective for their mental health with very few side effects.”

Bottom Line: Since its inception, Qi’s ketamine team has grown from zero to 20 people. “We serve many first responders, health-care professionals, firefighters, RCMP and folks like that,” says Tsang. “One patient sent us a heartfelt email reflecting on his transformational experience… and testimonials like these really encourage us in the work that we do.” At Roots to Thrive, Tsang’s research team expanded to around 20 as well, and she has helped complete research on over 1,500 ketamine-assisted therapy sessions (worth approximately $2.5 million, according to Tsang).—R.R.

Peter Behncke | Age: 29

Director, corporate development and investor relations,  Gold Royalty Corp.

The Journey: Growing up in Revelstoke, Peter Behncke lived what he calls a “pretty low-key lifestyle.” Behncke spent a lot of time on the ski hill and even more on the track. He starred in hammer throw and shot put and eventually became a fixture in SFU’s track and field program. He studied finance and accounting, which ultimately led to a career at KPMG, where he spent some time with that organization’s M&A team.

Maybe it was something about heavy objects, but Behncke soon fell in love with mining and joined Vancouver startup Gold Royalty in November as the company’s first employee. “You don’t know a lot about it until you’re in it,” he says. “A lot of accountants, bankers and lawyers kind of accidentally end up in mining and then once you’re in it it’s just a really fun industry.”

Gold Royalty focuses on providing financial solutions to the metals and mining industry and Behncke helped propel it through an IPO. “A lot of my time is execution and running through opportunities and then also sourcing opportunities and finding new investments,” he says.

In 2021, Behncke joined Young Mining Professionals Vancouver and is currently a director of the association. “The biggest critique in the mining industry is that there’s not enough young people and that there’s no young talent,” says Behncke. “But with YMP, we’ve brought out that younger community in the mining industry and showed that there are some really impressive young executives in Vancouver changing that notion of what the industry is and what we’re trying to do.”

Bottom Line: Gold Royalty Corp. has a dozen employees and hit around $14 million in revenue in 2024. The company is aiming to hit in the range of $50 million by 2029.—N.C.

Andy Nguyen + Jessica Nguyen | Age: 22 and 27

Co-founders, Bak’d Cookies

The Journey: When the world shut down in 2020, brother-sister duo Andy and Jessica Nguyen channelled their sadness into what would eventually become Bak’d Cookies. At the time, Andy was 17 years old and in the midst of graduating high school and Jessica was completing her final courses at Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business. Sensing his sister’s disappointment in losing what would have been her first job out of school due to COVID shutdowns (and after losing his own job as a part-time baker at a local pie shop), Andy started experimenting with a recipe meant to replicate  Jessica’s favourite New York City-style cookies.

“We started recipe developing so that we could make our best version of a chocolate chip cookie and that’s where we fell in love with our OG flavour that we still sell today,” Andy says. At first, their recipe development took place at home, but within a month (and after selling out at their very first farmers market appearance) they moved to a commissary kitchen. It was out of that kitchen that they started developing their more creative cookie recipes, like s’mores and matcha latte flavours.

Bottom Line: Bak’d opened a brick-and-mortar location in July 2024 in New Westminster, but the Nguyens continue to sell at farmers markets and pop-ups because customer retention through face-to-face interactions is what initially helped increase the company’s brand visibility and community profile.

One year after launch, Andy and Jessica doubled revenues at Bak’d to over $200,000 with only three employees. In 2024, they grew to 36 full-time employees with revenue projections reaching over $1.25 million by year end.—D.W.

Andrew Warburton | Age: 22

Founder, Peak Beverage Co.

The Journey: At just five years of age, Andrew Warburton was setting up lemonade stands in his hometown of Prince George. Seventeen years later, he’s more or less doing the same thing.

After graduating from high school in 2020, Warburton moved to Summerland with his parents, where he quickly noticed the ample wineries, cideries and breweries. But, he was underage and couldn’t try any of their offerings—which gave him the idea to create a craft-style, alcohol-free beverage. “There was nothing that matched the same quality and the same dedication that all those craft beers have. I saw a gap in the market,” Warburton explains.

