A new generation of leaders are redefining Canada: thinkers, artists, politicos and entrepreneurs forging a stronger, more resilient country. Here, in collaboration with our sister publication Canadian Business, we present 40 young powerhouses who are building new institutions and shaking up the old ones.

The Luminaries

The next generation of Canadians revolutionizing sports, fashion, movies and music

Spencer Badu | Fashion designer

The style star creating haute couture for men, women and everyone in between

Along with designers like Thom Browne, Harris Reed and Stella McCartney, Toronto-based Spencer Badu is revolutionizing post-gender high fashion. Badu founded his unisex, ready-to-wear label during his first year at university in 2015, specializing in avant-garde colour-blocked tees and wide-legged ripped denim that are as much art as they are fashion. He made his name through innovative brand partnerships: he’s created capsule collections for the Toronto Raptors and collaborated with Hoka on a redesign of the all-gender Elevon X sneaker. He describes his clothing as semi-autobiographical, borrowing influences from his own life, his Ghanaian culture and historical military uniforms. And he’s earned some celebrity fans: Kendrick Lamar wore his cropped denim jacket on an episode of Saturday Night Live, and he’s made custom pieces for A$AP Rocky. This year, he joined Project Runway Canada as a judge and was named menswear designer of the year by the Canadian Arts and Fashion Awards.

Celine Song | Filmmaker

For pioneering the romcom renaissance

This year, director Celine Song revived the romantic comedy with Materialists, which delighted audiences and critics with both its sensitive point of view (on class, capitalism and dating) and its painfully gorgeous love triangle (Dakota Johnson plus Pedro Pascal plus Chris Evans). She has a unique talent for elevating seemingly played-out plots into existential masterpieces: her 2023 debut feature, Past Lives, was an aching, tender reflection on childhood love and cultural alienation, and it earned her Oscar nods for both best original screenplay and best picture (she was the first Asian woman nominated in that category). Next up, she’s developing a sports drama series with HBO and continuing her romcom trajectory by writing the 28-years-later sequel to one of the all-time greats: My Best Friend’s Wedding.

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But Maclean’s is

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Mae Martin | Actor, comedian and podcaster

The stand-up who’s conquering Netflix and beyond

Everyone’s crushing on Toronto-born non-binary comedian Mae Martin, and in just about every medium. On Netflix, they’ve released both the sardonic stand-up special SAP and the coming-of-age drama Feel Good. On shelves, their YA book Can Everyone Please Calm Down is a guide to fluid 21st-century sexuality. And on Spotify, a search for “Mae Martin” serves up both their debut indie album, I’m a TV, and the Handsome podcast—which Martin hosts with fellow comics Tig Notaro and Fortune Feimster, and which just snagged Just For Laughs’ highest honour as Podcast of the Year. In their comedy, Martin draws on their Second City roots and inspiration from Kids in the Hall to endearingly overshare about their conventional upbringing and unconventional relationships.This month, they pull triple duty as star, showrunner and writer of Netflix’s Wayward, a comedic thriller about the troubled-teen industry, with a stacked cast that includes Toni Collette and Suits actor Patrick J. Adams. 

Victoria Mboko | Tennis player

The teenage phenom who bested Naomi Osaka

Canada’s top singles tennis player is 18-year-old Victoria Mboko, who kicked off the year winning 22 successive matches without dropping a set. Mboko, whose parents immigrated to Toronto from the Democratic Republic of the Congo via North Carolina, rocketed up the tennis charts on a wild-card entry to the 2025 National Bank Open in Montreal. There, with an injured wrist, she won the title, defeating four Grand Slam champions, including Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka (who was so shocked she accidentally snubbed the champion post-match and later apologized). She’s the second-youngest player to knock off this many champions to secure the title. (The first? Serena Williams.) After her victory, Mboko was ranked 24th globally—up from 333rd in January—and secured one of 32 seeds at the U.S. Open in August. 

