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/1388249
TOP: JILLIAN MILLER JULY/AUGUST 2021 BCBUSINESS 49 M E G O ' H A R A AGE: 29 Founder + CEO Meg O'Hara Creative LIFE STORY: When Meg O'Hara was 16, she sold her first painting for $100–to her late grandmother, after whom she's named. "It was the most exciting thing that's ever happened to me," recalls O'Hara, who grew up in Toronto in a family of lawyers and judges. Other childhood memories aren't so happy. Unable to read until Grade 3, O'Hara was diagnosed with dyslexia and attention deficit hyper- activity disorder ( ADHD). "As a kid, I would always get pulled out of class," the Whistler resident says. Told by teachers to aim low and embarrassed that fellow students thought of her as dumb, O'Hara now says her learning disabilities gave her grit and creativ- ity. "Art was always my outlet," she explains. "I could express myself in art, but I couldn't in writing." O'Hara moved west to ski–and to earn a BFA in art history and theory from UBC while painting on the side. After trying to work a regular job, she decided to paint full-time, building a client base by word of mouth. O'Hara began focusing on landscapes for the ski industry when Banff's Sunshine Village commissioned some work in 2018. Soon she was painting for ski resorts, heli-ski lodges and private chalets throughout North America. "I have very strong relationships with clients, so a lot of them will end up being repeat clients who refer me to others." When ski resorts shut down during COVID, O'Hara started to panic. But she quickly attracted a whole new group of customers: affluent collectors in Canada and the U.S., including nostalgic former ski bums who wanted her large canvases for their homes. BOTTOM LINE : O'Hara, who recently hired her first full-time employee, saw revenue more than double last year. After she tapped the American private market, her international clientele quadrupled in 2020. O'Hara's five-year goals include topping $10 million in revenue, being represented by New York-based David Zwirner Gallery, participating in international art fairs and having her work at Christie's auction house. –N.R. L E E J O O H W A N G AGE: 22 Co-founder + director of business development MeaningfulWork LIFE STORY: LeeJoo Hwang is either lying or being overly humble when says he was "just a normal kid growing up" in Surrey's Fraser Heights neighbourhood. In Grade 9, Hwang became super invested in the PC video game League of Legends, starting up a 20,000-follower Facebook fan page well before the esports boom. "That gave me the confidence to do other things," says Hwang, who started venturing to Vancouver's Downtown Eastside with a pen and a notebook to ask its residents ques- tions. "How did you get here, where did you come from, stuff like that," he recalls. "I guess it was insensi- tive, to be quite honest, and pretty naive. But people were very open to talk to me about some of their family issues, drug abuse, financial issues they'd gone through, mental health problems, and I got to learn in-depth about the issues around homeless- ness in Vancouver and poverty." That led Hwang to do com- munity work in his own Surrey neighbourhood. Enlisted to help the city plan its Canada 150 celebra- tions, he got invited to Ottawa for the occasion. "It's my passion to build strong communities with a sense of purpose," he says. In the pandemic, that manifested itself in the form of MeaningfulWork, which he describes as "LinkedIn for people looking to volunteer." BOTTOM LINE : Meaningful- Work is based out of SFU's venture program, where Hwang graduated in 2020 with a double major in business administration and environmental sciences. The company has 16 employees, and its online platform has supported more than 100 nonprofits. Hwang hopes to start fundraising soon. –N.C. 3 0 U N D E R T H I R T Y Meg O'Hara Leejoo Hwang