All of the beverages that Warburton has formulated for Peak Beverage Co. are fruit-based sodas that rely on strategic partnerships with local Okanagan farms for produce. Early on, he zeroed in on haskap berries, a native fruit that thrives in cold weather. When frost hit the Okanagan in 2023, the decision proved to be a great move. 

For the first three years of production, Warburton was operating out of his parents’ one-car garage (he converted it to a commercial kitchen himself) and manufactured Peak while simultaneously working as a bartender. By summer 2024, he had the capital necessary and had found a co-packer that could meet his standards: namely, pasteurization. “That was the big bottleneck,” says Warburton. “I knew I wanted to keep it natural, and I didn’t want to have it refrigerated.”

Bottom Line: Since moving to a new co-packer, Warburton has scaled up production five times to meet demands. With the uptick in revenue and sales, he is looking to expand Peak’s offerings into flavoured sparkling waters and unsweetened versions of his flavours that omit the small amount of added cane sugar.—D.W.

Chloë Swain | Age: 18

Founder and CEO,  FutureTwin AI

The Journey: As a high school student, Chloë Swain barely got any time with her guidance counsellor. “They were like, ‘Maybe you should go check out this website.’ And that was about it,” she says.

In 2021, Swain started working on an AI-driven career exploration app that helps people plan their future at any stage in life. The app onboards users with a series of questions and makes recommendations using ChatGPT, Perplexity and life advice from mentors that Swain is recruiting.

“You can communicate with a future version of yourself, so if you were to go through this education or career path, what that might look like for you,” she explains.

Swain teamed up with David Griffith, CTO of local digital agency Hello Cool World Media, to develop the technology. Her father offered to help fund the project.

Now, FutureTwin is wrapping up beta testing and preparing to launch in 2025. A family friend who tested the app switched from psychology to criminology based on its insights. “And she’s loving it,” Swain says.

Bottom Line: As of January, over 100 people have agreed to mentor on FutureTwin and around 300 have tested the app. “A big goal for me is levelling that playing field and making it so that everyone can find that path that suits them,” says Swain. The app will run on a freemium model, she adds, that will have additional paid features that allow users more depth in specific areas.—R.R.

Aneesh Varshney | Age: 22

Co-founder, Holdr

The Journey: Aneesh Varshney always wanted to be in business growing up. Which makes sense when your father is renowned Vancouver investor Praveen Varshney and instead of going to playgrounds and arcades with your dad you were going to pitch competitions.

The younger Varshney was also always attracted to music. “I never had any artistic talent, so I was more about finding those artists, being in the culture, being in the depths of it,” he says. “It started bubbling up in grade 8 or 9. Some friends liked my music taste, so they’d follow my playlist, and I had like 300 followers on one of my playlists. Then, randomly, some artists found my playlists and reached out to get their songs on it.”

Varshney realized that this was something that could be monetized, and he started to build it out. He eventually got in on the ground floor of artist and brand management company Chaos Club Digital and helped it work with clients in music, sports and entertainment to help build their brands.

All the while, Varshney had taken notice of the realities of the music industry and the hardships it was putting on artists. “It’s pretty sad right now,” he says. “An artist could have 200,000 listeners on Spotify and still be unable to support their career.”

So, in 2023, he co-founded Holdr, a platform where artists can build and monetize their community of supporters. “It’s a modernized fan club,” says Varshney, explaining that it’s a bit like Patreon in that fans pay the artist for extra perks like merchandise or hidden tracks. There are also benefits that come with being an early supporter of an artist.

Bottom Line: Holdr is currently in beta but is targeting a full launch in 2025. The company has 10 employees and around 50 artists that Varshney says have either committed to the platform or are slated to join it. As for where his father has helped out? “He understands I don’t want him making decisions, but he’s been amazing when called upon,” says the younger Varshney. “He’s let me build my own mentors around me as well.” Those mentors include execs from Live Nation and Universal Music. Varshney Capital Corp. was involved in the early fundraising, but “they wrote the very first cheque and the smallest one,” says Varshney.—N.C.

Joban Bal | Age: 26

Founder and president, One Blood for Life Foundation

The Journey: Joban Bal knew he’d be a doctor one day, but he didn’t fully understand how blood donation can affect people until he started hearing stories from close friends and family.

