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/1254353
18 BCBUSINESS JUNE 2020 R Y L E Y H U M P H R Y AGE: 29 Co-owner + vice-president, sales, Naked Snacks Development officer, UBC Sauder School of Business LIFE STORY: The early stages of Ryley Humphry's life seemed to go exactly according to plan. Get into UBC; take some time off to model in places like Tokyo and Paris; graduate with a degree in sociology and the most prestigious designation the school's undergrads can receive; immediately land a coveted job as a coordinator at BC Women's Hospital & Health Centre. But behind the scenes, Humphry was battling anorexia, an illness that had started during her mid-teens. At 25, she received a daunting diagnosis: "I was told that if I didn't do something about my health, I would have osteoporosis by the time I was 30 and was at risk of other serious health complications," she recalls. So she checked herself into a residential treatment centre at almost exactly the same time her now-husband, Neil Thomson, decided to officially launch health food producer Naked Snacks. Two years later, while working full-time, Humphry joined the Naked Snacks team, focusing on community management and launching grocery sales. "I called every grocery store in the Lower Mainland trying to get us listed," she says. Today, she also works for UBC Sauder School of Business, which she joined in 2019. Humphry raises funds for the school and Creative Destruction Lab West, a program for seed-stage, science- based companies. BOTTOM LINE : Richmond- based Naked Snacks is now in more than 175 vendors across the country, including Whole Foods Market, Urban Fare and Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, and raised $250,000 in its first round of funding. –N.C. J E R E M Y M A R T I N AGE: 29 Founder, Loaded Athletics LIFE STORY: Growing up in Kelowna, Jeremy Martin played sports around the clock, moving seamlessly from football to basketball to rugby. But Martin, who began lifting weights in his physician father's basement gym when he was 12, started to realize that he liked the training aspect more than the games themselves. "By the end of the bas- ketball season, I was looking forward to rugby starting, because I could transition to a new training phase and get prepared for that sport," he remembers. Martin ended up going to Vancou- ver for a diploma in human kinetics at Capilano University, where he met his future wife, Tara. The couple would eventually transfer to UBC together (where Martin got both a bachelor's and a master's degree in HKin). He spent some time as a competitive weightlifter before the two followed their dream of opening their own gym, focused on barbell training, at Kingsway and Knight Street. Loaded Athletics is based on "showing people what their bodies can do, not how they can look," says Martin, who notes that his clientele is 60- to 70-percent female. "It's been really amazing for me to see that people come to us because they see how strong our female representation is." BOTTOM LINE : Just over 1,200 square feet, Loaded Athletics opened in February 2019 and sees an average of close to 110 customers a week. During COVID-19 the gym is offering virtual sessions. –N.C. E V E L A I R D AGE: 29 Founder, Eve's Crackers LIFE STORY: Raised in Nanaimo, Eve Laird found herself working at a Whistler art gallery after studying art history at McGill University. But it wasn't a good fit, and she was soon looking for something else. That something became two things, as she began working at both Lululemon Athletica and Purebread bakery in the mountain town. "I always loved food but got a taste for what it's really like to work in the service industry in food, and loved that, too," Laird says. "And then working on the floor at Lululemon–just a good company to work for." Those gigs slowly led to another job–working part-time on her dream of producing a gluten-free, plant- based cracker. She developed a recipe for three different flavours (black sesame, chili-pepper pumpkin-seed and savoury sunflower), moved to Vancouver and started hand-making the crackers with her engineer sister, who became a partner. An appearance and subsequent deal on Dragons' Den (brewery maven Manjit Manhas said her product tasted like birdseed but also tried to invest) helped grow the brand, but Laird maintains that "boots on the ground" was the most effective strategy. "For us, it was about creat- ing relationships, following up, going into stores and doing all those grimy tasks that seem un-scalable, but they really are." BOTTOM LINE : Eve's Crackers are in about 500 locations across Western Canada, including Safeway, Save On Foods and Whole Foods Market. Sales reached the high six figures in 2019. –N.C. A R U S H I R A I N A AGE: 28 Program manager, SCI Accelerate, Praxis Spinal Cord Institute LIFE STORY: Having lived in seven countries on four continents, Arushi Raina, born in India and raised mostly in South Africa, attributes her fearlessness to being an outsider. She earned a BA in econom- ics and English literature at Vassar College in New York state, then made what she describes as an "auda- cious cold call" to a fellow alumna, 3 0 U N D E R T H I R T Y Jeremy Martin Ryley Humphry Eve Laird