With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1222419
F I N A L I S T TIANA SHARIFI O W N E R , S E X U A L E X P L O I T A T I O N E D U C A T I O N IN 2013, WITH A DEGREE in psychology and counselling from Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Tiana Sharifi joined the Children of the Street Society as a workshop facilitator. The Coquitlam-based nonprofit gave her training around sexual exploitation and human trafficking. "It really hit me to my core, seeing how prevalent it was in B.C. and Canada," says Richmond-raised Sharifi. The society delivered presentations on the topic to 25,000 children and youths, giving them an opportunity to disclose abuse. After working on the front lines with victims, Sharifi focused on prevention as a program director, getting into adult education, too. Children of the Street closed last year, so she con- tinued its work under the name Sexual Exploitation Education. Recasting the presentations to focus on healthy relation- ships and the root causes of sexual exploitation and human trafficking, Sharifi has addressed youth and adult audiences ranging from school districts to the Richmond RCMP. Her work has impacted more than 50,000 people, she estimates. —N.R. F I N A L I S T SUPNEET CHAWLA F O U N D E R + C E O , A C E T R A D E S A N D T E C H N I - C A L I N S T I T U T E + A C E C O M M U N I T Y C O L L E G E SUPNEET CHAWLA HAS taught thousands of men to be electricians, but old habits die hard in her male-dominated industry: "Every time I show up in the class, I get judged for the first 10 minutes." Chawla, who moved here from India after completing an electrical engineering degree, was an engineer for seven years. Laid off in 2007, she launched Ace Trades and Technical Institute (ATTI) out of her parents' garage. Surrey-based ATTI now has 20 instructors teach- ing 20-plus trades in B.C. and three other provinces. This month, Chawla's new Ace Community College, a 20,000-square-foot school for electrical apprentice- ship training, holds its first classes. "The driving factor is success for our students," she says. —N.R. F I N A L I S T MARYN WALLACE S E N I O R M A N A G E R + C L I E N T S E R V I C E L E A D E R , D E L O I T T E C A N A D A F I N A L I S T LEEZA ZURWICK O W N E R , H A P P Y G U T P R O LEEZA ZURWICK PUT in 25 years as a special-education teacher in Castle- gar, where she grew up in a homesteading family. "I always knew there was something more out there for me," she says. • For Zurwick, it was probiotic- rich water kefir. In 2017, after learning that the American Health Association had found a link between gut and brain health—and that probiotics aid the connection—she developed a home kit for the fermented beverage. Today, Happy Gut Pro sells kits and Castlegar-grown water kefir grains online, plus drinks locally. The company, which Zurwick calls a social enterprise, has a handful of employees, two with disabilities; she plans to recruit more disabled staff as it expands. • E-commerce is helping Zurwick realize her global ambitions: "Just last week, someone ordered 20 packages from Kuwait." This year, she will start working with a co-packer to sell canned drinks across Canada. • Zurwick doesn't play up her recent Dragons' Den appearance. "It's me making my company grow," she says. —N.R. ALTHOUGH Maryn Wallace's career might look like a contradic- tion, there's a common thread. The Richmond native first spent a decade in the nonprofit sector, becoming a prolific fundraiser. Her first job out of UBC, where she earned a sociology degree, was with the university's Devel- opment Office. She then joined United Way of the Lower Mainland, working with high-net- worth donors. Wallace moved to the startup world in 2014, when the Netherlands- based Thnk School of Creative Leader- ship recruited her as director of stra- tegic partnerships. "Everything was through the lens of social impact," she says of helping bring the school's experiential learn- ing program to Vancouver. Thnk's B.C. effort didn't pan out, but a local adviser, Deloitte partner Michelle Osry, enlisted Wallace to join the firm's private business advisory group. Wallace, who also co-leads Deloitte's Cana- da's Best Man- aged Companies award program in B.C., says she took the job because she saw a chance to address Van- couver's chronic shortage of head offices. "Connecting back to my passion for philanthropy and community, if this city is not thriv- ing and growing from an economic and business perspective, our people will struggle." –N.R. APRIL 2020 BCBUSINESS 35