Business

Bringing Latin-inspired cuisine to Edmonton

Hifa Maleki specializes in fast-paced strategic planning for aggressive growth models and is known for building, scaling, and executing brand and business systems/best practices to support strategic, successful and sustainable growth.

For the last 13+ years, she has been incredibly active and relentlessly committed to building and growing great franchise brands in Canada. She has driven unparalleled growth across Canada through effective Strategic Growth Planning which includes impacting high-level achievement in both Franchise and Unit Level Sales. She has been directly responsible for the growth of Orangetheory Fitness in Canada, building over 110 locations within 4 years while ensuring that quality and company values were being retained and delivered through each location. She believes in working with talented people, training, developing, and coaching them to drive the success of the companies she works with. She feels very strongly that the success of a brand is highly connected to the people behind it at corporate and the people in front of it, the staff. Her approach to successful business development is to appropriately and carefully select great people, select great real estate, and work very hard to protect the brand promise for the consumers.

Hifa is currently an owner and managing partner at El Corazon, El Beso and Pablo Cocktail Lounge. For El Corazon, as a new brand, she built all the systems, processes, training, and resources to ensure the business was set up for success operationally and supports managing the operations with the current management team. Hifa is also incredibly experienced with cocktail and menu development, working closely with her business partner and the Chef to ensure that all brands in this group’s portfolio are aligned with the respective brands while maintaining profitable cost control thresholds.

Prior to Orangetheory Fitness, she was in the hospitality industry in senior-level positions for over 12+ years. Operating one the busiest Joey Restaurant in Canada with over $11M annual revenue then joining the Famoso Neapolitan Pizza brand and supporting its growth of over 40+ locations within her 4 years with the company.


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Inspiring Future Leaders

Colby Delorme is one of the founding creators of Influence Mentoring Society, and was appointed Chairperson of the IMS’ Board of Directors in December 2020. With over 26 years of experience in business and as an entrepreneur, Mr. Delorme has built multiple businesses and is currently the President of the Imagination Group of Companies. Mr. Delorme’s experience has spanned the construction industry, brand development and marketing, a certification practice, franchise development, tobacco manufacturing, and business consulting. Mr. Delorme is also a celebrated industry leader; in 2010, he was inducted into the Calgary Top 40 Under 40 and won the Big Idea 2. In 2014, Mr. Delorme was the recipient of the Dr. Douglas Cardinal Award from the University of Calgary. Colby Delorme has a long and varied career in Not-For-Profit and Corporate governance, sitting on many boards over the past 15 years. Mr. Delorme holds an Institute of Corporate Directors Designation from the Rotman School of Management and was recently awarded the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee award in Alberta. Colby is passionate about creating new and sustainable opportunities in business and for Indigenous peoples.


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How to make payment processing easy!

Hamed Arbabi is the CEO and Founder of the Vancouver-based payments company, VoPay, and is recognized as an innovative thought leader in the fintech industry. Known for his drive to innovate and change how firms conduct business, Hamed has used his expertise to turn VoPay into a dominant force in the world of financial technology.

A serial entrepreneur, Hamed has successfully built and grown multiple startups and leveraged his knowledge of business expansion to develop them into successful, disruptive ventures. With over fifteen years of executive-level experience in spearheading comprehensive strategies and business developments, Hamed has a proven track record and an in-depth knowledge of the global financial industry.

Hamed’s overall vision for VoPay revolves around innovation and digital transformation. What began as a simple idea ultimately founded the pillars of his venture: that financial services should be easy, affordable and accessible to all.

Committed to his community, and dedicated to giving back, Hamed has founded and supported multiple non-profit organizations that focus on helping children access technology. He firmly believes that given the right educational tools, young people can expand their skills and take control of their futures by opening doors to new opportunities.


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Pour l’amour des sols et la culture régénératrice, découvrez cet artiste désigner de la biodiversité

Depuis 2007, Sébastien Angers pratique l’agriculture de conservation biologique sur sa ferme à Ste-Monique de Nicolet . Il est propriétaire de la Ferme de l’Odyssée.

Agronome de formation, sa passion profonde a toujours été d’optimiser le potentiel de la santé des sols. Il cherche à minimiser ses interventions et ainsi aider la terre à retrouver sa biodiversité naturelle. Pour se faire, il a su miser sur des designs culturaux novateurs, redéfinissant ainsi le visage de l’agriculture au Québec. C’est un peu comme si on faisait de la permaculture à grande échelle.