“It’s touched all these lives, but I never realized the impact because we don’t talk about it enough,” Bal argues. “If you’re healthy and you’re able to, it’s such a simple way to give back. And when I asked people if they’d ever donate, they’d say sure, but they never had because they were never asked.”

In 2016, Bal launched One Blood for Life Foundation to encourage young people to donate blood and become lifelong donors. “No money comes in or out,” he maintains. “We only want you to go donate blood if you can and then we want nothing else from you.”

One Blood, which is partnered with Canadian Blood Services for blood collection, held its first winter campaign in Bal’s hometown of Surrey. Groups of volunteers carried “Blood Donors Needed” signs as it snowed in their faces. “We filled up that clinic the first day,” he recalls.

As a community organization, One Blood also addresses cultural gaps in health care by recruiting ethnically diverse people for stem cell and organ donations. That improves the chances of non-Caucasian patients finding life-saving matches.

In 2024, Bal completed his medical degree from UBC and began his two-year residency program. By then, his organization’s base of volunteers had ballooned to 500, and Bal had become an investor and advisor with organizations like Spring and Startup TNT. “New technologies can have a profound impact in our clinical settings if we have the right people who are able to connect the pieces together. And I want to do that,” he says.

Bottom Line: Surrey-based One Blood for Life Foundation has participated in over 100 public events and hosted around 30 blood and stem cell donation drives itself. It has recruited nearly 4,000 blood donors for clinics in B.C. and over 2,000 stem cell donors. In 2023, Bal was chosen to be featured on buses across Canada as part of an ongoing organ and tissue donation campaign called Leave Well.—R.R.

Kane Hammontree | Age: 27

Founder, Solve Energy

The Journey: Victoria-born Kane Hammontree moved to Los Angeles at 18 and started his first business, an exterior cleaning company called LA Window Cleaners and More. Though it wasn’t the easiest transition—“I learned very, very quickly how difficult it is to move to a crazy new city from little Victoria,” he says—the business expanded rapidly and in six months grew from zero to 10 additional staff. Within two years, it was one of the highest rated cleaning companies in Los Angeles. During that time, Hammontree’s friend approached him about solar energy solutions and together they went to his 2,500 existing clients hoping to sell them solar panels.

“Immediately it clicked,” he says. “It’s a product where the homeowner can save and add value to their house, [plus] they can help the environment.” From there, Hammontree began a deep dive into solar and eventually sold his company to begin consulting in the industry. “My main focus was putting in systems and helping them expand their solar companies,” he says, “as well as helping grow their sales and marketing and systems on operations.”

Hammontree moved back to B.C. and founded Vancouver-based Solve Energy in December 2022. In addition to installing panels, Solve also offers battery backup and clean energy storage, which enables customers to save and use the energy from their panels to maintain more energy independence. “We’re basically creating these tiny little grids out of our banks,” Hammontree explains. While many people are looking for solutions to the current economic downturn, such as growing their own vegetables, Hammontree proposes taking control of the electricity you consume, too.

Bottom Line: Solve Energy services the Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island and Kelowna, and has recently expanded into Edmonton. It’s grown in size as well, to 43 full-time employees and 12 contractors. This has allowed for more installations. “We’re at the point where we’re having about 100-plus projects a month,” he says. More installations mean an uptick in revenue, too: Solve hit around $7 million in 2024, up from $690,000 in 2023.—D.W.

Paige Cey + Julie Letizia | Age: 25

Co-founders and co-CEOs, Benny

The Journey: Julie Letizia’s first taste of canned yerba maté was a disappointment. The South American tea, known for its caffeine kick, is traditionally sipped from a gourd through a metal straw. But the canned drink she tried—made by California-based Guyakí—was much sweeter than the loose-leaf version her Chilean grandfather drank.

“I thought it was really gross,” Letizia says of the product. She was on the hunt for milder sources of caffeine, and Paige Cey, a classmate from university, was on a similar journey at the time. The pair met at UVic, where Letizia studied economics and Cey business. They bonded over their passion for entrepreneurship and decided to start a company together in 2022.

Benny makes maté-based energy drinks with adaptogens for stress relief and a jitter-free caffeine boost. “The first batch was super disgusting,” Letizia admits. The founders experimented with hundreds of recipes and invited Caroline Lewis, a naturopathic doctor, to help perfect it.

