#YWiBbtgc: Meet Tea Nicola

Beyond the Glass Ceiling panel event is back again, and this year’s theme focuses on Emerging Industries. We sit with top tier panelists from Vancouver who are sharing their entrepreneurial story.

Meet Tea Nicola, co-founder & CEO of WealthBar.

tea

Tea Nicola is passionate about personal finance and wants to help people understand how small changes can make a big difference. Originally a mechanical engineer, she later spent years working as a financial advisor and advisor trainer. Tea is excited about transforming the way Canadians get personal financial advice.

#YWiBbtgc: Meet Ella Jotie

Beyond the Glass Ceiling panel event is back again, and this year’s theme focuses on Emerging Industries. We sit with top tier panelists from Vancouver who are sharing their entrepreneurial story.

Meet Ella Jotie, co-founder of Barre Fitness. Here's her YWiB story:

ella

my name  |  Ella Jotie

my company  |  Barre Fitness

childhood ambition  |  I always wanted to be a backup dancer for Janet Jackson.

fondest memory  | My fondest memory would have to be sitting atop a sand dune in the desert of Dubai, en route to a show in Kabul, and realizing just how vast the universe really is.

proudest moment  |  When the Barre Fitness team won the award for Top Training Partner at the Workout to Conquer Cancer in 2015.  In that moment all of my dreams for building a business were realized and it was a true reflection of our company’s core values!

biggest challenge  |  Opening Barre Fitness with no experience and even less money!

keeps me up at night  |   Work. Ha! I’m constantly thinking about how to create a better experience for my clients and staff.

how I give back  |  Through Barre Fitness’ Raise the Barre program

perfect day  |   My perfect day is spent with the ones I love the most and always includes teaching a class, because that is my happy place.

first job  |   Newspaper delivery girl. Age 10

favourite quote  |  I have two.

“We should consider everyday lost on which we have not danced at least once.” – Nietzsche

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel” Maya Angelou

inspiration |  My clients are my biggest inspiration. Their energy and commitment to themselves day in and day out motivate me to do the same for myself and build a better Barre for them.

#YWiBbtgc: Meet Melanie Levenberg

Beyond the Glass Ceiling panel event is back again, and this year’s theme focuses on Women and Innovation. We sit with top tier panelists from Vancouver who live and breathe innovation. Who are these innovative businesswomen? Today, we’re pleased to introduce you to…

Melanie-Levenberg

Melanie Levenberg

Founder & Program Director of DANCEPL3Y

There are a plethora of classes to choose from these days. But have you ever bought a pass for something just to use it a few times and let the rest expire? Conventional fitness classes tend to follow the same template: the instructor is at the front of the class and has everyone do the same movement or activity.

Enter Melanie Levenberg. Growing on her background in fitness and health across a number of industries, Melanie wanted to create something that was engaging, interactive and playful to promote a positive, fun attitude to fitness. It was this philosophy that DANCEPL3Y and the 3 Rules of PL3Y were created:

Be positive.

Be fun.

Be yourself.

DANCEPL3Y is designed to inspire everyBODY to feel like a rockstar as they "sweat happy". After learning simple moves from a variety of dance styles, DANCEPL3Y is all about interacting with the others in the class and discovering your own unique style and way of moving. No minimum skill required, and no boredom over repetitive, recycled classes. Just fun being yourself.

DANCEPL3Y runs programs in Vancouver, catered to ages as young as preschool, children, teens, and also adults. Children, in particular, are growing and developing habits – both good and bad – as well as their outlook on things like health and fitness. If children are to have a positive attitude towards these, it’s important that they have a lot of fun doing it. Last year, Ms. Levenberg presented DANCEPL3Y at the 2014 Global Summit of Physical Activity in Children in Toronto.

Come hear Ms. Levenberg talk about her innovative concept this Thursday, September 17th at Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Women and Innovation. Not only that, but she’ll be giving us a demo of what DANCEPL3Y is all about with a quick “refresher” exercise to get up and bust a move after the panel ends!

Last chance to grab tickets for tomorrow's Beyond the Glass Ceiling!

#YWiBbtgc: Meet Julie Gunn

Beyond the Glass Ceiling panel event is back again, and this year’s theme focuses on Women and Innovation. We sit with top tier panelists from Vancouver who live and breathe innovation. Who are these incredible businesswomen? Today, we’re pleased to introduce you to…

Julie Gunn

Julie Gunn

VP Customer Success of Vision Critical

Julie Gunn is one of the few individuals who have been at Vision Critical since it’s beginnings in 2000. Ms. Gunn played a role in the early development and management of this Vancouver-based company’s customer experience.

For those who are unfamiliar, Vision Critical’s signature product is a cloud-based customer intelligence platform that offers a range of solutions for companies looking for data-backed insight into their products, services, and brand that will lead to better business decisions. In other words, they help clients ask better questions, listen more intently, and learn what the people they care about think and say.

