Walrus co-founder Caroline Boquist has a warm, intuitive way of connecting with everyone she meets. Her entrepreneurial journey to opening the beloved retail shop in 2009 with business partner Daniel Kozlowski is an unconventional, tenacious one. 

Caroline grew up in Vancouver, one of four daughters of a Filipino mother and a South Asian father, who was born in Goa and raised in Hong Kong. Her family, to this day, is a close-knit one. She became a young mother herself at the age of 22, at the crux of much transition and devastating heartbreak in her life. 

In this conversation, we uncover Caroline’s childhood story, losing her father when she was pregnant with her son Noah, the chronicle of how Walrus came to be and where the name comes from, what she’s discovered about herself over the last 15 months, and more.