Online, a 12-pack of Benny is $57 before tax—not exactly an attractive price for students. But Letizia says Benny is concentrating on wholesale for its beverage sales, with cans typically priced at $4.99 in-store: “We’re more focused on everyday convenience and grocery stores, where we can catch people in their routines.”

“I feel like even an Americano is $5 these days,” adds Cey. “It’s been 14 months and the response that we’ve had so far is blowing us away.”

With flavours like blackberry yuzu, peach lychee and raspberry hibiscus, Benny sold over 100,000 cans in its first year of business. Now, the brand is venturing into new territory: liposomal energy gels.

“We’re calling them Instant Energy,” Letizia explains. “They come in little gel packs where you can suck it, squeeze it, pour it into your water. It also tastes really great on its own.” As of December, there are around 5,000 people on the waitlist for Benny’s energy gels.

Bottom Line: Vancouver-based Benny has sold over 200,000 cans since 2023. It’s in more than 500 stores across Canada and on track to hit $2 million in revenue in 2025. “The revenue numbers that we’re now hitting in a month, we just never imagined,” says Cey. “It’s so exciting to think—where will we be a year from now?”—R.R.

Ishaan Kohli | Age: 26

Founder, SkyAcres Agrotechnologies

The Journey: Entrepreneurship wasn’t a part of Ishaan Kohli’s original plan. But by launching SkyAcres Agrotechnologies, he’s created what he calls the Airbnb of vertical farms. “SkyAcres is bringing farming to the gig economy, allowing anybody to grow and sell food in any space that they have,” he says.

Kohli graduated from U of T with a bachelor’s degree in physics and math. He joined BC Cancer to follow in his father’s footsteps and developed a spray that could deliver medication to lung cancer patients. But his med-tech invention was hit with red tape. At the same time, B.C. was hit with floods and heat waves.  It affected farmers across the province, including some of Kohli’s own family members.

In 2021, he adapted the technology in order to serve the agricultural industry. “It’s similar to setting up IKEA furniture,” he explains. “We have a mobile app that allows [growers] to see step-by-step instructions. They don’t need any prior experience.”

In 2023, when flooding wiped out 80 percent of a blueberry farm’s harvest in Abbotsford, SkyAcres helped it diversify production by growing strawberries and leafy greens in a barn year-round.

Its vertical farming chamber can grow 40 varieties of fruits and vegetables, which are often sweeter and higher in nutritional value than those found in a typical grocery store, according to third-party tests. Its technology is also faster than most vertical farming equipment on the market, according to Kohli, and doesn’t require water pumps: “Our record time from harvest to delivery is 42 minutes.”

But growing is only half the challenge—farmers often lack the time, resources and skills to market their produce. So, SkyAcres connects growers with retailers and provides packaging and branding materials to assist with operations.

The Surrey-based agtech company now supports seven growers and 120 retailers across the province. It’s also developing a cartridge that can capture carbon from the air to speed up growth in SkyAcres’ chambers. “We’re also really interested in cellular agriculture, which is basically a way for us to grow something without needing the actual plant,” he adds.

Bottom Line: In addition to receiving over $500,000 in awards and grants (including $150,000 from Innovate BC), SkyAcres has grown to a team of 10 and crossed $250,000 in annual recurring revenue. “We’re able to grow almost 20 pounds of produce per month per square foot,” Kohli says.—R.R.

Jay McCauley | Age: 25

Global ambassador, Telus

The Journey: As global ambassador for B.C.’s biggest company by revenue, Jay McCauley is the link between Telus and its operations abroad. He can be seen jet-setting between Toronto (where he was born), Vancouver (where he was raised) and London, where he spent most of 2023 and 2024 embedding Telus’s brand values and social purpose into new acquisitions in the city.

McCauley joined Telus in 2020, after four years with Toronto agency Esther Garnick PR. He worked there while completing a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Trinity College. He considers founder Garnick one of his most influential mentors, and his parents role models.

“My mom [Catherine McCauley] is a philanthropic advisor, and she’s my best friend,” he says. “She works with professional hockey players and big CEOs and family offices to direct their funding to meaningful causes. I really am a chip off the old block in that sense that I have an innate love for giving back.”