In order for this platform to achieve valuable results, it’s critical that it be user-friendly and engaging for those in the company's “community” (a defined cohort who a company is interested in conversing with). As such, innovation is a huge part of Vision Critical’s corporate culture, as they need to adapt to society’s changing preferences for interacting online and offline.

Today, Ms. Gunn leads a dynamic and growing business unit within Vision Critical, specializing in community strategy and management. In addition to a multitude of things including overall profits, Julie is responsible for employee retention, development of new offers, organic growth, all of which require innovative thinking and approaches if you want to get results. To encourage innovation and generate valuable ideas for Vision Critical's customers, Julie developed an initiative within the Customer Success team called the "Innovation Circle".

She is involved in a number of other initiatives that span across the organization pertaining to customer feedback on product, adoption of CRM systems, thought leadership, and marketing and customer experience initiatives such as the annual Vision Critical client summit in NYC.

At YWiB Vancouver's Beyond the Glass Ceiling panel event this Thursday, September 17th, come hear Ms. Gunn’s thoughts on being innovative from the point of view of an international and renowned organization that roots itself in innovation.

Check out:

https://www.visioncritical.com/

Julie Gunn on LinkedIn

#YWiBbtgc: Meet Lisa von Sturmer

Beyond the Glass Ceiling panel event is back again, and this year’s theme focuses on Women and Innovation. We sit with top tier panelists from Vancouver who live and breathe innovation. Who are these incredible businesswomen? Today, we’re pleased to introduce you to…

Lisa von Sturmer

Founder & CEO of Growing City

Ms. Von Sturmer is an entrepreneur from Vancouver who founded an urban composting company.

With a backdrop as stunning as Vancouver’s, it’s tough not to be conscious of our impact on the environment. The City of Vancouver has ambitious green goals and we Vancouverites love our community gardens, green rooftops, and widespread public recycling. Some residences have begun composting, but in other environments outside single-family homes, where people can collect and use their own composting in the garden, the process is more difficult.

Seeing an opportunity and being passionate about bettering her community, Ms. Von Sturmer founded Growing City to make composting a cinch for apartment buildings and residences, commercial buildings, and restaurants. She even pitched her concept on CBC’s Dragons’ Den.

Growing City customers receive a vestibule to collect their waste, the building’s employees or residents are educated on what can go into their bins, and away they go! Once full, a Growing City team member returns to remove the waste and clean the bins to prevent odour. A full-service company making composting effortlessly simple. As a result, they help clients reduce their waste by up to 40% or more!

An important part in retaining customers is educating and exciting them about composting and its positive impact, Growing City provides progress reports to show clients how much they’ve composted and what that means in terms of methane, CO₂, and monetary savings. They even make playful comparisons like the number of household items or Justin Biebers that it equates to in weight! Through this, Growing City keeps clients engaged and feeling good about their efforts.

Ms. Von Sturmer has presented on CBC’s Dragons’ Den, presented a TedxTalk on social entrepreneurship, is the current Canadian Global Ambassador for International Women's Entrepreneurship Day, and is an active advocate for youth entrepreneurship.

Come hear Lisa von Sturmer by grabbing a ticket to Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Women & Innovation, where she will share her perspective on innovation and how that secret ingredient landed her where she is today.

Watch her interview on Shaw's program, the Rush, where she talks about her Dragon experience and her jump into composting!

#YWiBbtgc: Meet Joanna Buczkowska-McCumber

Beyond the Glass Ceiling panel event is back again, and this year’s theme focuses on Women and Innovation. We sit with top tier panelists from Vancouver who have live and breathe innovation. Who are these incredible businesswomen? Today, we’re pleased to introduce you to…

 

Joanna Buczkowska-McCumber

Managing Director of The Next Big Thing

Ms. Buczkowska-McCumber is an accomplished social innovation and business strategist with a strong passion in creating social change through entrepreneurship. Her philosophy is that business should not only provide economic value, but also create social and environmental value.

As the Managing Director of the non-profit foundation, The Next Big Thing (TNBT), she steers the ship in advancing the next generation of entrepreneurs. Ms. Buczkowska-McCumber comes across many entrepreneurs with innovative concepts in her role and has insight into how important a quality that is when it comes to starting a company that thrives.

Indeed, TNBT, itself, is innovative. Offering the nation with a rule-breaking fellowship program, TNBT breaks against traditional methods of teaching to get tomorrow's most promising entrepreneurs into the business world. Through this unconventional approach, they empower young entrepreneurs to succeed with resources, hands-on experience, and a network of driven like-minded and renowned innovators.

In 2014, TNBT helped accelerate 10 youth-founded startups. Prior to her involvement at TNBT, Ms. Buczkowska-McCumber was a founding member of the Centre for Social Innovation & Impact Investing at UBC's Sauder School of Business, and co-creator of the award-winning Coast Capital Savings Innovation Hub, a program that 'propels social change through innovation and entrpreneurship.'

Needless to say, innovative has been the air that Ms. Buczkowska-McCumber breathes, and we are so excited to hear from her at Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Women & Innovation!