Ruth B. | Musician

The TikTok sensation with a sense of social justice

Ruth B.—the stage name of Edmonton-born Ruth Behre—started out a decade ago posting on Vine between shifts of her part-time job at a local Marshalls. When one six-second clip got lots of digital attention, the aspiring songstress expanded it into the first song she ever wrote, the soulful earworm “Lost Boy,” which earned her two million YouTube views and a record deal with Columbia. In the decade since, Ruth B. has matured into a political force, using her platform to raise money for COVID relief and awareness for anti-Black racism via “If I Have a Son,” her song about racial injustice. More recently, her track “Dandelions” went viral on TikTok, and she ranked among the most popular Canadian artists on Spotify’s 2024 Wrapped, with an eye-popping 2.5 billion streams. 

François-Emmanuel Nicol | Chef, Tanière3

The avant-garde restaurateur raking in Michelin stars

Last year, when the Michelin guide came to Quebec—arguably Canada’s dining capital—only one restaurant received two elusive stars: Tanière3, hidden in the subterranean vaults of Quebec City that were built to fortify New France from attack in 1693. The immersive dining experience features a top-secret menu of 12 to 18 creations from chef-owner François-Emmanuel Nicol, who also happens to be the guy who campaigned for Michelin to cover Quebec. The 35-year-old chef spent a year in restaurants in France, Spain and Australia before returning to his home province. Nicol’s background is in science—the Michelin Guide described his kitchen as a “gastronomic restaurant laboratory”—and he applies his avant-garde techniques to sustainable, local ingredients like Gaspé tuna, Mi’kmaq-sourced scallops and sturgeon caviar.

Anna Lambe | Actor

For bringing Hollywood North way north

Hollywood North took on new meaning in 2025 with the arrival of North of North, the new comedy from APTN, CBC and Netflix filmed in Nunavut. Playing the lead role is Anna Lambe, the 24-year-old Inuk actress who, after a few short years and smaller roles in True Detective, Trickster and Three Pines, stepped into the spotlight as Canada’s biggest up-and-coming Inuk star. Lambe moves easily between dark, gritty dramas and lighthearted, Lucille Ball–esque physical comedy, then back again. Next year, her artistic pendulum swings again to the sombre with Heart of the Beast, where she stars alongside Brad Pitt.

Summer McIntosh | Swimmer

For splashing her way to glory

At 14, Summer McIntosh was the youngest member of Team Canada. Four years later, the Toronto-born swimming star holds world records for the 400-metre freestyle, 200-metre butterfly and the 400-metre individual medley—and a whole bunch more. McIntosh comes from an impressive family of athletes; her mother is a former Canadian Olympic swimmer, and her elder sister is a competitive figure skater. (Summer wanted to be one too, but she grew too tall.) After dominating the Paris Olympics, she recently nabbed four golds and a bronze at the world championships (making a grand total of 13 medals—the most of any Canadian in history). Now she’s finished up high school and is training in Austin, Texas, where she swims toward Los Angeles 2028.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander | Basketball player

The MVP as comfortable on the court as he is at the Met Gala

This year’s NBA Most Valuable Player? That would be the Canadian all-star known as SGA. In 2018, at the age of 20, he began his NBA career with the L.A. Clippers. The following year he was traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder, where he later signed a five-year, $172-million contract. This year, the six-foot-six point guard—with a six-foot-eleven wingspan—shot to superstardom: he took the Thunder to their first championship, led the league in scoring and signed a four-year, $285-million contract extension. He’s only the second Canadian in NBA history, after Steve Nash, to be named MVP. Like all the greats, SGA’s got the swagger and star appeal to secure celebrity status off-court. He was voted GQ’s most stylish man in 2022 and, the following year, showed up at the Met Gala in an oversized Thom Browne tweed suit, accessorized with a rope of pearls and black shades.

Maisy Stella | Actor and musician

The child star turned indie ingenue

Maisy Stella was already flirting with fame at eight years old, when she and her 12-year-old sister, Lennon, filmed a YouTube video covering Robyn’s “Call Your Girlfriend.” The clip went viral in 2012, landing both sisters starring roles on Nashville alongside Connie Britton. Unlike many child actors, however, the smaller Stella took a big step back to attend high school like a normal teenager. The choice paid off: it was her authenticity that impressed filmmaker Megan Park and earned her the lead in My Old Ass. For her performance as Elliot, who conjures her 39-year-old self into reality during a mushroom trip in Muskoka, Stella won an Independent Spirit Award for Best Breakthrough Performance and kickstarted a robust film career. At this year’s TIFF, she appeared in Maude Apatow’s directorial debut, Poetic License, and up next is Flowervale Street, a horror movie with Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor and dinosaurs. 