In 2024, McCauley co-chaired Telus Friendly Future Foundation’s inaugural fundraising gala, which raised $2.5 million to help underprivileged students access education.

McCauley is also driving change within Telus: he’s passionate about elevating young voices and is pushing for inclusion on Telus’s 19 community boards around the world, which determine which initiatives the company should invest in. “Now almost every board has a youth representative ensuring that the Gen Z perspective is being heard [in those spaces],” McCauley notes.

Bottom Line: The Telus Friendly Future Foundation was established in 2018 through a $120-million endowment from Telus. The foundation supports 500-plus charities a year, and its $50-million bursary fund helps students pursue higher education. Since 2005, TFFF and Telus’s community boards have provided $126 million in cash donations to 10,000 charities and initiatives.—R.R.

Anthony Green | Age: 27

Manager, security operations and compliance, CPABC; lead instructor and course developer, UBC; lead curriculum developer, VCC

The Journey: It almost feels like there are two Anthony Greens. One grew up in Richmond and started building computers as a young kid. He was hacking by the time he was in high school. The other Anthony Green also grew up in Richmond, but was on all the high school sports teams and then coached senior boys’ basketball for a decade after graduation. Somehow, it’s possible for both of these people to co-exist in one body.

Green was originally thinking about taking the sports path, but computers eventually won him over. “I was planning to go into kinesiology, but I learned that in order to get a well-paying job in those fields you need to do at least six years of school,” he says. So, he enrolled in BCIT. “As soon as I took my first cybersecurity course, I knew that it was what I wanted to do.”

An internship at London Drugs doing hardware support paved the path: “Basically, they would send me computers that were 15 years old and I’d look at them, figure out what was wrong and replace the parts.” Green rose through the ranks of London Drugs’ security department before taking a position as the main cybersecurity worker at the Chartered Professional Accountants of BC. Soon, he became president of the Vancouver chapter of ISACA, an international professional association focused on IT governance, and started developing and teaching courses at both UBC and Vancouver Community College. “I created courses in cloud security fundamentals and attackers’ methodology and so together you can take those and get a micro-credential,” he says of his UBC work.

Bottom Line: Green has four direct reports in his work at the CPABC and develops curricula for both UBC and VCC. He’s also been carrying out some work for the provincial government on trade commissions and delegations. “I just took every opportunity I could to the point where it’s compounded and I have enough behind me that now people want to bring me,” says Green. “Before it was kind of like, ‘Oh great, we can pass some stuff off to him.’”—N.C.

Keeley MCCormick | Age: 29

CEO and co-founder, Revyn Medical Technologies Inc.

The Journey: Group assignments in university are often a source of frustration, but for Keeley McCormick and her fellow engineering students at the University of Victoria, one was the impetus for innovation. The assignment was somewhat simple: pick a medical device that could be improved based on the needs of the end users. “Anything can be improved a certain amount, right?” says McCormick. When the one male member of the four-person team attended an emergency gynecological procedure with his partner and saw a vaginal speculum for the first time, he returned to the group shocked at the archaic but necessary device. “We were like, ‘Why didn’t we think of that?’” she recalls. “But I think that it speaks volumes about gynecology and the way that you accept what’s available because you don’t want to cause a stir or you’re not sure if you’ll be listened to.”

So, the group set about designing a new speculum, one that’s meant to increase patient comfort, practitioner usability and device effectiveness. McCormick explains that they’ve done this by speaking with over 600 patients and dozens of practitioners to discover their pain points—such as the fact that 42 percent of patients delay or avoid gynecological care due to the speculum in particular. The research led to innovations like using a silicone material instead of uncomfortable metal and implementing endoscopic technology to avoid the current widening mechanism. The group’s redesign of the device didn’t stop with university, though; they officially founded Victoria-based Revyn Medical Technologies and are actively working on bringing their product to market. McCormick believes that, once available, the speculum can help increase the uptake of preventative care and in turn help to reduce mortality rates of cervical cancer —particularly in global regions where HPV vaccines and at-home tests are not widely available.

