Darlene Gering,
President, Burnaby Organizing Committee, 2012 B.C. Seniors Games
What’s on your professional bucket list?
I’ve recently been in discussions with some people about establishing a social innovation centre in the Lower Mainland. Social innovation is taking a different approach, a more entrepreneurial approach, to our tough social issues. A social innovation centre would be somewhere where entrepreneurs could come together to talk about what policy changes we need at the government level to facilitate this change.
If you could meet any
business person, who would it be?
Muhammad Yunus. He’s sort of an inspiration for me in terms of social innovation. He started the whole micro-credit bank and advocates really innovatively looking at how to deal with our social problems and make a business out of it.
What would you
ask him?
I would ask him what he would recommend to business people – what we can do to address the social issues we face in the world.
Rick Antonson
, President & CEO, Tourism Vancouver
What’s on your professional
bucket list?
We want to take some meaningful steps toward Vancouver being a “world city” by the year 2020. The world needs places to gather, and Vancouver should be one of them. An important step toward that is having a tourism master plan for Vancouver.
If you could meet any business person, who would it be?
Tony La Russa, the just-retired manager of the World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals. He has been able to refresh and refashion team after team to do remarkable things. I think his ability to deliver the big win against quite strong odds is inspiring.
What would you
ask him?
I think from a business point of view I would probably ask him about how he kept it all together when things looked unwinnable – how he overcame the adversity and beat the odds.
Dave Brownlie
, President & COO, Whistler Blackcomb Holdings Inc.
What is on your professional bucket list?
I would like to see the build-out of Whistler Blackcomb to its full potential in both winter and summer, and ultimately be recognized as a great Canadian company that offers a great place for people to come and play, a great place to work and a great place to invest.
If you could meet any business person, who would
it be?
Richard Branson. He’s a big brand guy, builds lots of excitement and always tries to deliver that next experience. I’d also look to Howard Schultz and Starbucks and how they continue to deliver this unique experience that allows them to have stores on every corner.
What would you ask them?
How do they generate their most successful ideas to change and improve their business? In today’s volatile economic environment I’d also ask how much time they spend delivering today versus how much time they spend developing for the future.
Kathleen Bartels, Director, Vancouver Art Gallery
What is on your professional bucket list?
Of course we have our eye on confirming our new site and working through that process with the city so we can move forward with our big goal to build a new Vancouver Art Gallery. That is always front and centre. It’s something we’ve been working on for six or seven years and we’re very excited to finish the process.
If you could meet any business person, who would it be?
Bill Gates. I think that would be extraordinarily exciting. What he’s done in the technology world has been just phenomenal, and probably more exciting for me is his extraordinary philanthropy.
What would you ask him?
What will the world be like, from a technology perspective, 20 or 30 years from now? I’m wondering what will be that next take-the-man-to-the-moon initiative. I think if anyone has an insight into that, it might be him.
Ryan Holmes
, CEO, HootSuite Media Inc.
What is on your professional bucket list?
I want to build a billion-dollar company and take it to an IPO exit, enable the financial independence of 50 people around me and build something disruptive, like how Netflix disrupted the traditional movie rental industry or how Apple rewrote music.
If you could meet any business person, who would it be?
I’ve met Richard Branson, and am very happy about that. I missed Steve Jobs, and am very
sad about that. I would love to meet with George Soros.
What would you ask him?
I’d love to know about his early days. I am fascinated with the DNA of entrepreneurs.
John Neate
, CEO, JJ Bean Inc.
What’s on your
professional bucket list?
Continued growth. We’re looking to open probably two stores this year, one more downtown store and one in the Cambie-Broadway area. They’re two pretty solid locations, and you really have to get the neighbourhood right to get the right business.
If you could meet any business person, who would it be?
I’ve always respected Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks as it is today. He’s a very gracious human being. I’ve talked to him once on a phone interview and I’d love to meet him person-to-person.
What would you
ask him?
Howard Schultz has a philosophy of creating a space for people to interact outside of the home or business. It’s something I take very seriously in terms of what we try to do at JJ Bean. We try to create that place for meeting, and dating and for interaction with people. So I’d like to talk to him about that.
Kyle Vucko
, CEO and co-founder, Indochino Apparel Inc.
