BCBusiness

September/October - Entrepreneur of the Year

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.

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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 20 21 To this day, Hess person- ally spends three hours with each new hire to discuss the culture and how important it is to the company. She describes that culture as delivering exceptional value to clients and providing extraordinary experiences to both customers and fellow employees. "Knowledge isn't power, it's for sharing; that's how teamwork works," she says. "We want people to speak up, even if it's controversial—want people to put the elephant on the table, talk about it, make sure we're addressing everything." Hess has also long been a champion of diversity, something spurred by her own experience navigating the challenging road of being a woman in a tech industry still dominated by men. With some 350 employees and with clients in 24 countries, "we need proper representation, and we're very committed and focused to making sure we make adjustments to ensure a diverse group," she says. To that end, 50 percent of Copperleaf's board and 45 percent of its leadership team is from underrepresented groups. Hess recently brought in Indigenous and neurodiverse speakers to ensure that staff are educated on related issues. She also put together a Black Lives Matter panel last year. "It's really just to give our company an idea of how these things manifest themselves," Hess says. "And make sure they understand that it's not just some random events; this is a systemic problem we all need to face." The culture that Hess has worked so hard to build was originally threatened by the COVID-19 pandemic. But though Copperleaf slowed its hiring process initially—the firm only brought on what Hess calls critical hires—there were no layoffs. "When it started, like everyone, I had no idea how it would affect us," she says. But Hess quickly realized that, at the very least, the business would be able to survive, given that Copperleaf supplies its product to companies that manage critical infrastructure, like the B.C. government and W I N N E R Darrell Jones PRESIDENT SAVE-ON-FOODS n In the highly competitive grocery business, Darrell Jones knows how important it is to understand what your rivals are doing. "If they do something well, go and copy it and make it better," says the president of Save-On-Foods, which shares a crowded marketplace with brands like Sobeys/Safeway, Superstore, Walmart and Amazon. "But the worst thing you can do, in our opinion, is to chase somebody or get fixated on a com- petitor," Jones argues. "If you sat around and thought about all those guys, your head would explode." Instead, Jones believes in striving for continuous SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021 BCBUSINESS 65 various provinces' hydroelec- tric operations. "They weren't going to disappear," she explains. "The biggest impact was that there were some deals that got delayed, and clients didn't have all of the staff to do the work that they had to get done. But we didn't suffer as much as I expected we would." Copperleaf's sales more than doubled from 2019 to 2020. Hess isn't complain- ing, but she's still "absolutely convinced" that the company would have done better with- out the pandemic. That mind- set is simply part of her take on culture and her emphasis on always striving for improve- ment, both individually and as part of an organization. "With more than 350 people, if every day at the end of the day they all say, What could I do better tomorrow, then how can we not suc- ceed?" she asks. "There are more things that go into it, but we try to be the leader in our market, the best partner to clients and to enjoy the journey." –N.C. CULTURE FIT Hess wants customers and employees to have a great experience W H AT WA S YOU R F I R ST S U M M E R JOB ? Retail sales clerk in a shoe store NA M E ON E T H I NG T H AT P E OP L E WOU L D B E S U R P R I S E D T O L E A R N A B OU T YOU At university I asked if I could do a double major in mathematics and theatre arts, but they didn't offer such a program W H AT D O YOU D O T O R E L A X / U N W I N D ? Skiing, biking and yoga F U N FA C T S BCBUSINESS.CA

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