The Innovators

The scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs transforming Canada’s future

Dax Dasilva | CEO, Lightspeed

For dreaming up one of Canada’s billion-dollar businesses

Dax Dasilva has a flair for reinvention. Born in Vancouver, he taught himself to code at 12, founded point-of-sale company Lightspeed Commerce at 29, took it public in 2019 and grew it into a billion-dollar enterprise. Lightspeed provides small and medium-sized businesses with powerful, cloud-based e-commerce tools (like inventory management and customer data and insights) once reserved for large enterprises like Walmart and Amazon. In 2022, Dasilva vacated the CEO chair to get in touch with his creative side—and wasted no time. He founded an environmental non-profit in Montreal, produced the Emmy-winning film Wildcat and partnered with Jane Goodall for an environmental activism project to preserve ancestral lands in the Brazilian Amazon. In 2024, he returned to the CEO chair at Lightspeed. His first move: betting on himself by announcing a $400-million share buyback.

Alex Deslauriers | CEO and co-founder, Fireswarm

The aerospace engineer fighting fire with drones

When Alex Deslauriers lost his home to the 2023 Gun Lake fire in B.C., he didn’t just rebuild—he went on the offensive. A veteran aerospace engineer and certified pilot who worked on F-18 programs with the U.S. Navy, Deslauriers founded FireSwarm, a Squamish-based startup building autonomous drones to fight wildfires; think Top Gun meets Smokey Bear. His drones, which are currently in testing, will douse flames, protect homes and save governments a fortune in damage control with AI-driven logistics. Already, they can collect water from nearby sources, carry up to 400 kilograms of fire retardants and deploy them in concert with other drones to coordinate firefighting efforts. Even while hastily redesigning disaster response from the sky, Deslauriers still carves out time to volunteer with search and rescue. The wildfires may be unrelenting, but so is the guy fighting them.

Shirley Zhong, Diana Virgovicova and Kerem Topalismailoglu | Founders, Xatoms

For tapping AI to clean the world’s water supply, not deplete it

It started with a chance meeting in Tokyo. Shirley Zhong and Kerem Topalismailoglu were Cansbridge Fellows interning abroad when they encountered another student, Diana Virgovicova. The trio clicked, tapped into their engineering and chemistry backgrounds and, in 2024, formed Xatoms, a company geared toward cleaning the world’s water supply. Their startup uses a sun-powered “photocatalyst,” plus a splash of quantum chemistry and AI, to break down bacteria, chemicals and even viruses. The tech is now being piloted in Kenya and South Africa. Their win streak so far: $750,000 in prize money at Startupfest 2024, $1.1 million in funding and an annual projected revenue of $1.8 million. They even secured a grant from Reddit’s Alexis Ohanian—all before any of them turned 25.

Oliver David Krieg | President and CTO, Intelligent City

For sending in robots to fix the housing crisis

In Oliver David Krieg’s version of the future, robots aren’t taking over the world—they’re building your house. His Vancouver-based company, Intelligent City, uses robotics and AI automation to construct highrises out of timber. His process involves robots assembling building components on production lines in the company’s mass-timber plant in Delta, B.C.; it’s designed to boost urban density by enabling greener and faster construction. Krieg represents a new kind of builder: he holds a Ph.D. in computational design from the University of Stuttgart and travels the world to deliver workshops on how to construct the future. In his spare time, he runs his own design firm, exploring the intersection of manufacturing technology and wood fabrication.

Sasha Ivanov | Founder, Maple Scan

The app designer helping us buy Canadian

With every new round of U.S. tariffs, the need to buy Canadian burns hotter. One savvy developer has channelled that feeling into code. Sasha Ivanov, a computer science researcher with a flair for UX and AI, whipped up the aptly named Maple Scan in just a week. The app, which has racked up over 100,000 downloads since its February launch, helps shoppers snap a product with their phone to see if it’s Canadian-made, Canadian-owned or caught in the tariff crossfire. It then generates a “Canada Score Card” with origin facts and company info. Not Canadian enough? The app proudly offers local alternatives, complete with shopping links and nearby store suggestions. It’s even bilingual. Maple Scan is just one of more than 100 glossy interfaces in Ivanov’s app portfolio, all of which aim to make AI useful for the average Canadian.

