BCBusiness

36 B C B U S I N E S S . C A S E P T E M B E R 2 0 24 L E A D E R S H I P GET WITH THE PROGRAM The City of Kelowna's formal mentorship program is giving its employees a chance to level up SEEKING out mentors can be a difficult thing. You can find articles and lists and how- tos on the subject in media out- lets like NPR and the Harvard Business Review. These pieces often touch on things like estab- lishing connections with people in your industry, being clear about what you want and doing your own research. Forbes even refers to the "mentor shortage," something it mostly blames on remote work. Today, espe- cially outside of educational institutions, it can be difficult to establish that mentorship relationship. For that reason, it's easy to appreciate the City of Kelowna for creating a formal mentor program for its employees. Axelle Bazett sure does. In 2018, the city decided to prioritize retaining local talent and fostering internal develop- ment within its organization, explains Bazett, a former sales manager and communications consultant who joined the City of Kelowna in 2017 and now serves as intergovernmental relations manager. Although Han's sense for scalability makes him well-suited to mentorship, it also makes him picky. When he met Mad- die Aliasl through e@ UBC's 16-week Venture Founder startup accelerator program, he was skeptical about her company's poten- tial. Aliasl, who has a master's degree from UBC in electrical engineering, and Hamid Rezaei, who has a UBC PhD in chemical and biological engineering, were trying to dis- rupt a relatively stagnant industry: indus- trial drying. "Not the sexiest startup idea I've ever heard," Han jokes. Aliasl has worked for Iranian and Cana- dian companies that dehydrate food for commercial purposes. She saw firsthand how different food manufacturers—bread, pasta and pet food makers, for example— rely on slow and inefficient dehydration machines that take between eight and 36 hours to dry products. The process also removes nutrients. Aliasl's father, who is an engineer in Iran, helped Rezaei and Aliasl develop a solution: "We came up with an improve- ment to an existing technology that reduces the drying time to a maximum of one hour," Aliasl says. She launched CanDry Technologies in 2019 as a first-time entrepreneur. She also applied for the e@ UBC Venture Founder program, which helps startups find prod- uct-market fit and paying customers. "We were talking on Zoom," Han remembers, "and she's describing the way her machine would look and why it's so dif- ferent, and how she would mix microwave and other types of technologies with dehy- dration. And I'm like, 'Well, that sounds like science fiction, but if that really works, I want to see it happen. That would change the world.'" Despite his role at e@ UBC, Han doesn't accept mentorship requests easily. To take someone under his wing, he says, he needs to hear an offer he can't refuse. "I lay out this long, written, detailed, bulleted plan for how our mentorship is actually going to work," he explains. "It's not a small endeaveour. Have I scared some people off ? Sure... but I want to help those who I think have a real shot at building businesses that will grow." Aliasl struck him as a highly motivated, technical person who was passionate about what she wanted to do. Through those early Venture Founder conversations, Han got to know her as a businessperson and human being, and slowly started working with her to identify potential customers. Initially, Aliasl planned to target the same companies that purchased drying services from her former employers. Han suggested that she put assumptions aside and start thinking about distributors, retail- ers and wholesalers, too. He also suggested that CanDry start selling its own products, like the irresistible pineapple chips Aliasl and her team would snack on. "One day, Chang said, 'Why are you guys not selling this product? If you start selling it, your technology can be known by other people.' It was a game-changer," Aliasl says. The Canadian Food Innovation Network recently placed an order for 1,000 bags of the pineapple chips. CanDry also has part- ners like Coquitlam feed manufacturer Red Dog Blue Kat and Burnaby pet food com- pany Rawbone on board. A few months ago, Aliasl got a call from Han. The mentor was chatting with an investor in Langley when it dawned on him that the person could be a good fit to invest in CanDry and maybe even join the executive team. "He called me on a Saturday, and he said, 'Are you working today?'" Aliasl recalls. "I said, 'Yeah, we are cleaning the warehouse in Coquitlam.' He says, 'If I bring an investor, a person who is trying to be a CEO, are you interested?' I was, like, 'Yeah, this is exactly what we are looking for.' So, in less than one hour on a Saturday, Chang came in with the contact." "I care about Maddie as a person," Han says. "I feel strongly about CanDry, the company, and I care about its success. Coming from a place of caring and having a personal stake in Maddie and CanDry's success, I think, is an important ingredient in having a good mentor-mentee relation- ship of the type that I believe in." –R.R.

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