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At Best Startup Canada we track over 100,000 Canadian startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top British Columbia based CEO’ operating in the Retail space. If you think a CEO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.ca.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Kory Zelickson
Co-Founder, CEO of Vejii Holdings
With over 15 years of experience in innovation and online marketing, Kory Zelickson has developed multiple e-commerce and technology startup companies from the ground up. An engineer by trade, Kory is focused on developing retail distribution within the plant-based and sustainable product categories. Through his passion for the environment, in 2020 he founded and became CEO of Vejii, the world’s largest marketplace for plant-based and sustainable living products. With more consumers turning to e-commerce and looking to incorporate healthier, more sustainable practices into their lifestyle, Vejii’s unique platform offers high-growth opportunities given the market trends. Vejii’s mission is to make plant-based products more accessible to everyone, from consumers who want more selection compared to their local grocery store to flexitarians or conscious consumers who are looking to shop more sustainably. By simplifying the shopping experience and helping plant-based and sustainable-living brands reach wider audiences through its marketplace model, Vejii aims to become an industry consolidator in the sustainability field. Vejii is also committed to building a strong foundation of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace in order to improve organizational culture and to positively advance its mission forward. Additionally, Kory’s past experience includes co-founding Namaste Technologies in 2014, where he also served as COO and VP of Business Development and Investor Relations. Namaste Technologies eventually became a publicly-traded company, and in 2018 the company reached a market valuation of +$1 billion, realizing over 20x returns for its initial series of investors.
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About Karma Extracts, Namaste Technologies, Vejii Holdings: Vejii Holdings owns and operates ShopVejii.com, a digital marketplace for plant-based and sustainable living products and brands.
Bernadette Butler
CEO & Founder of Storytap
CEO and chief storyteller, Bernadette is a 20 year veteran in marketing and advertising, and one of the creators of StoryTap.
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About Storytap: StoryTap is humanizing the online shopping experience with customer video reviews.
Christine Day
CEO of Luvo
Christine is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Luvo Inc., a company producing frozen meals prepared with nutritionally-dense, healthy ingredients. Prior to Luvo, Christine was Chief Executive Officer of lululemon (2008-2013). Along with John Currie and the rest of lululemon’s executive team, Christine created and executed lululemon’s long-term business strategies, directing its continued development and reinforced its position as a global leader of yoga-inspired athletic apparel. During her tenure, the company grew in revenue from $290 million to $1.6 billion and became the most profitable retail apparel company in the world. Prior to lululemon, Christine held several senior leadership positions at Starbucks over a 20-year period, most recently serving as Starbucks’ President of Asia Pacific (2004-2007). At Starbucks, Christine helped build a solid innovative company culture at one of the world’s most recognizable brands. Christine has been named Fortune Magazine’s “Top 5 International Most Powerful Women”, Canada’s “Top 100 Women”, and named “CEO of the Year”, by Globe and Mail and Business in Vancouver. Christine brings more than 30 years of senior leadership experience in building profitable, global brands in the food & beverage and apparel categories.
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About Campfire Capital, Luvo: Luvo produces and markets healthy food products such as main meals, snacks, flatbreads, yogurt bars, and frozen entrées.
Drew Green
Chief Executive Officer of INDOCHINO
Drew is founder and director of SHOP.CA. Having spent his entire career connecting online audiences with retailers through digital media, marketing solutions, mobile marketing and marketplace platforms in the United States. Prior to founding SHOP.CA, Drew served as Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Vibes Media. In this role, Drew was responsible for defining, implementing and leading the execution of Vibes’ Sales, Business Development and Marketing strategy. With over 14 years of online marketing, eCommerce and sales leadership experience, Drew has a proven track record of results based management and high growth strategy development and execution. Prior to joining Vibes in 2009, Drew was a member of SHOP.COM’s executive team since 2005, where he led the sales, merchant operations and business development departments during his tenure, and was responsible for ramping product supply from under 1 million products to over 25 million unique product SKUs from thousands of leading retailers and manufacturers in the US. SHOP.COM’S Marketplace platforms provided demand generation and branding for thousands of retailers and product brands in both the US and the UK. Prior to SHOP.COM, Drew held sales and sales leadership roles with Flonetwork, (acquired by DoubleClick) and DoubleClick (acquired by Google).
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About EMERGE Commerce, INDOCHINO, INDOCHINO, Liquuid: Indochino is a global leader in made to measure apparel, offering custom suits, shirts, chinos and outerwear online and in showrooms.
Joe Parenteau
Co-Founder & CEO of Fable
Joe Parenteau currently works as the Co-Founder and CEO for Fablehome.
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About Fable: Fable is a dinnerware company that sells premium tableware made by artisans from recycled clay.
Mike Wyrzykowski
Founder & CEO of Blackpurl
Mike Wyrzykowski is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Blackpurl.
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About Blackpurl: The first cloud-based dealership management platform built for the dealer who needs more then a DMS.
Matias Marquez
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Buyatab Online
Matias Marquez has received many awards for his entrepreneurial success, including SFU’s 2011 Entrepreneur of the year. Matias Marquez founded Buyatab in 2008 and has helped to grow Buyatab into a global leader in digital gift giving. He holds a Bachelors of Business Administration degree from Simon Fraser University and holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
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About Buyatab Online: Buyatab Online is an innovative provider of egift cards solutions for retail, restuarants, hotels and luxury brands.
Robb Niemann
Founder and CEO of Rutherford Audio
Robb, a business man in Vancouver and a lifelong audiophile saw the opportunity to devlop a channel of products at a higher level than was being offered and has been growing Rutherford Audio year after year, since 2009.
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About Rutherford Audio: Rutherford Audio is North America’s premier distribution channel for a select few of Europe’s finest Hi-Fi audio brands.
Poya Haghnegahdar
CEO of FIND
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About FIND: FIND A.I. – Inventory Planning for AFA
Richard Hui
Co-Founder & CEO of Warranty Life
President/CEO at Warranty Life
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About Warranty Life: Providing Usage-Based Mobile Device Insurance
Mariya Pak
Co-founder, CEO of Simple Matters
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About Simple Matters: Simple Matters attempts to find new solutions to old problems by removing complexity from every day life and make it simpler
Daniel Ling
Founder/CEO of antsquare
Founder, CEO of antsquare.
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About antsquare: Antsquare builds the next generation of online retail marketplace, anywhere and everywhere with mobile
Ryan Smith
Founder & CEO of FTSY
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About FTSY: FTSY (‘footsy’) is an A.I. platform that matches people to consumer goods where fit and comfort matter.
Milan Hucko, PhD
CEO of Global Catalog
Milan Hucko, CEO at Global Catalog Inc. holds a Doctor’s degree in Computer Science – Data Management Systems. He used his knowledge of analyzing large volumes of data across a business sectors, to start a couple online projects, which interconnected and seamless flow of information between businesses. In 2011 drawing upon his vast business experience Milan Hucko and his business partner Pavel Hancak founded Global Catalog (www.globalcatalog.com) – one of the fastest growing, and most efficient, B2B online global business networks. Visit: globalcatalog.com
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About Global Catalog: Global Catalog is one of the fastest growing and most effective online business network platform available today.
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