Maria Bolovis | Senior VP, EStruxture Data Centers

The executive securing Canada’s AI future

The world is running out of space to store its data. With global demand expected to double by 2030, the race is on to build new data centres—and Maria Bolovis is making sure Canada keeps up. As senior VP of engineering at eStruxture, Canada’s largest homegrown data-centre operator, she’s helping companies train the world’s next large language models and providing tech giants with the data storage they need. Before that, she held senior roles at Amazon, Bell and IBM, and now she’s helping eStruxture grow alongside society’s insatiable appetite for AI. The company has expanded from Bolovis’s hometown of Montreal to construct facilities in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary—where it just announced the creation of the 90MW CAL-3 data centre, built to power the technology of the moment (major cloud providers) and the future (next-gen uses like AI).

Stephanie Simmons | Founder and chief quantum officer, Photonic

For bringing quantum into the everyday world

With a Ph.D. in physics from Oxford and a research focus on silicon qubits, Stephanie Simmons is one of the only people in the world who truly understands quantum physics. Now she’s the chief quantum officer of Photonic, a Microsoft-backed company developing silicon-based qubits for scalable quantum computers. The technology could revolutionize drug discovery, financial modelling and encryption. And it could happen soon: in 2024, Photonic demonstrated quantum entanglement between two quantum modules connected by a 40-metre fibre-optic cable, marking a key step toward creating a global network of quantum computers. Simmons also co-chairs Canada’s national Quantum Strategy Advisory Council, which is tasked with deploying the country’s $360-million quantum initiative—partly to help drag the rest of the world into the future with her.

Marcelo Cortes | Co-founder and chief architect, Faire

The entrepreneur challenging Amazon for e-commerce supremacy

When Marcelo Cortes launched Faire in 2017, he wasn’t just building a wholesale marketplace—he was aiming a slingshot at Amazon’s Goliath. Faire helps small businesses find the items they need so they can compete with the big-box retailers. And Cortes wins his clients over in wholesome ways. After COVID battered his customers, he and his team built a financial “lifespan calculator” that helps retailers spot inefficiencies and plan for the long haul. Faire has since ballooned to hundreds of thousands of retailers, more than 300 engineers and a US$5-billion valuation. Its business may be small shops, but Cortes is thinking big. The company is quietly becoming an advertising powerhouse, with more than 7,000 businesses paying to use the site’s new promoted listings feature, and it recently published a guide to help retailers shop on the platform.

Sanja Fidler | Vice-president of AI research, Nvidia

The superchip superhero pioneering AI for the world’s biggest company

Superchips—those tiny yet incredibly powerful computer processors—were originally designed for video games. Now they’re set to turbocharge the technology that shapes our daily lives. By unleashing unprecedented computing power, they will enable real-time language translation, personalized health care, faster data analysis and seamless virtual experiences. At the forefront of this revolution is Sanja Fidler, a computer scientist and associate professor at the University of Toronto who was handpicked by Jensen Huang, CEO of the multi-trillion-dollar chip manufacturer Nvidia, to run the company’s Toronto lab. Fidler is also committed to fighting the ongoing brain drain—she’s one of the co-founders of the Vector Institute, designed to keep Canadian geniuses on Canadian soil.

Shayaan Haider, Ayaan Haider, Alexandra McCalla and Bashir Khan | Co-founders, AirMatrix

For creating a network of roads in the sky

Okay, so flying cars aren’t as big a part of the future as Marty McFly led us to believe. Drones, however, are taking over our skies—nearly 100,000 were registered in Canada last year, and not one has a clear lane to fly in. Drone-on-drone crashes, collisions with manned aircraft and even spying become more frequent every year. That’s where AirMatrix comes in. Founded in 2018 by University of Toronto students Shayaan Haider, Ayaan Haider, Alexandra McCalla and Bashir Khan, the startup uses AI to build real-time aerial streets for drones with 100 times the precision of Google Maps. The group are the darlings of aviation regulators, sitting on Transport Canada’s drone action team, NASA working groups and the Standards Council of Canada. Their pitch? Drones are here, and now we have to build the infrastructure.

