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
E N T R E P R E N E U R O F T H E Y E A R 2 0 2 3 YOU R P R OU DE ST MOM E N T I N BU S I N E S S : The partnership with Audax because that truly validated our thesis and the various things that we've been doing over the previous nine years. D O YOU H AV E A N Y E M B A R R A S S I NG OB S E S S IONS ? Coke Zero. Q & A F I N A L I S T Danny Popescu F O U N D E R A N D C E O , H A R B O U R F R O N T W E A L T H M A N A G E M E N T n T H E K I C K O F F : A love for skiing and mountain biking prompted Danny Popescu to move from Toronto to Vancouver in 2001. He arrived as an experienced bank teller and started working as a financial advisor at an independent firm in downtown Vancouver. "I dealt very closely with clients," he says, "so I was able to see what their challenges are, what their emotions are and how they react in different market corrections." Popescu observed the different ways people interact with money and experience fear around it, noticing that clients with traditional investment portfolios were often too vulnerable to the volatilities of the stock market. To help them diversify beyond stocks and bonds, he launched Harbourfront Wealth Management in 2013 with $11 million in personal investment. n A C T I O N P L A N : "We specialize in private securities," says Popescu. Harbourfront has inno- vated to make investment vehicles such as private equity and private real estate—avenues typically open to large pension funds—suitable for retail Canadian investors. And even though convincing people to make financial changes remains a challenge, Popescu was able to grow the company's assets under management from $250 million to $5 billion and its team of six people to almost 300 employees. When asked about his leadership style throughout this journey, he says he's not very official. "I can be vulnerable, which allows them to be vulnerable," he explains. In 10 years of running Harbour- front, Popescu's proudest moment is a recent partnership with Boston-based private equity firm Audax Private Equity, which hiked up the company's value to $425 million. n C L O S I N G S T A T E M E N T: Harbourfront has 28 branches across Canada, and Popescu is working to increase the company's enterprise value to $1.5 billion over the next five years through acquisitions, tech investments and other strategies. Its charity arm, Harbourfront Gives, has donated more than $300,000 to organizations over the years.–R.R. F I N A L I S T Josh Gaglardi C E O , O R I O N C O N S T R U C T I O N n T H E K I C K O F F : He's still a young man, but Josh Gaglardi has already spent a life working in construction. You might recognize the last name—his uncle is Bob Gaglardi, the famed owner of real estate giant Northland Properties and the Dallas Stars NHL team. At 13 years old, Josh was sweeping construction sites, and he later worked summers at some of Northland's restaurants. After earning an economics degree at UBC, Gaglardi served as a project manager for la familia for a few years. Eventually, he decided it was time to go out on his own. "I wanted to be able to wear a bunch of hats, do everything, learn everything," he says. So, he joined a smaller company and learned the ins and outs. Six years later, in 2018, he was ready to launch Orion Construction, an all-in-one construction firm that handles design, permitting and construction manage- ment for light industrial and commer- cial developments. n A C T I O N P L A N : "Starting a brand-new company in construction is incredibly hard," Gaglardi says. "It's hard for people to commit to you with what can be the biggest investment of their life. And the majority of clients always want tried, tested and true. The barriers to entry are really high." After the pan- demic hit, however, Gaglardi pounced. "On the backside of COVID, warehous- ing and commercial construction accelerated crazily. I had a whole year of backlogged stuff and I did it all the way through 2021," he says. "We were building a pipeline and hiring people from companies that were maybe taking a pause." Still, there are always challenges lurking in B.C.'s most ballyhooed industry—"Now it's interest rates," says Gaglardi. "I'm waiting for my big break in this whole thing where there's clear skies and things are going well. But it's pretty good, we've been fortunate." n C L O S I N G S T A T E M E N T: He's being more than a little humble. Orion, which focuses on clients in the Lower Mainland outside the core of Vancouver, Burnaby and Richmond, has around 50 employees and will do some $135 million in revenue this year.–N.C. D O YOU H AV E A N Y A DV IC 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 ? I gotta stress: it's really tough. You have to come in with eyes wide open—talk to people who have been entrepreneurs and know what's required. Once you're in, you're in. D O YOU H AV E A N Y E M B A R R A S S I NG OB S E S S IONS ? Lego and airplanes, man. When I was a kid I was obsessed and I'm still obsessed. Q & A 46 BCBUSINESS.CA NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023