Bottom Line: McCormick and her team at Revyn are continuing with product development and moving closer to regulatory approval. Meanwhile, their prototype is garnering attention—McCormick has represented Revyn at several pitch competitions including four at the team’s alma mater, where they won first place in each. They’re currently participating in the Life Sciences BC Investor Readiness Program and preparing for their first round of funding in 2025.

After that, the goal is to sell directly to practitioners both in Canada and abroad and eventually expand their reach by partnering with a distributor. “I definitely see us being able to help on an international scale by getting this to places where there is limited access to cervical cancer or gynecological care,” McCormick says.—D.W.

Jessica Bosman + Bryn Davis Williams | Age: 29

Co-founders and co-CEOs, Doubl

The Journey: Best friends Jessica Bosman and Bryn Davis Williams met at the Ivey School of Business in London, Ontario, over a decade ago. After graduating, Bosman went into fashion buying and merchandising for brands like Herschel and MEC while Williams went into brand management at Unilever, working across international brands like Dove and Ben & Jerry’s.

This combined experience primed the two for creating their own product—one that responds to an almost universal pain point for people with breasts: bras.

“We were really fascinated by industries that hadn’t had a lot of innovation in many years and we thought there must be a better way to create the bra,” explains Williams. Adds Bosman: “Women wear their bras every single day and more than one in two women feel daily discomfort due to their bra.”

That better way includes both the manufacturing process as well as the fitting process, which utilizes 3D-scanning AI technology (done right on your phone) to get an accurate measurement for an individual’s breast size, depth, weight and more to manufacture bras that are 100- percent custom—unlike traditional bra measurements, which mostly focus on rib size and the widest point of the breast.

It took the pair four years from concept to launch due to a massive amount of research and development, as well as continuously iterating and evolving technology. Where they could, Bosman and Williams licensed existing tech, since much of it was already quite advanced (like the 3D measurement tool that does the initial scan), but they also built a patent-pending proprietary end-to-end process that customizes the fit.

Bottom Line: To date, Doubl has brought in over $250,000 in non-dilutive funding from grants and pitch competitions. In 2023, the brand’s soft launch led to over 900 percent year-over-year growth, with 40 percent of customers re-ordering the product. In April 2024 the brand launched on Kickstarter and was funded in under 11 hours (closing at $32,000). The duo is now forecasting $1.3 million in revenue for the company’s first year.

“Doubl is the first AI-fitted bra, and this is our first step into making clothing that’s fitted just for you from your smartphone at home,” explains Bosman. Though Doubl is currently focused on the bra market, Bosman and Williams are looking to lead a size-free clothing revolution, where made-to-measure clothing is accessible for all.—D.W.

Atika Juristia | Age: 25

Founder and CEO,  J Healthcare Initiative

The Journey: At 14 years old, Atika Juristia moved to Vancouver to escape a difficult life in Indonesia. But the years that followed were no easier: with no parents to support her, Juristia lacked stable housing, relied on food banks and knocked on doors for scholarships.

In high school, she began advocating for harm reduction policies to help people who use drugs. “I have responded to many overdoses in person, and I’ve seen how undignified the deaths of drug users have been. I’ve lost friends to accidental overdoses,” she says.

Punitive measures, she argues, don’t work. “I myself have suffered from depression and all these adversities, and I didn’t have prescription options back then,” she says. “I tried to kill myself twice, and getting prescription medication saved me.” She calls for evidence-based drug policies and a compassionate health-care system that upholds everyone’s right to personalized care.

In 2023, Juristia’s advocacy efforts grew into the J Healthcare Initiative (JHI), a Vancouver-based nonprofit focused on harm reduction and overdose prevention. JHI offers internships for students and a virtual health promotion network for drug users. It also provides stipends to users for input on proposals. One of its innovations, RAPID, is a “real-time alert platform for informed decisions” that uses lab-checked drug test results to provide safety alerts and identifies which areas have higher concentrations of alerts.

“Drug users are, in many ways, like my boss,” says Juristia, who’s working at a time when harm-reduction efforts in B.C. have stalled, with the provincial government reversing part of its decriminalization pilot due to public and political backlash. As it stands, the drug crisis remains a complex issue, with policies and debates still evolving.

JHI is contributing to the conversation by sponsoring project-based learning through which university students engage with harm-reduction topics. “We want to familiarize the next generation of regulatory officials and health-care leaders with the toxic drug crisis so they can apply this knowledge in their future practice,” says Juristia.

