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eventually doing the famed local Grouse
Grind hike together.
"I'm not as in shape as Roger—I asked a
lot of open-ended questions so that he had
to answer them," says Thompson with a
laugh. In Hardy, Thompson saw someone
who was progressive and forward looking.
"There's a tendency to be drawn back into
today. If everyone is focusing on where
the puck is today, who's going to look at
tomorrow? Something he's talked about
over and over again is avoiding the pull of
the past. What's the next growth venture?
And what's the one after that?"
Hardy, Thompson and Sabrina Liak,
a former managing director at Goldman
Sachs, founded Kits Eyecare to make buy-
ing glasses easy and affordable. (Earlier this
year, Liak stepped down from her presi-
dent role to become a senior advisor with
the company and pursue other opportuni-
ties. She remains on the board.)
These days, if you're a Kits employee,
odds are you spend most of your working
life in one of three places. There's the com-
pany's head office in Vancouver's financial
district, its warehouse on East Broadway
and its café/retail shop in the same former
Starbucks space where Thompson and
Hardy used to meet.
The warehouse, a multimillion-dollar
investment that allowed the company
to come into the market with low prices,
spans 33,000 square feet and houses close
to 80 workers.
Another major investment the found-
ers made has been in the people they've
brought in to help run the organization.
Among the company's 150 or so employees
you'll find some sparkling resumes. Take,
for example, Tai Silvey, the company's
chief business development officer, who
joined the company in January 2022 after
six years of leading
BCAA's Evo Car Share
program.
Or Edita Hadravska, Kits' head of prod-
uct design, who came over at the end of that
same year after spending time as a design
director with both Aritzia and Arc'teryx.
And, of course, there's Zhe Choo, the
company's
CFO. She was originally hired
in August 2020 as the vice-president of
finance. Her experience includes stints at
leading accounting firms PwC and EY, as
well as time spent in both space tech with
Maxar Technologies and agtech with Segra
International.
"It was the energy of the three found-
ers, and the vision they have for Kits," says
Choo when asked why she made the leap
to the company. "It was during
COVID and
they told me they wanted to do an
IPO. I
was like, 'Really?' But I could see the vision.
During
COVID, everyone was asking tough
questions, and they were able to communi-
cate the resilience of the business to inves-
tors. Each one of them brings a different
leadership style and has guided the com-
pany to the vision that was set."
In early 2021, the company pulled off
that $55-million
IPO, valuing its shares at
$8.50. For most of 2022, the stock (like
many during that period) fell on hard
times, hitting a low of just over $2. "When
