calgary
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Inside Calgary's $20 Million Bet on a Billion-Dollar Year
Calgary Economic Development spent C$19.95 million in 2025 to make the city easier to choose. Its product is not a building or an app - it is the well-timed introduction that turns a spreadsheet into a site visit, a hire or an export deal.
Platform Calgary gives startup ambition a street address
Inside a downtown innovation centre, Calgary is putting founders, mentors and investors within walking distance. The harder job is turning those introductions into paying customers.
Darcy Zhang Is Betting on the Signal Before the Drone
A commerce graduate and former infanteer is building Greypoint Industries around a severe test: would he trust the hardware with his own life?
Damon Ockey Designs for the Long Run
A second-generation homebuilder with an industrial designer's eye, Damon Ockey has spent decades turning attention into something tangible - homes, community spaces, accessible details and laps that raise money for children.
Fred Edwards Built a Career in the Work Everyone Notices Only When It Stops
For more than four decades, Fred Edwards has worked in the business behind working buildings. His route from long shifts in Calgary to GDI's executive ranks reveals a practical idea of leadership: build the operation, strengthen the network, then open a door for whoever comes next.
Jocelyn Da Silva Came Home With a Marketer’s Eye for What Makes Trust Stick
After nearly a decade building brands in Perth, Jocelyn Da Silva returned to Calgary and entered the new-home warranty business. Her career offers a practical lesson in making complex services feel clear, useful and human.
Rosanne Goetz and the Quiet Architecture of Being Heard
For a decade at The Mustard Seed, Rosanne Goetz has worked where attention, trust and practical help meet. Her career offers a grounded lesson in nonprofit marketing: the story matters because someone is waiting on the other side of it.
Gregory Feniak Is Making the Credit Card Feel Local Again
The Calgary payments executive has spent two decades turning back-office complexity into products credit-union members can actually use. His latest chapter carries the same collaborative instinct from the card network into the community.
The 50-Year-Old Warranty Program Selling Alberta Builders Something Pricier Than Insurance: Trust
A voluntary builder pact became part insurer, part referee and part trade school. Its most useful product may be the feedback loop that catches expensive construction problems before they multiply.
Bennett Jones Built a 104-Year Moat Where Canada Gets Complicated
The Calgary-born firm turned resource-law fluency into a national business platform. Its most useful lesson is not to offer everything - it is to earn one difficult wedge, then follow clients into every adjacent problem.
The Teachers Who Bet $25,000 on One House - Then Built a 20,000-Home Machine
Cardel Homes survived Calgary's dollar-house recession by learning when to specialize, when to spread out and when to own more of the customer journey. Its 50-year playbook is useful far beyond homebuilding.
ATCO’s 15-Trailer Playbook for Building What Everyone Needs - and Surviving What Breaks
ATCO grew from 15 utility trailers into a C$28 billion-asset group by pairing dependable networks with buildings that can move. Its next test is whether that same portfolio logic can absorb grid bottlenecks, policy uncertainty and a C$2.9 billion pipeline bet.
The Startup That Turns Factory Exhaust Into a Power Plant - and Bills Nobody For It
Up to 58% of the energy fed into heavy industry escapes as waste heat. Kanin Energy built a business model that catches it, converts it to power, and hands the factory a check instead of an invoice.
The Airline That Started With Three Planes and a Grudge Against Airfare
It began in 1996 with three secondhand jets and a plan to undercut everyone. Today WestJet carries millions of Canadians a year - and it is still arguing that cheap seats and warm service do not have to be a contradiction.
Vicki Knott
Vicki Knott is the CEO and co-founder of CruxOCM, a Calgary-based industrial autonomy software company building AI-powered automation for oil and gas control rooms. A chemical engineer (P.Eng.) who started on the plant floor and trained as a pipeline control room operator at TransCanada, she left in 2017 to co-found CruxOCM with Roger Shirt. Her company's RIPA (Robotic Industrial Process Automation) technology automates the manual, high-stakes work of pipeline operators, and raised a $17M Series A led by Microsoft's M12 venture fund in 2024.
John Marshall
John Marshall is the President and CEO of Userful, the software company that swapped racks of proprietary AV hardware for a browser and a network cable. Named CEO in October 2018, he pivoted a video-wall vendor into a software-defined platform for enterprise-wide operational awareness, the Userful Infinity Platform, now used by hundreds of enterprises across control rooms, command centers and digital signage. A Northwestern and University of Michigan graduate with 25-plus years leading wireless, IoT and networking startups, he ran Userful to 50% year-over-year enterprise sales growth in 2024 with 80% of revenue flowing through a global channel of roughly 100 partners. Off the clock he is a former backcountry guide and adventure racer turned birder.