En usant d’ingéniosité, il a su trouver et adapter des équipements spécialisés lui permettant de tester un maximum de cultures de couverture différentes, et ainsi, maximiser le potentiel de synergies des plantes.

Curieux et créatif, son laboratoire à ciel ouvert lui permet d’être l’artiste accomplie qu’il est aujourd’hui.


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The Importance of Customer Success with Pierce Ujjainwalla

Pierce Ujjainwalla is a career marketer who has lived in the marketing trenches at companies like IBM, SAP, NVIDIA, and Marketo. He launched Knak in 2015 as a platform designed to help Marketers simplify email creation. He is also the founder of Revenue Pulse, a marketing operations consultancy.


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Set clear goals and create actions to support your goals

Ashlee Livingstone is the Chief Engagement Officer of Our Forte. She’s been working with leaders in the community for years to help them refocus on their mission, balance their priorities and learn the skills it takes to overcome the hurdles that are holding them back. She works off of the four pillars; engagement, development, gratitude and experience to build team connections and successful leaders.


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Ending plastic pollution while bringing to the world pristine Canadian spring water

Saawan Logan was the youngest of 3 siblings was born in Fiji and moved to Canada from Australia. She is the woman who makes it all happen. She turns dreams into reality, with persistence, drive and her supercharged energy. Her sense of adventure spans globally for both work and leisure. She has worked across Asia Pacific, Australia and more recently, Canada. In her travels, the only thing she never came across was Canadian water on international shelves. After spending the majority of her career in oil and gas she ventured into entrepreneurship and started North Water. North Water is a pledge to end plastic pollution while bringing to the world pristine, Canadian spring water.

North Water went operational in 2020 and has since expanded its distribution network across Canada. North Water is sourced from the Canadian Rockies and is naturally high in alkaline. North Water is currently carried in 5-star hotels, private jets, major retailers like Whole Foods Canada and more recently on movie production sets. The company is ready to expand overseas where it can showcase the great-tasting water Canada has to offer.

Amongst Saawan’s many favourite things to do, spending time in nature, travelling, and cooking top the charts. Saawan is involved in the community and is always looking at taking on volunteer initiatives where she can make a difference. She believes in hearing everyone out and providing meaningful opportunities for everyone.


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Using technology to improve the quality of life for pets, pet parents, and veterinary professionals globally

Mark Bordo is the co-founder and CEO of Toronto-based Vetster, a telemedicine service for pets. Taking his 20-plus years of experience as a tech entrepreneur and his own personal experience as a dog owner, Mark has developed a unique platform that is improving the quality of life for pets, pet parents, and veterinary professionals globally.


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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Moving should be an adventure, not a chore

Addison Parfeniuk is the CEO of Two Small Men with Big Hearts Moving, Canada’s most recognized moving brand. Two Small Men is a leading provider of professional residential and commercial moving services in Canada and is an industry leader in giving back to the communities where they operate. Addison is passionate about giving back, and under his direction, Two Small Men has partnered with community organizations across Canada that support some of the country’s most vulnerable individuals.


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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The dangers of ransomware and ways to mitigate the risk

Today ransomware is becoming a massive problem for everyone, so we thought we would do a special feature on ransomware in business – the dangers and some ways to mitigate the risk.

It’s a difficult subject. Not surprisingly in the past 5 years there has been a renewed focus on how to overcome a problem that costs enterprises billions of dollars – and allows secrets to seep out. Today, we talk to Ed Dubrovsky, COO and Managing Partner at CYPFER. Ed has a tremendous knowledge base and for almost 30 years Ed Dubrovsky’s name has been synonymous with information security. He gives us some insightful thoughts on ransomware and how it is costing organizations billions of dollars. And he also has some suggestions on how to mitigate it.

Ed is a seasoned entrepreneur, executive & technical leader with over 29 years of experience building and growing technology companies with a deep technical acumen. Experience in managing over 4700 security incidents including ransomware, business email compromise, malicious insiders, extortion, executive protection, threat intelligence, and prevention/mitigation of risk associated to cyber-attacks.

He has deep experience in helping companies across all industries including military, defense, public and private sectors recover from cyber-attacks.

Ed has a keen interest in technology & cyber-security leadership, managing business growth under challenging conditions and constant change. Holder of Canadian secret II clearance.


This is a sponsored podcast by FileFlex, The #1 Zero Trust Data Access platform for Windows.

FileFlex manages the chaos of unstructured data and minimizes ransomware.

Learn more at https://fileflex.com/


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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