Canada’s Entrepreneur

Since fleeing the traffic & expense of Vancouver in 2007, John Cooper has worked to build one of the Island’s best-known real estate brands, the John Cooper Group . Centered around technological innovation and providing help not hype, John’s core purpose is to celebrate & share the rare kind of lifestyle he found on the Island, one that is affordable, community-minded and close to spectacular natu...

Kathy Yuen is president of Phase One Design with offices in Calgary and Vancouver. It’s a residential design firm specializing in custom luxury homes for acreage estates, inner-city developments and large-scale renovations.

Ken Vinge is the President and Co-founder of Equation Staffing Employment Solutions , a Calgary-based firm offering staffing and recruitment services and connecting candidates with temporary, contract, project and permanent employment opportunities. Ken has a 32+ year career in the Alberta staffing industry, having worked in both Edmonton and Calgary.

Tony Spoletini is a co-founder and co-owner of Spolumbo's - a very popular Italian restaurant and deli. He's also a former Canadian Football League player.

Justin Hartzman is a born entrepreneur, motivated, hard working, ambitious and high level thinker are a few words that describe Justin and his passion for business. Justin is a graduate from one of Canada’s premier business and economic program at the University of Western Ontario. Coming from a long line of entrepreneurs and investors, from an early age Justin worked retail in his family’s busine...

Kaitlyn Gottlieb has been a successful realtor in Calgary for a number of years but recently she moved to Edmonton to set up her Exclusive Real Estate team.

Braden Parker is co-founder of Casca Footwear , an innovative startup, developing all-day performance shoes for future builders. In the past year, Braden has moved from real-estate asset manager to co-founder of a bootstrapped venture looking to challenge the global footwear giants.

Gavin Harrison is a lifelong entrepreneur, Facilitator of Compello and the creator of ALTAS, a five-stage framework for highly-effective strategic planning. A born-and-raised Calgarian, he works with entrepreneurs and leadership teams as a facilitator of the ATLAS program.

Mike Morrison is the founder of Mike's Bloggity Blog , a blog which this year celebrates its 13th anniversary. The blog covers all things pop culture here in Calgary and across Canada. Morrison also runs a series of digital marketing events including SocialEast in Halifax, Next Big Thing and SocialWest , which is now the largest digital marketing conference in Western Canada.

Gifty Serbeh-Dunn founded Shea Butter Market in 2003 to create an all-natural beauty product while supporting widows and their families in Ghana to climb out of poverty. Gifty believes that her business is a force for "good" and by doing business right means that everyone benefits; from the widows in Ghana who make the Shea Butter for a premium price, to the consumers who buy her high-quality prod...

Jacqueline Kitzan is owner of Somewear Mobile Boutique Consignment - retrofitting a 1977 Airstream Globetrotter into Edmonton's first mobile consignment boutique - a high-end and luxury consignment retailer. She is also a communications specialist with Melcor Developments .

Tanya Eklund is a realtor in Calgary and considered to be an industry expert. She is often quoted as a source on real estate stories by the media. Tanya is with RE/MAX Real Estate (Central) and owns The Tanya Eklund Group .

Mark Evans spent 10+ years as a technology reporter with two of Canada's largest newspapers and has four startups under his belt. Mark brings his unique brand storytelling approach to high growth emerging companies that need to create a leadership position. Mark provides strategic and tactical guidance to develop effective content marketing and regularly speaks and workshops in various locations....

Sharon Hapton is the founder and CEO of Soup Sisters , a charity dedicated to ‘creating a stir’ in communities across North America. Soup Sisters and Broth Brothers have delivered nearly 2 million ‘Hugs in a Bowl’ of nourishing and nurturing soup nationwide to women's shelters and youth crisis centers. In addition to being a social entrepreneur, Sharon is a best-selling author of the Soup Sisters...

Matias Marquez founded Buyatab in 2008. He has since received numerous awards and recognition for his entrepreneurial success, including: being named a BC Business Top 30 Under 30 recipient in 2016; winner of the 2016 EY Entrepreneur of The Year award; and being named to Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 for 2017. A digital gift card industry pioneer, Matias has been instrumental in driving Buyatab’s growt...

Emily Salsbury-Deveaux is an entrepreneur and a retailer. She first opened her fashion store EMMYDEVEAUX as a pop-up location in the West Edmonton Mall in February 2018. The store opened a permanent location in the fall of 2018 on Calgary Trail. She is former executive director of the School of Retailing at the University of Alberta.

Since 2013, Ron Spreeuwenberg has been the Co-Founder & CEO of HiMama based in Toronto, where he leads all aspects of a business that facilitates information sharing between child care programs and parents. The HiMama application aims to save child care and early learning programs time and money, while significantly enhancing family engagement through real-time sharing of digital media. Ron has an...

Manjit Minhas is one of Canada’s best known entrepreneurs. She is a co-founder and owner of Minhas Brewery in Calgary and one of the dragons on the popular CBC television show Dragons’ Den .

Teresa Spinelli is owner of the Italian Centre  grocery and deli store chain with stores in Edmonton and Calgary. The store has been a fixture in the Edmonton market for decades and expanded to Calgary just a few years ago.

Pierre Séguin is a dynamic technology leader, innovator and product manager with almost two decades of experience creating, developing and implementing solutions for customers ranging from the biggest of multinationals to the smallest of children. He currently is working on a number of projects including being Expert in Residence for the Semaphore Research Cluster at University of Toronto. Semapho...

Mallory McKewen founded and currently serves as President & CEO of BridesMade.ca , an e-commerce business focused on improving the bridesmaid dress shopping experience. BridesMade was born as an idea early in 2016 and has now serviced over 1000 bridesmaids Canada-wide, employing a team of 10. Before diving into entrepreneurship, Mallory completed both a BBA and MBA degree at Laurier and had worked...

Michael Kehoe is an Alberta-based retail real estate specialist. He is often quoted in the national media as an expert on retail stories. Michael is broker/owner of Fairfield Commercial Real Estate in Calgary .

Reema Duggal is a strategic IT professional and technology entrepreneur with significant experience in the global IT industry where she helps companies build revenues and profitability via expansion of their digital business channels. Reema is a seasoned tech leader with a strong blend of revenue generation experience - Strategy, Marketing, Portfolio Management, and Delivery Management experience...

Andrew Novak is an Entrepreneur from Hamilton. Andrew founded his own digital marketing company after a career in the Financial Services industry. Andrew is a passionate innovator, digital marketer, entrepreneur, and expert in search engine optimization. He is President of Thinkr Digital the new digital division of Hamilton Ontario's largest full-service marketing agency, Thinkr Marketing. Thinkr...

Phil Hemmings is the Sales Manager at Ross Chocolates in Port Coquitlam. His experience stems from starting and running two food related companies as well overseeing sales for other natural food companies. Phil will be in charge of spear heading the product launch in the US and to work closely with his team at Ross Chocolates to ensure all areas of the company are ready for launch in late May. Ros...