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/1510895
D O YOU H AV E A MO ST I N F LU E N T I A L R OL E MODE L? It's cliché, but it's Richard Branson. I like saying it because he's also a Vivreau client now. ODD JOB YOU ' V E H A D ? Cleaning floors on construction sites in Egypt. F I N A L I S T Drew Hamilton F O U N D E R A N D M A N A G I N G D I R E C T O R , V I V R E A U n T H E K I C K O F F : Drew Hamilton moved to Whistler in 1996 to work as a ski instructor for one season. "And a decade later, I was still there," he says. During that time, Hamilton worked with an adventure company to help film and media crews shoot in the mountains safely. He then started dabbling in Hollywood productions—first as an assistant director and then as a producer— adding prominent productions like The X-Files to his resume. But film, he found, was "a young person's game." Around the same time that Hamilton started feeling the weight of those 20-hour workdays, then-mayor Gregor Robertson started talking about hosting the winter Olym- pics and positioning Vancouver as the greenest city in the world. "That was a trigger for me," says Hamilton. Inspired by the mission, in 2008 he took the plunge into sustain- ability by launching water filtration company Vivreau. n A C T I O N P L A N : "Vivreau has become a plastic water bottle disruptor across North America," adds Hamilton. He is work- ing to help hospitality and corporate companies consume water sustain- ably using water dispensers, bottling systems and service partners. In 2012, Vivreau integrated with German water filtration company Brita, which now stands as its parent company. When it comes to leadership, Hamilton prefers leaning into love and empathy. During the pandemic, and in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, Vivreau employees, like many others, were facing increased levels of stress around financial pressures and societal discrimination. So the company hosted Town Hall meetings online to give people a safe outlet to talk about difficult things. "We care," says Hamilton, "and we wanted to make sure we could get through this as a team." n C L O S I N G S T A T E M E N T: With a team of 65 and thousands of clients, Vivreau is experiencing over 30 percent annual growth, according to its founder. Hamilton proudly adds that the company has kept roughly four billion plastic water bottles from landfills every year, and "next year, it'll be over five billion, and moving onwards from there."–R.R. Q & A F I N A L I S T Art Lee C E O , R O V E C O N C E P T S n T H E K I C K O F F : It's possible that design lives in Art Lee's DNA: his grandfather was a furniture maker who specialized in mid-century modern. That business closed long before Lee was born (and very long before he launched Rove Concepts in 2011), but he still credits that legacy for sparking his interest in the industry. Rove's goal was to sell luxe furniture at not-so-luxe prices, and to do so via a direct-to-consumer e-commerce platform. It was a brave venture at a time when we weren't yet turning to the internet to furnish our homes. "It was not at all common to buy furniture online," Lee recalls. "People thought it was something you had to touch and feel." n A C T I O N P L A N : To level up consumer confidence in online furniture shopping, Rove Concepts offers photorealistic visualizations for customers. "They're never surprised by how our furniture looks in-person... and never underwhelmed when they receive our products," says Lee. The biz started by replicating popular luxury furniture, but made the switch to original designs in 2018. Since then, Rove has in-housed its design and supply chain capabilities (a gamechanger during the COVID pandemic) and has invested in augmented reality tech (through VR goggles, customers can see the furniture in a rendering of their own home). Now, Lee's working on a "residence program" in which Airbnb hosts can get Rove-certified—in other words, travellers can actively seek out properties that are furnished with Rove's wares. n C L O S I N G S T A T E M E N T: Lee has grown Rove Concepts from five to 160 employees and has attracted high-profile design partner- ships (reality TV fans can spot Rove furniture in season 7 of Selling Sunset thanks to a partnership with the Oppenheim Group). The biz remains largely focused on e-commerce, but now has four brick-and-mortar showrooms (one in Vancouver, one in Toronto and two in L.A.), with plans to open more in New York, San Diego and Seattle. Lee's come a long way from selling his car to get startup capital: "We're approaching a billion dollars in lifetime sales," he shares.–A.H. Q & A W H AT A DV IC E D O YOU H AV E F OR U P -A N D - C OM I NG E N T R E P R E N E U R S ? Think big and bet on yourself. W H AT WOU L D YOU R C O -WOR K E R S S AY I S YOU R G R E AT E ST ST R E NGT H ? My actions speak louder than words.