The Power Brokers

The big personalities putting Canada first on the world stage

Anna Weyant | Artist

The renaissance woman with powerful connections

Anna Weyant paints like a 17th-century master—but with a touch of millennial malaise. The Calgary-born, New York–based artist blends old-world technique with eerie surrealism. In 2022, she became the youngest artist represented by the powerhouse Gagosian gallery (she also dated gallerist Larry Gagosian for a few years). Now, at just 30, she’s landed her first museum exhibit at Madrid’s Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza: an opus on the vulnerability and theatrics of female adolescence (with no shortage of wilting flowers and dangling ribbons). Her prices speak to her staying power, often reaching hundreds of thousands of dollars (and at least one, Falling Woman, sold for US$1.6 million). She’s also finding fame in the fashion world: Marc Jacobs, who has one of her paintings hanging in his Frank Lloyd Wright home, used one as a print in a recent collection and asked her to paint Kaia Gerber for the cover of Vogue when he guest-edited last year.

Jaden Braves | CEO, Young Politicians of Canada

The teen dynamo giving Gen Z a seat at the political table

At 16, Jaden Braves has more political clout than most adults twice his age—and he’s just getting started. He founded the Young Politicians of Canada, a non-partisan juggernaut with youth-led chapters in nearly every province and a placement program that matches teens with volunteer jobs in government offices. He’s chaired youth delegations at the Biden White House, is executive VP of YATA-NATO Canada and somehow still finds time to research AI and public trust at Cambridge. Whether it’s climate change, Arctic security or getting Gen Z to the polls, Braves leads the charge, armed with a Coronation Medal, a blazer and a no-nonsense belief that teens deserve a seat at every table. His latest gambit? Lower Canada’s voting age to 16. He may be onto something: Senator Marilou McPhedran introduced a bill proposing the same thing in May, and it’s currently moving through Parliament.

Maninder Sidhu | Minister of international trade

The dealmaker finding Canada new friends

As Canada faces the fallout of losing its most reliable economic partner, Maninder Sidhu is on a mission to rewrite the country’s trade playbook. A Brampton East MP with a background in customs brokerage and a knack for small-business savvy, Sidhu is in hot pursuit of fresh markets and new allies. His focus is clear: secure Canada’s foothold in critical sectors like minerals, clean technology and agriculture, while navigating the rising tide of American protectionism by building partnerships that don’t hinge on Washington’s goodwill. So far, he’s revived stalled talks in South America, rekindled ties in Africa and raised Canada’s standing in the global critical-minerals race. With a portfolio that spans diplomacy to logistics—and a charm offensive to match—Sidhu is quickly establishing himself as one of Ottawa’s indispensable dealmakers.

Audrey Champoux | Lead press secretary, PMO

For crafting Carney’s message

When Mark Carney needed a press secretary, he didn’t stray far from the campaign trail. He tapped Audrey Champoux, a rising star who served as Carney’s spokesperson during his Liberal leadership bid and who was previously press secretary for Liberal minister Marco Mendicino and communications director for François-Philippe Champagne. Whether clarifying the Prime Minister’s assets-in-blind-trust snafu or handling trade turbulence with polish, Champoux has so far been the steady voice of the PMO. Already, she has helped shape Carney’s messaging around a clear non-negotiable: Canada will only engage with the U.S. if treated as a sovereign nation. And while Carney doesn’t require Trump-level PR management, it doesn’t hurt that his comms chief knows how to dress a headline.

Magda Grace | Lead of Prime Video for Canada, Australia and New Zealand

For taking Canadian streaming to the next level

Running the Canadian arm of a major streaming service in 2025 is like walking through a digital minefield. Competition is unrelenting, social media eats away at the attention pie, and streaming services are forced to dig into a well of Canadian content made shallow by brain drain, inflation and an industry that just cannot compete with Hollywood. Despite it all, Magda Grace, who leads Prime Canada, Australia and New Zealand, is recording stellar numbers in the north. Canadian subscribers have ballooned to 7.5 million, and monthly views in the country have risen since the pandemic, regularly clocking in at over 12 million. Grace, a Montreal native with a UCLA law degree and field experience at Warner Bros., used a few savvy moves—like nabbing Monday-night NHL and NBA rights and commissioning a few instant Canadian classics like All or Nothing: Maple Leafs and maple-syrup opus The Sticky—to keep moving forward.

Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak | National chief, Assembly of First Nations

The chief putting Indigenous Canadians first

Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak isn’t just making history as the youngest woman—and first mom of three—to lead the Assembly of First Nations. She’s also making sure no one forgets whose land Canada is built on. The Pinaymootang First Nation leader is closely watching Mark Carney’s economic agenda. As the PM eyes new international deals, critical minerals and supply-chain fortification, Woodhouse Nepinak’s upcoming national economic statement will reaffirm her insistence on First Nations leadership in shaping Canada’s future and remind Ottawa that growth starts with reconciliation. Trade wars and tariffs may dominate headlines, but she insists: no prosperity without partnership, and no extraction without consent. Consider the gauntlet dropped—respectfully.

Ivan Zhang, Aidan Gomez and Nick Frosst | Co-founders, Cohere

For masterminding Canada’s biggest AI juggernaut

Cohere’s trailblazing trio launched their startup in 2019 with a singular mission: to bring world‑class, transformer‑powered AI into real‑world business use. Six years later, Cohere is everywhere. It recently surpassed US$100 million in annual recurring revenue and launched innovative products like Command A (large language models for enterprise use) and Aya Vision (an image-
understanding and translating tool). It also expanded its automated workflow platform, North, into the finance and health-care sectors by partnering with RBC and Dell. In August, a new funding round of US$500 million raised the company’s valuation to US$6.8 billion. Now Cohere is focused on sovereign data solutions: it’s scaled up with a new office in Montreal and recently teamed up with Bell to provide Canadian-built AI for business and government.

Rebecca Alty | Minister of Crown–Indigenous relations

For bringing the far North to Ottawa

Rebecca Alty is the youngest member of Mark Carney’s cabinet—and the first federal minister from the Northwest Territories in nearly two decades. A lifelong Yellowknifer and former mayor of the capital, Alty now holds the weighty Crown-Indigenous relations file, where she’s pushing to accelerate stalled land-claim and self-government negotiations. Alty is urging the federal government to expand its team of negotiators and meet more frequently. By pushing for more consistent talks, she aims to empower Indigenous communities with greater control over their land, language and governance. Before winning a seat as MP in 2025, she spent over a decade in municipal politics, passing zoning reforms to ease the North’s housing crisis and championing transitional housing for people struggling with addiction.

Braeden Caley | Deputy chief of staff, PMO

The Ivy League brains behind Carney’s premiership

As Mark Carney rocketed up the polls this year, political watchers wondered: who’s rising with him? One answer is Braeden Caley, a policy brain and political lifer with Ivy League polish, deep Liberal party ties and campaign savvy beyond his years. Before stepping into the PMO, Caley ran the think tank Canada 2020 (where Carney sat on the advisory board) and hosted round-tables on Canada’s AI opportunities. He also helped steer the Liberal Party through three victorious campaigns as senior director of communications and national campaign co-director. Not yet 40, he’s already done time as director of policy and communications at Vancouver City Hall and earned his public policy credentials at Harvard’s Kennedy School. Now, he’s quietly shaping the federal agenda from Parliament Hill. Carney may be the face, but Caley is crucial in sending the message.

Olivia Smith | Soccer player

For getting Arsenal FC to shell out the big bucks

At just 21, Olivia Smith has already redefined what’s possible for a Canadian soccer prodigy. Born in North York, Ontario, and raised in Whitby, she made her senior debut for Canada at 15—the youngest player to ever do so. After a brief stint at Penn State, Smith turned pro in 2023 with Sporting CP, a team in Portugal’s top women’s circuit, where she was named the league’s best young player thanks to her menacing dribbling and clutch goal scoring. Her next stop? Liverpool, where she scored nine goals in 25 games and was crowned young player of the year. In 2025, Arsenal signed her for £1 million—the biggest deal in women’s football history—making her one of the most valuable female Canadian athletes of all time. As if killing it on the pitch isn’t enough, she currently sits on a special development committee for League1 Ontario, a semi-pro soccer league right here at home.

