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/1471305
JULY/AUGUST 2022 BCBUSINESS 43 BCBUSINESS.CA C H E R A L Y N C H O K AGE: 27 Co-founder + executive director, Social Innovation Academy LIFE STORY: Cheralyn Chok credits a Catholic upbringing for her decision to work in social impact. Volunteering with her family, plus the values instilled in her at home and at school, "made me want to do something good," recalls the daughter of Singaporean immigrants. North Vancouver–raised Chok also wanted to study design at university, but her accountant parents wouldn't permit it. So she attended UBC Sauder School of Business, where she found she had little interest in pursuing a career like finance, accounting or marketing. In the first term of her BComm with a specialization in operations and logistics, Chok started a necktie company. While selling her products across the country, she learned about the environmental impact of fast fashion and the poor treatment of garment workers in the Global South. Although Chok didn't know the term "social enterprise" at first, she shifted to a zero-waste model and donated to the Clean Clothes Campaign, which aims to improve working conditions in the garment industry. "I realized that there was this entire world out there that I could pursue in terms of a career that wasn't just entrepreneurship." After graduating in 2018, Chok became the first product manager for ChopValue, a Vancouver- based company that makes office furniture, housewares and other products from recycled chopsticks. With Tyson Bilton and Steve Petterson, she founded Social Innovation Academy ( SIA) the following year. The nonprofit, which grew out of a long-running UBC intern- ship program, works with Canadians aged 18 to 30 to give them the skills, training and experience they need to join the social finance and innovation world. "A big focus for us is to branch out of business school," says Chok, who has led the startup's development. "We try to provide training that brings everyone to the same playing field." BOTTOM LINE : SIA runs a fellowship program that so far has trained 140 young people and provided 44 full-time internships with its 12 partners across Canada, including impact investment funds, accelerators and consulting firms. It's also done research and consult- ing projects for close to 140 social ventures, nonprofits and charities. To become less reliant on grants, SIA is looking at other revenue sources, from developing a university certificate pro- gram to offering corporate training. It will launch two brand-new programs this year: a fellowship for mid-career professionals with a heavy emphasis on newcomers and, with several partners, a venture capital training program for Indigenous professionals up to age 35. –N.R. E M I L Y S L O B O D Z I A N & F A R O B U R G O Y N E AGES: 28 + 29 Founders, Raven's Nest Resort & Campground LIFE STORY: Emily Slobodzian and Faro Burgoyne met while work- ing at Fairmont Hot Springs Resort in 2016 and started dating shortly after. A couple of years later, after a few big trips, they decided not to go back to work and to instead start a campground on a plot of land on the Akisqnuk First Nation Reserve that was gifted to Burgoyne by his father. "We just knew it was something we would do together," says Slobod- zian. "So we started getting every- thing together for the campground in 2019: business plan, made an application for funding, talked to the Nation, started building in the spring. That's how things got going." And did they ever. Today, the 144 acres of property hosts a huge camp- ground as well as eight log cabins, a massive disc golf course and an area designated for a music festival with stages and roads and permanent structures. Slobodzian and Burgoyne live on the site and over the years have had a number of friends join them by building cabins in exchange for help- ing host events. "No one really pays us rent but more so helps us out with building stuff," says Burgoyne. "We have projects on the go all the time." BOTTOM LINE : The duo recently hosted a music festival with over 3,000 guests all camping onsite and made close to six figures in revenue from camping reservations last year. –N.C. Faro Burgoyne and Emily Slobodzian Cheralyn Chok