Brenda Halloran’s father was an entrepreneur before the word even existed. In this episode, Halloran talks about how her dad’s influence inspired her to be entrepreneurial in all of her pursuits. “I grew up with this amazing man who was an entrepreneur, a self-starter, nobody ever gave him a dime, he just did it for himself ... I grew up with that type of thinking, and that fun of [asking] ‘what is technology and what can it do?’ ” Halloran is the CEO of the WEK Effect Inc., a Waterloo-based e-commerce startup that aims to engage millennials in philanthropy, giving back, and making a difference in their communities. Halloran is also the former mayor of the City of Waterloo and the recipient of the 2016 Adam Chowaniec Lifetime Achievement Award. In this episode of Startup Canada Podcast, host Rivers Corbett chats with Halloran about the WEK Effect, what it’s like to be a mayor-turned-CEO, and the friendship she forged between Waterloo and the city of Chongqing, China.