The Disruptors

The thinkers, strategists and risk-takers rewriting the rules of Canada’s biggest industries

D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai | Actor

The stylish newcomer with a stacked IMDb page

Last year’s Emmy Awards set a monumental record: Reservation Dogs star D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai became the first Indigenous person to be nominated for best lead actor. To mark the occasion, the Toronto actor, who’s of Oji-Cree and Guyanese descent, donned a show-stopping accessory with his Armani suit: a red handprint stamped over his mouth in solidarity with missing and murdered Indigenous women. He didn’t win that night but, at just 24, Woon-A-Tai has already amassed an impressive IMDb profile. Among the highlights: his 2020 feature film debut, Beans, which won best picture at the Canadian Screen Awards; Reservation Dogs, historically significant as America’s first all-Indigenous production (writers, cast and crew); and, this year, a role in Darren Aronofsky’s latest film, Caught Stealing, alongside Austin Butler and Zoë Kravitz. Somehow, he also found time to attend the most recent Paris Fashion Week: he was front row at Louis Vuitton.

Michael Katchen | CEO, Wealthsimple

For inventing the banks of the future

If Michael Katchen has his way, traditional banks will soon be a relic of the past. The CEO of Wealthsimple, the digital financial services provider with more than three million users and $80 billion in assets under administration, believes financial services should be easy, transparent and accessible—on your phone and at your fingertips, which is exactly how millennials and Gen Zers like to do it. After graduating from the Ivey school, Katchen spent a few years in Silicon Valley before returning to Toronto. In just 11 years, he has transformed Wealthsimple into the country’s largest financial institution built in the last quarter-century. This year, he ramped up his rivalry with the Big 5 by expanding Wealthsimple’s banking services and credit cards, and he’s eyeing an IPO in the not-too-distant future.

Rahul Goel | CEO, Nordspace

The aerospace engineer sending Canadian rockets into orbit

The commercial space race is on, and Canada is losing: until now, no Canadian company has sent a rocket into orbit. Rahul Goel, a 33-year-old aerospace engineering graduate and current Ph.D. candidate at the University of Toronto, plans to change that. Goel, founder of the space startup NordSpace, has designed a rocket called Taiga, with plans to launch from St. Lawrence, Newfoundland, into the atmosphere—though it won’t go to space until a later date. Taiga runs partly on carbon-neutral e-fuels and can operate for a full year with less gas than a single transatlantic commercial flight; NordSpace’s next rocket, Tundra, will be ready in 2027. To fund his lofty goal, Goel runs two additional companies (SaaS provider PheedLoop and genetic technology firm Genepika) with the express purpose of funnelling cash into NordSpace—so far, he’s invested $5 million of his own capital.

Teresa Resch | President, Toronto Tempo

For bringing the WNBA—and Serena Williams—to Toronto

The much-anticipated 2026 debut of the Toronto Tempo, the first non-American team in the WNBA, hinges largely on Teresa Resch. There’s little doubt it will be a slam dunk: Resch, who’s originally from Minnesota, has 11 years of experience as the Raptors’ VP of operations, and she was part of the team that developed the team’s ubiquitous “We the North” merch. When she’s not busy calling the shots at the Coca-Cola Coliseum, Resch sits on both the Canadian Olympic Committee and on the board of Canadian Tire Jumpstart Charities. No word on her choice for head coach just yet, but she’s stacked her leadership circle with Lyft’s Whitney Bell as CMO, MLSE’s Patrick Lee as CFO and former WNBA champion Monica Rogers as GM, while the Tempo’s ownership team got some star power with talk-show host Lilly Singh and tennis GOAT Serena Williams.

Harrison Amit | CEO, Hovr

For giving rideshare drivers a better deal

Harrison Amit, a science grad from Mount Saint Vincent University in Nova Scotia, was inspired to start Hovr when he moved to Toronto and began chatting with unhappy Uber drivers. That’s how he learned that rideshare drivers make little money, shoulder high expenses, and lack benefits or job security. To help them, he launched his ride-sharing app last year with a new and better model. At Hovr, drivers pay a monthly membership fee upfront and, in turn, keep 100 per cent of fares, which are calculated to reflect both time and distance. Hovr gets a mere dollar per ride, paid by the customer—and it all still costs less than your average Uber trip.

