Canada’s Entrepreneur

Olivia Wong is a former emergency disaster responder living in Vancouver, BC. She was one of the first international aid workers deployed to the frontlines of the Fukushima nuclear radiation disaster in 2011. She has shared essential lessons learned from managing a crisis through hands-on examples from her past work with the UN, UNHCR, International Rescue Committee, and the US State Department. Since leaving nonprofit work, she has merged her past experience in the field of crisis management with Prototype Thinking Labs, a breakthrough innovation method born at Google X, and has trained large corporations such as Google, General Mills, Capital One, Mastercard, L'Oreal, Lululemon and more. In Vancouver where she resides, she has been a mentor to startups in the Vancouver startup community and during COVID-19 has been helping other entrepreneurs and small business owners launch new income streams in 36 hours. Prototype is offering a free 75-minute training to help small business owners & entrepreneurs launch new income streams in 36 hours. To date, they have helped 400 people in less than 3 weeks! Free 75-minute Interactive Webinar: www.prototypethinking.io/webinar.

After 4 years competing as a varsity athlete, and simultaneously earning her Bachelor of Commerce degree at Queen’s University, Erica Pearson spent several years on the RBC Capital Markets trading floor in Toronto. She held Analyst positions within Debt Capital Markets, Foreign Exchange Institutional Sales, Institutional Equities Trading, Money Market Sales, and Interest Rate Derivative Solutions. Erica then worked as an Analyst for the CEO Office of Investor and Treasury Services. At the end of December 2016, she informed RBC of her intention to resign to start her own company. The idea for Vacation Fund, a Toronto-based startup, was born from Erica’s upbringing. Her family was very frugal, but prioritized spending time and money on travel and experiences. By the time she turned 22, Erica had visited over 40 countries.

Brent Willis is CEO of Voyageur Pharmaceuticals Ltd., building a new pharmaceutical industry in Western Canada. Voyageur owns three barium projects in B.C., including one with a resource estimate, Iodine properties in Utah, has a Joint Venture with privately held Chief Medical Supplies Ltd. (a Canadian pharmaceutical manufacturing and distribution company) to manufacture and market contrast agents (made with barium and/or iodine compounds) used for radiology digital imaging in the healthcare industry. In this podcast, Brent discusses the challenges of operating his business during the COVID-19 pandemic and how remote working actually increased efficiency and will become the new norm for his business.

Michael Zahra is a seasoned CEO who has worked with many of the larger corporations in Canada. Drone Delivery Canada is a publicly traded, disruptive, pioneering, technology company focused on designing, developing and implementing commercially viable, drone-based logistics systems for government, commercial, industrial & retail customers globally. This podcast episode focuses on what to do as entrepreneur when you are past start, well-funded and ready to take on a major market change. Bringing the right leader/operator onto the mix is often the sign of a wise entrepreneur -- and we address this during this interview.

Dr. Kristina Zakhary, a facial surgeon in Calgary, is an entrepreneur, mom to twins and a cancer survivor. She is one of only a few in Canada who are able to perform closed Rhinoplasty.