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Learn how Elle AyoubZadeh operates a local business with global vision and mission

Elle AyoubZadeh is Zvelle Founder and Creative Director. Elle is a bold, ambitious Canadian entrepreneur, and a woman of colour who has founded a local business with a global mission and vision. She has had the grit to persevere in the finance industry as a woman and visible minority, and later dive into the world of entrepreneurship challenging us to rethink how fashion should portray female beauty and achievement. Zvelle has enjoyed commercial success and Zvelle’s shoes have been spotted on public figures from Sophie Trudeau to Bella Hadid.

This year Minister Chrystia Freeland purchased Zvelle shoes to wear to budget day. Read more at Toronto Star.


Stay subscribed and hit the bell icon to be notified of our upcoming podcast with Commissioner Matthew Boswell of the Competition Bureau.

Hear about competition and marketing rules every business should know.

Click here to learn more about creating an effective compliance program.


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Fix a problem and sell the solution

Gregory Rozdeba is advisor and co-founder of a Canadian fintech/insurtech startup, Dundas Life. Previously, he served as Director of Sales at another fintech firm where he took the company from no product to raising over $7M+ in funding and building out their sales team. He started budgeting at age 15 and has coached dozens of clients on saving, investing, & smart money tips. In his spare time, Gregory enjoys traveling (30+ countries), cycling, & has taken up an in-depth study of Ancient Rome.


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Masters of unscripted television content

Two decades ago, MarbleMedia forged into the scripted television space, when there was a plethora of Canadian content being produced and acquired, with grants accessible to help further produce and sell Canadian content.

“What we learned early on, and it’s a simple business practice, but is really to surround ourselves with people that are smarter than us in certain areas.” Mark Bishop.

“There’s such a rich a personal fulfillment and richness and being able to do what you want to do for a living.” Matt Hornburg.

Mark Bishop and Matt Hornburg, Co-CEO’s of MarbleMedia started up twenty years ago. Now, with Canadian TV deals being a fraction of what they used to be. Marblemedia has had to pivot and had been onboarding international partners in order to get their content made. In this shift, they have also expanded their repertoire of productions and have quickly become masters of unscripted television content, with global smash hits like Netflix’s glass blowing competition Blown Away, and restaurant makeover TV series, Restaurants on the Edge.

Matt Hornburg is Co-CEO/ Partner and Executive Producer at MarbleMedia. In addition to the strategic direction across the company, Matt leads creative development and production for the company’s original TV and Interactive divisions, including its most recent push into primetime with the launch of new scripted and unscripted division,

Mark Bishop is Co-CEO and Partner at MarbleMedia. An accomplished entrepreneur, brand-builder and trusted media industry advocate, Mark, alongside co-founder Matt Hornburg, has grown MarbleMedia into one of Canada’s leading independent production, distribution and digital media companies.

Manifesting your vision by connecting with your soul

Zarina Chopra is a Tao Soul Healer and Transformational Coach for rising female leaders who are ready to clear their karma, connect to the power of their Soul, and manifest like a Queen. As a certified Tao practitioner with the Tao Academy, and certified Theta Healer, Reiki Practitioner & Kambo Practitioner. Zarina combines her intuitive spiritual mentoring with her years of energy work and esoteric studies to provide a full spectrum of healing, transformation and manifesting mastery to her clients. Zarina is the founder and curator of the 6-month immersion program “Quantum Queen Rising“. She spends her time mostly enjoying nature, playing games with her family and beloved partner, and is the lover of all things sparkly!


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Solving the pain point of sales-based compensation

Nabeil Alazzam, is CEO and founder of Forma.ai, a Toronto-based company striving to solve the massively under-appreciated pain point of sales-based compensation. Currently the systems for calculating and awarding sales-based compensation are clunky, unwieldy and often manual, creating a lot of work for operations teams and sales professionals. Nabeil identified that automation could solve this problem, and built a system (aka Forma.ai) that is able to take the many unique compensation problems that sales organizations face and create unified solutions that save time, money, and mental health for their customers.

Nabeil can speak to the above and more on the podcast Building a solution that works: How Forma.ai has experienced over 2000% revenue growth since 2016. The overlooked market of sales compensation and how Forma.ai is streamlining the process for over $1.5 billion commissions per year.


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Sustainability and the workplace with Melanie Chin

Melanie Chin is the Brand & Community Manager for CIBC SQUARE, Toronto’s new international standard of community, providing an elevated environment for all to thrive through work, wellness and sustainability. Chin leads the marketing, communications, branding and programming direction for the development. Prior to joining Hines and the CIBC SQUARE team, Chin worked at Midway in Houston, TX, a real estate investment, development and management firm, as a Senior Marketing Coordinator managing the marketing programs for multiple developments. Throughout the years, Chin has worked with a number of global brands such as Kia, Nike, the NFL, and the Houston Rockets to create unique experiences. Melanie holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies from Wilfrid Laurier University.