Véronique Lecault | Chief technology officer, AbCellera

The brainpower behind Canada’s antibody pipeline

During her Ph.D. in chemical and biological engineering from the University of British Columbia, Véronique Lecault co-founded the B.C.-based biotech company AbCellera to invent a multidisciplinary antibody-discovery platform that finds new drug candidates. The tech was essential during the pandemic, when Lecault’s team developed the first COVID antibody treatment, produced in partnership with Eli Lilly. As skilled at entrepreneurship as she is in science, Lecault was recently promoted to CTO at AbCellera, which is now valued at $1 billion and plans to develop drugs for cancer and immune diseases. It’s also expanding rapidly: it recently moved into a new 400,000-square-foot campus in Vancouver to house its manufacturing plant and R&D facilities.

Diana Matheson | Founder, Northern Super League

The Olympian making women’s sports must-see TV

This past April, the Northern Super League held its inaugural match between the Vancouver Rise and Calgary Wild in a full stadium of soccer fans. The brains behind the operation? Diana Matheson, the two-time Olympic bronze medallist best known for scoring the winning goal at London 2012. Just two years after retiring from the game in 2020, and with an economics degree from Princeton in her pocket, the Mississauga-born midfielder launched the Northern Super League in 2022—part of a bonanza of Canadian women’s sports that also includes the new Toronto WNBA team and the Professional Women’s Hockey League. Thanks to Matheson’s brokerage of multi-year television deals, the 25-game season now appears on CBC, TSN and ESPN, including select playoff games and the November final at Toronto’s BMO field.

Simon Poulin | CEO, Upside Drinks

For bringing boozeless beverages to the masses

Canadians are drinking eight per cent less than they used to—and younger generations aren’t drinking much at all. Luckily there’s never been an easier time to be sober, sober-curious, dry or just not drinking tonight, thanks to Upside Drinks, the country’s biggest online store for boozeless beverages. Simon Poulin co-founded the company when he noticed a serious lack of non-alcoholic drink options for customers looking for something better than boring near-beer. Since its launch in 2022, Upside Drinks has been catering to the growing number of Canadians—especially millennials and Gen Zers—thirsting for mocktails, sparkling wines, infused waters and energy drinks, plus faux rum, gin, vodka and whisky. Turns out sobriety pays: sales have grown tenfold in the past
two years.

Matt Johnson | Filmmaker

The Hollywood hitmaker who’s staying in Canada

Behind the camera of Tony, the much-anticipated Anthony Bourdain biopic? Buzzy Canadian filmmaker Matt Johnson, who first appeared on mainstream moviegoers’ radars with 2023’s BlackBerry. But where other directors find commercial success and immediately pack their bags for Los Angeles, the 39-year-old Torontonian is staying put, largely driven by his quest to highlight Canadian filmmaking on the international movie scene. This fall, Johnson’s gonzo mockumentary, Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, opened the Midnight Madness program at TIFF. He’s also doing his part to help local filmmakers: last year he starred in Matt and Mara, a romcom from Kazik Radwanski, one of Johnson’s favourite local directors.

Peter Lu and Kevin Wang | Co-founders, UniUni

For creating Canada’s FedEx

Canada Post is in crisis—and a startup food-delivery service has stepped in to fill the gap. Peter Lu and Kevin Wang founded UniUni in 2019 to deliver takeout. But when the pandemic hit and online shopping went wild, UniUni quickly pivoted to e-commerce, landing contracts with Chinese companies Shein and Temu. Lu and Wang, who were early adopters of AI-powered route-optimization algorithms, streamlined the often-inefficient last mile of each delivery. In 2025, UniUni’s three-year growth rate hit an astronomical 13,000 per cent. Not surprising, considering its ever-expanding network—835 employees, 50,000 drivers, 100 warehouses—currently processes over 50,000 parcels per week. UniUni claims it has the capacity to process hundreds of millions of parcels per year across North America. Investors are convinced: the company recently raised US$70 million in a funding round led by San Francisco–based equity firm Bessemer Venture Partners.

This story appears in the October 2025 issue of Maclean’s. You can buy the issue here, subscribe to the magazine here or send a gift subscription here.