Plumpton College in East Sussex, UK has strengthened its wine business and production teaching team with the appointment of Lindsay Holas (BCom'12) as wine business lecturer.
To this new role, Holas will bring extensive international marketing experience from her time working for Jascots Wine Merchant (UK), Domaine Select Wine Estates (USA), and Wine Intelligence (UK).
Knight Therapeutics has announced the resignation of its chief financial officer, as the company’s president and Desautels International Faculty Advisory Board member, Samira Sakhia (BCom’90, DPA’94, MBA’01), takes on the additional responsibility of CFO.
In doing so, Sakhia will leverage her 14 years of prior experience as CFO for Paladin Labs Inc.
In response to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) put forward by the United Nations, Unleash 2017 assembled youth from across all continents to Denmark for ten days of untethered ideation to help resolve some of the world’s most persistent issues.
Podcasts have become an integral part of people’s daily media browsing, and the Business of Fashion’s Founder and Editor-in Chief, Imran Amed (BCom'97), is set to expand into this influential platform.
The BoF podcasts will comprise new and archival conversations with a cast of designers, executives and other industry insiders whom Amed has spoken to since the blog’s inception in 2007. The six initial episodes are currently available for download, with new content to be featured weekly moving forward.
Desautels alumna and Global Expert, Monica Ruffo (BCom’86), has launched Well Told Health to respond to an alarming gap in the market for organic supplements that are made without any synthetic ingredients.
After considerable market research, which included partnering with a researcher at McGill University, Ruffo has crafted supplements that are Non-GMO Project certified, vegan, and free of synthetics, fillers and isolates.
In the age of technology with growing emphasis on sustainable living, many in the fashion world, including Desautels Global Expert, Imran Amed (BCom'97), have questioned the continued prevalence of paper fashion show invitations.
It turns out that wastage permeates every facet of the fashion industry, from excessive fabric waste spurred by fast fashion, to unsustainable product packing.
D. Jennifer Rhee (BCom’88, DPA’89) has been named Chief Financial Officer at Loop Industries, a manufacturer of environmentally responsible Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA) and Mono Ethylene Glycol (MEG). Ms. Rhee has over 25 years of finance, accounting, international tax and management experience, having worked, most recently, as a partner with Richter LLP since January 2007.
Alibaba hosted its Gateway’17 conference, which brought together an array of forward-looking retailers, along with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who commented on the healthy trade relationship between Canada and China.
Also in attendance was Aldo Group International’s Director of Business Development, Martina Gimenez-Comas (BCom’11) who shared that, while Aldo continues to expand into global markets, it recognises the importance of meeting business objectives, while also leaving room to dream.
Imran Amed (BCom'97) has been named to the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list for his contributions as CEO of The Business of Fashion, an online news site for the fashion industry. The list recognises people in the UK who have made significant contributions to society.
Founded in 2007, The Business of Fashion has since become one of the leading sources of news for the fashion world.
While looking into supplements as part of her treatment for breast cancer, Monica Ruffo (BCom’86) realized something was amiss. “I couldn’t actually understand what was written on the labels,” Ruffo says. Further research uncovered a lack of legal framework surrounding the use of the word “natural” in Canada and the U.S., and that most supplements labelled so are hardly natural at all. Even worse, the companies aren’t obligated to say where their ingredients are sourced.
David Levenson (BCom'96) has been nominated to the Board of Teekay Offshore Group as news of a completed comprehensive transaction with Brookfield Business Partners L.P. is also shared.
Mr. Levenson is a Managing Partner at Brookfield and oversees the company’s opportunistic credit initiatives, including the Brookfield Credit Opportunity Fund and Brookfield Private Credit. He has extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance and restructurings.
Light Reading reports that after leaving her position as Head of Ericsson North America, Rima Qureshi (BCom’87, MBA’96) has been hired as Verizon’s new Chief Strategy Officer. She will be working for CEO Lowell McAdam.
Qureshi has a deep understanding of the issues involved with running a successful tech company in today’s network-heavy reality: she started at Ericsson as a system analyst in 1993, before moving up through the ranks.
In an interview for Flare Magazine, Toronto-based Shereen Ladha (BCom’10) talks about finding success both as a brand strategist and as a busy Bollywood dancer in movies, Netflix shows, on Canada’s Got Talent and since 2014, on her own YouTube channel.
Ms Ladha says that the moment she realized that she could indeed balance her day job and her side hustle was when she left work late one night to go to a video shoot for which she’d hired dancers. She worked through the stress, and the video ended up going viral.
Nour Hadidi (BCom’10) is a comedian and TV writer who grew up in a family of doctors, earned a BCom, and spent a half-decade as a financial analyst before leaving Montreal for the comedy stages of Toronto.
In an interview with Flare Magazine, Ms Hadidi says that she got her big break in the form of an appearance on a CBC Radio special. That event led to other CBC appearances and gigs at comedy clubs.
Mark “Jappy” Gonzalez is thrilled to be included on BoF 500, the list of people moving and shaking the fashion industry. Mr Gonzalez says that being included on the list can only open doors, and maybe even “create a retail environment that evolves into Manila as a retail centre.” After nearly thirty years of experience in Philippine shopping, he knows just what the country needs. In 1995, he brought that knowledge to life in H&F Retail Concepts, which runs several stores known for impeccably curated product lines, as well as franchises for big-name labels.