Entrepreneurs are the backbone of Canada’s economy. To support Canada’s businesses, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on FacebookInstagramLinkedIn and Twitter.

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Putting a Human Face on Tech with Faye Pang

Faye Pang is the Canada Country Manager for Xero, the global small business platform with more than 2.7 million subscribers worldwide that’s dedicated to making business beautiful. Faye brings nearly 15 years of experience building businesses from the ground up. Prior to joining Xero, Faye helped launch Uber Freight into the Canadian market. She also helped launch the Uber Eats app in Toronto in December 2015, scaling the business from 80 restaurants on launch day to 20,000 partners by the end of her tenure.

As a leader, Faye prioritizes growth above all else, and practices authenticity, transparency, and empathy in the way she manages her team. She strongly believes that we all have a set of values that we have to live by at all times (rather than keeping our work and personal lives separate), and keeps this consideration top-of-mind when championing her team’s growth, both personally and professionally. She is passionate about creating systems that lift women up, while tackling the hierarchical barriers that have disproportionately affected women in the workplace.


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How The PIVOT Project Helps Canadian SMEs Future Proof Their Business for a Changing World

Led out of McGill University, The PIVOT Project is an action research project that uses social media to bring small business owners across Canada together to share their climate action goals, struggles and achievements and shift Canadian perspectives on our country’s green future.

We will be interviewing PIVOT participants over the next few months. We love this kind of initiative. In this interview we talk with Drior Etcion an Associate Professor at McGill and one of the drivers of the initiative.

PIVOT is an action-research project that amplifies the action of small business owners across Canada as they transition to the low-carbon economy. PIVOT harnesses the power of stories to document the growing movement of SMEs that are future-proofing their businesses and setting themselves up for success in a changing world.

PIVOT is spearheaded by the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill but is collaborating with many other departments including biology, informational science as well as external stakeholders like the National Film Board of Canada The project is funded by the McGill Sustainability Systems Initiative.


Entrepreneurs are the backbone of Canada’s economy. To support Canada’s businesses, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on FacebookInstagramLinkedIn and Twitter.

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Learn why resilience is important for entrepreneurs

In over 20 years running a Canadian software company, Alykhan Jetha (AJ) has weathered a lot of storms – from the dot-com bust, to 9-11’s blow to business confidence, right up to the sales hit of the Covid-19 pandemic. But the biggest threat he’s ever seen to his business, is how his pipeline for software engineers has utterly dried up. See this recent Financial Post story that quoted AJ at https://bit.ly/3m36bV0 and https://bit.ly/3s1kLjn

AJ is CEO of Marketcircle Inc., the Markham, ON-based developer of award-winning Daylite CRM for Mac-based small business of 1-100 people. Daylite powers small business teams to handle more clients, close more deals, and execute more projects.


Entrepreneurs are the backbone of Canada’s economy. To support Canada’s businesses, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on FacebookInstagramLinkedIn and Twitter.

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Adapt your business for each province‘s culture

Ritou Maloni is the Co-Founder, President and COO of Pür & Simple, a proudly Canadian-owned breakfast and lunch franchise. Originally founded in Quebec in 2016, Pür & Simple has become one of Canada’s fastest growing breakfast chains with more than 20 locations from the Maritimes to British Columbia. Ritou is driven by a passion for hospitality that has allowed her and her team to successfully reinvent breakfast, bringing affordable luxury to diners from coast to coast.

Growing up in a very entrepreneurial family herself, Ritou has always been eager to run her own business. A dynamic leader, Ritou’s charismatic nature and genuine interest in the success of everyone around her have allowed her to excel in business development and in providing an intuitive support system for her franchise partners.

Ritou has maintained hands-on involvement in opening every Pür & Simple location over the years. She has trained both franchise partners and front/back of house staff firsthand, while finding balance as a parent to also be hands-on in her family life. For Ritou, finding balance and setting an example as a strong female entrepreneur has been about understanding the ebbs and flows of both her personal and professional life. Equally important to her success has been having a support system in place that has allowed her to prioritize each aspect based on where her focus was most needed at any given point in time. Ritou credits her business partner, her family and the Pür & Simple team with the success of the business and encourages her franchise partners to find their own definition of success.

Ritou holds a BAC in marketing from Concordia University and has more than a decade of entrepreneurial experience from a variety of business ventures. She currently resides in Montreal, QC.


The Silicon Valley Bank team in Canada can help you take your next step. Find out more about the bank that has nearly 40 years of global experience supporting venture-backed tech and life science companies and their investors. We’re in Canada to help leading innovators reach the next stage, faster. Visit www.svb.com/canada/connect. Silicon Valley bank, helping you move your bold ideas forward, fast.

Entrepreneurs are the backbone of Canada’s economy. To support Canada’s businesses, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on FacebookInstagramLinkedIn and Twitter.

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