The Lists
Life Story: The daughter of an entrepreneur, Beijing-born Jennifer Zhang grew up in White Rock after moving to B.C. when she was 10. She had no interest in going into business with her engineer dad, who exports machinery from Europe...
Life Story: When Mikaella Go met Tony Yu at a restaurant in Vancouver’s Yaletown, she didn’t realize that she would spend the next six years of her life as a serial entrepreneur. Working as a City of Richmond lifeguard at...
Life Story: Michelle Tran’s first “job” was serving frozen yogurt at the Yogen Früz franchise her father owned. “I was seven years old, and I was too short–my dad would put down pineapple cans so I could stand on top...
Life Story: On her family’s farm in Abbotsford, Sarah Henderson grew up exploring the woods with her dogs and selling blueberries to farmers passing by on tractors. Henderson’s father is Indigenous; generations of systemic oppression, along with alcoholism on his...
Life Story: Bethany McNeill credits her athletic career for fostering the teamwork and leadership skills she’s used to start and run her insurance brokerage firm, MB Pension and Benefits Group, which does business as Momentum Benefits. The North Vancouver native...
Life Story: As a kid, Aaron Chin would make money by selling hockey cards outside the 7-Eleven near his Richmond home. Although he always wanted to work for the family business, he’s grateful that his father, Organika founder Thomas Chin...
Life Story: Saskatoon-born Kaylee Astle spent her formative years being homeschooled in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Her entrepreneurial parents–dad was a financial planner, mom an interior designer–retired early and moved Astle and her sister to the Baja Peninsula. An internship...
Life Story: When Langley-born Alexa Suter was 13, she discovered her love of storytelling. Scrawling in journals, spinning short stories and crafting poems throughout her teens led her to pursue an English degree at Kwantlen Polytechnic University–and to leave school...
Life Story: Bryden Pelletier always dreamed of being a firefighter. “I just really wanted to help people,” he says. “That was the profession that you were right there in the moment, at the most critical intervention time.” Knowing that he faced...
Life Story: “What are the top problems for society for the century?” Devesh Bharadwaj asked himself while enrolled in the first year of a mechanical engineering degree at UVic. The question consumed him so much that he spent more time...