BCBusiness

27 B C B U S I N E S S . C A A P R I L 2 0 24 ALEX CHAN and GAVIN CHEUNG Ages: 29 Co-founders, MotionGrey L I F E S T O R Y : Alex Chan and Gavin Cheung have known each other since they were five years old growing up in Richmond. After high school, Chan went to UBC and Cheung went to SFU, but they remained close. Chan met Andy Hsu in the civil engineer- ing department at UBC and the two bonded over a love of gaming. They soon started writing down a list of different business ideas. One of them was gaming chairs. So when Chan went to China to visit family, he spent some time at a fair that brought factories together to show- case their products. There, he met the manufacturer that would become his first supplier. Chan brought on Cheung, and the three founders (Hsu is 30, so unfor- tunately does not qualify for this list) added standing desks to their portfo- lio. Things were going well, so they bought two warehouses in Richmond for a total of about $4 million. During COVID, the business exploded—"Both competitors that we know of scaled back in the pandemic," says Chan. "They didn't have the capacity to be bringing on 40-foot containers with spare parts and stuff." One of the keys to the business has been large orders from corpora- tions looking to set up their employ- ees with chairs or desks. "Last year we did a $300,000 order for a local Vancouver company," says Cheung. B O T T O M L I N E : In 2019, Motion- Grey brought in about $1.5 million in revenue. These days, it's close to $16 million annually, with 90 percent of those sales in Canada. About 50 percent of all new customers come through word-of-mouth, according to the founders. Expansion is next, as is investing in other companies. "That's the next step: investing in these companies that have great ideas but it's not e-commerce where they're profitable immediately," says Chan. –N.C. OLIVIA EVANS Age: 25 Investment advisor, Canaccord Genuity Cash Management Group L I F E S T O R Y : Olivia Evans's LinkedIn profile doesn't do justice to her experience. It's a short scroll, unlike the actual number of roles she's served in since moving from Manchester to Newmarket, Ontario, in 2005. "I was always very aware of financial literacy," says Evans. "Every job that you can think of under the age of 18, I probably did it." Her extensive list of occupa- tions includes coaching gymnastics, cleaning gym toilets, bartender, server, hostess, securities valuation analyst at Toronto-based custodian bank State Street in 2019 and, as of 2021, investment advisor with Canaccord Genuity's Cash Manage- ment Group ( CMG). CMG is the biggest team by assets and employees at Canaccord. As an advisor, Evans spends her days help- ing institutional clients enhance their treasury services. But getting here was far from easy. She rarely saw other women in finance classes at McMaster Univer- sity, where she studied commerce. She also struggled to find mentors— to the point where, as an intern at State Street, she rode the elevator during breaks just to network with anyone who stepped in. "I expanded my network significantly through that," she says. Compelled to help other women in finance, Evans now volunteers with national nonprofit Women in Capital Markets. As co-chair of its B.C. steering committee, Evans works on university collaborations, mentorship opportunities and tailored networking events. "Being the only woman in the room—or one of 10—sometimes gets intimidating," she says, "so we really push to make it a comfortable environment for people to come out and just be themselves." B O T T O M L I N E : Canaccord Ge nuity is a Vancouver-based financial services firm specializing in wealth management and capital markets. With over 20 offices around the world—including Toronto, the U.K., China and Australia—the company reported $1.5 billion in firm-wide reve nue for the 2023 fiscal year. –R.R.

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