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/1406705
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021 BCBUSINESS 55 BCBUSINESS.CA E N T R E P R E N E U R O F T H E Y E A R 2 0 2 1 W I N N E R S Alison Taylor + Trevor Johnston CO-FOUNDERS + CO-CEOS JANE SOFTWARE n "I think it's interesting when people ask kids what they want to be when they grow up. Because they know, like, four professions," Alison Taylor says. "They know what their parents do and what their teacher does and whoever else they run across in their community." Taylor should know: she's a parent of three, and there's no chance she could have pre- dicted the career she's enjoyed. For a long time, her answer to that question was "physio- therapist," as she envisioned following her parents into the trade. Then the North Vancou- ver native graduated from UBC with a major in English and a minor in psychology and the belief that she might be a teacher. But while managing one of her parents' practices, she started talking with some therapists who wanted another place to work. Meanwhile, the midwives who delivered Tay- lor's kids needed office space. So she opened her own clinic, Canopy Integrated Health, in 2011 to help those practitioners as well as experts in counsel- ling, acupuncture and massage therapy, to name a few. She enlisted Trevor Johnston, co-founder of North Vancouver marketing agency Thought Shop Creative, to do some branding for the clinic and its website. When Johnston heard her complaining about the booking process she was HELPING THE HELPERS Taylor and Johnston cre- ated Jane to give clinicians support using, he offered to help her build something for that. Taylor used Johnston's solution with her clinic for about a year and a half before people in the industry started asking about it. So she and Johnston added a billing F U N FA C T S W H AT I S Y O U R D E F I N I T I O N O F S U C C E S S ? Making my mum proud. (Hi, Mum!) –Alison Taylor W H AT B U S I - N E S S P E R S O N D O Y O U M O S T A D M I R E ? I'm going to cheat with a leader I admire, but I have been really inspired by [Prime Minister] Jacinda Ardern's leadership of New Zealand. She leads with empathy, humour, courage and grace –A.T. W H AT D O Y O U D O T O R E L A X / U N W I N D ? Hike in the forest, float on water or eat DQ Blizzards with the kids –A.T.