Bottom Line:  JHI is working to tackle the overdose crisis through project-based education, community building and strategic policy advocacy. It’s reached over 170,000 students in Canada through its university networks and has 15 to 20 interns supporting research, reports, campaigns and operations.—R.R.

Sophia Yang | Age: 28

Founder and executive director, Threading Change

The Journey: “I used to be the biggest fast fashion consumer,” says Sophia Yang. And it wasn’t until the tail end of her forestry degree at UBC that she began connecting the dots between climate change and fashion justice. “Yes, that sweater cost you $5, but that’s not the true cost of the clothing. Someone is paying for that—in unfair wages, terrible working conditions or polluted rivers in Bangladesh.”

At the 2019 UN Climate Change Conference in Madrid, Yang was shocked to see that key stakeholders like youth and garment workers were missing from the conversation. “There was one event out of 500 side events that was talking about fashion,” she recalls. “You could see how, at the global industry level, they only care about climate mitigation. They’re not willing to talk about human rights, pay, equitable labour. In fact, they kind of avoided the question.”

In 2020, Yang launched Threading Change to address systemic injustices in the fashion industry. The youth-led, Vancouver-based nonprofit engages people aged 18 to 30 through workshops, events, webinars and more. It collaborates with human rights groups like Oxfam International and Fashion Revolution, and features sustainable brands on its online Global Innovation Story Map.

“But people know us best for our clothing swaps and youth engagement work,” stresses Yang. Threading Change began hosting swaps in 2022 to offer a sustainable way to refresh wardrobes. The first one in Vancouver sold over 250 tickets and went viral on TikTok.

In 2024, Yang launched the Fair Fashion Festival to expand the swaps into full-scale events featuring mending and policy workshops, panels on sustainability and human rights, and local fashion initiatives by brands like Patagonia and KenDor Textiles. “I want Threading Change to be an intersectional organization that’s driven by young people and our desire to change the world,” says Yang.

Bottom Line: Since 2021, funding for Threading Change has grown from $90,000 to over $400,000 with support from partners like Lush, Finance Engage Sustain and the Vancouver Foundation. The nonprofit has a team of three full-time staff and 20 volunteers. So far, it has hosted 25 clothing swaps in 10 cities and six countries.—R.R.

Vedanshi Vala | Age: 23

Co-founder and executive director, Bolt Safety Society

The Journey: While completing her bachelor of science at UBC in 2020, Vedanshi Vala co-founded Richmond-based Bolt Safety Society as a way to help address increasing reports of domestic and sexual violence and a lack of a centralized database for resources. “Bolt Safety Society is a youth-led tech startup meets nonprofit,” Vala says. “Our objective is to prevent and respond to sexual violence, domestic abuse and harassment, as well as advocate for a more safe and equitable community.”

Bolt’s digital platform is a free database of resources for survivors of violence and their allies; features include maps with safe hubs that those in need can duck into along with  hyper-local information on shelters, crisis lines, legal services and medical support.

Additionally, the organization runs a program called Safe Buddies, which was launched in response to escalating reports of racial crimes (especially against people of Asian descent) and harassment and stalking of women in Metro Vancouver.

Bolt recently pivoted to covering local events to reach people directly with its services by offering a safe booth onsite where anyone can come to rest, ask for help or, depending on the nature of the event, grab complimentary items like water, drug testing strips and condoms. “We’ve reached over 11,000 people with it,” Vala says.

Vala and the rest of her team at Bolt are thinking globally, too. In 2022, they launched Project LyghtNyng, where they provide workshops with the aim of decreasing violence and abuse through educating about consent culture, promoting inclusion and providing access to resources like legal aid, crisis lines and information on how to fill out a police report. These workshops have taken place in Canada, India and Kenya. “We delivered workshops to over 390 people in just five days across five cities in India,” Vala says.

Bottom Line: As Bolt continues to expand its humanitarian reach, it’s also been in direct conversation with key legislators—from the City of Richmond all the way to federal  ministers, members of Parliament and even the UN, where Vala represented the company at the 67th and 68th sessions of the UN Commission on the Status of Women in 2023 and 2024.—D.W.