What’s on your
professional
bucket list?
I want to travel a lot less, ironically. Right now I spend about a third of my time in China, whereas I’d like to have a meaningful enough team here in Vancouver that I can spend all of my time here.
If you could meet
any business person, who would it be?
I’ve got a lot of respect for a guy named Mickey Drexler, the CEO of J.Crew in the U.S. He’s considered to be the “merchant prince,” as they call him, and is thought to be one of the best in retail.
What would you
ask him?
I would love to get his take on our business because we’ve got this unique mix. We’re innovative and we’re unique, with the combination of online and offline. So I’d like to ask him, “How would you make our business successful?”
Shahrzad Rafati
, Founder & CEO,
BroadbandTV Corp.
What is on your professional bucket list?
The most important would be to find entrepreneurs and causes that I believe in and help them succeed. One of the main reasons BroadbandTV is successful is because of the help of our first investor, so I know how valuable that is. I also want to focus more of my time and energy on making a really big positive social impact. Another one would be to partner with Apple Computers.
If you could meet any business person, who would it be?
If it was any living business person I would say Warren Buffett, but if it was any business person ever, I would say Steve Jobs.
What would you ask them?
They’re both so incredible at
seeing and understanding value where everyone else couldn’t. How are they able to clearly focus on that value and block out all the noise? They have a remarkable ability
to find that opportunity, even when the whole world is going through turbulence.
Chris Obst, Principle, Jump Management Coaching
What’s on your professional bucket list?
I would love to have a TV show. You know how Gordon Ramsay goes in and saves people from themselves on Kitchen Nightmares? I’ve worked with a lot of leaders who, if someone would hold up a mirror to them, or their staff had the courage to give them feedback, they’d do a lot of things differently. What a great TV show, to have me come in and work with these leaders.
If you could meet any business person, who would it be?
Oprah, because she positively impacts the lives of so many people without actually meeting them.
What would you ask her?
I would like to ask her about her vision for her life and career and how it evolved, and if she ever got comfortable with her own power.
Sean Heather
, Founder, Heather Hospitality Group
What is on your professional bucket list?
I’d like to stop opening new businesses and actually look at ways to make my existing businesses leaner and meaner. In the near term, though, we are looking at rolling out Salt across the country and I would expect to see two more Salt restaurants opening this year.
If you could meet any businessperson, who would it be?
Richard Branson. He has been my idol forever. That’s on the business front; on the food front it would be Alice Waters of Chez Panisse down in Berkeley. She single-handedly took Americans off the path of the French nouveau cuisine and set them in the direction of locally grown product.
What would you ask them?
I’d ask them what is it that made them get it. How did they get through when all else seems to be failing and you’re throwing up your hands? There’s a reason that people like them push on and become successful.
Julio Montaner
, Director, B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS
What is on your professional bucket list?
My number-one priority would be to see that every British Columbian has an HIV test and if tested positive, be referred to corrective care. If we were to do that we would be that much farther in our ability to be the first jurisdiction in the world that could control HIV altogether.
If you could meet any business person, who would it be?
I would meet with the senior business community in Vancouver and British Columbia. I think that the business community has a tremendous amount of expertise to provide and they could actually become the spokespeople for what we are trying to do.
What would you ask them?
I would ask them for advice on how they manage to impose their products in the marketplace. “How have you been able to do that? And secondly, can you help me to do the same thing for this, which is such a noble cause?”
Glenn Fawcett
, President, Black Hills Estate Winery
What’s on your professional bucket list?
I would love to see a wine from the Okanagan get 100 points on Wine Spectator. Whenever a region’s winery gets a 99-point or a 100-point rating, the tide changes and the region becomes a go-to destination for world wine tourists. We’d love it if Black Hills got it, but even if someone else in the Okanagan was to score a 100-pointer I think it’d be phenomenal.
If you could meet any business person, who would it be?
Francis Ford Coppola. Not only is he successful in his own field, he’s also successful with his winery in Napa Valley. I think that he brings such an original approach toward winery and wine tourism.
What would you ask him?
A multitude of questions! But the first would be, “Would you like you to come to the Okanagan as our guest?” And then after plying him with some of our B.C. wine, I’m sure the ideas would just flow forth from there. 
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