Our Vision
We have wild dreams of building a network of knowledge, connection and innovative action in order to take on society’s most complex challenges.
Our Mission
To support and amplify the social impact sector by providing the social cohesion, human capital, and resources that enable our members and partners to thrive.
Sounds cool, but what exactly is Social Impact?
To us, social impact means creating a sustainable, just, and inclusive economy that values people and planet above profit.
Why shared space?
Vancouver’s change-makers need to have an inclusive culture of collaboration along with accessible support services in place. We’re making this happen by using the powerful tool of shared space to cowork, host events, deliver programming, and build community.
Who belongs at the HiVE?
Why, you do of course! Our members come from diverse sectors, backgrounds and places; but they all have a passion to make the world a better place. Our community is made up of non-profits, for-profits, entrepreneurs, creatives, activists, professionals and techies who are challenging the status quo. Together, we have skills in finance, green building, education, food systems, sustainability, law, design, community development, and everything in between!
Our Members
Our Staff
Kurtis Stewart
General Manager
An insatiable fixer, he’s always excited to learn.
Kurtis has spent over 5 years in project management with various companies, including his own consultancy fixyourbullshit.com. He’s also a freelance photographer who has been teaching at Langara for the past 4 years.
In his free time, you’ll find him zipping around on his signature orange bike, Clarence. Likely on his way to archery or ultimate.
Melissa Hope
Director of Operations
Melissa worked for small organic food businesses for thirteen years, then moved into the HiVE and the non-profit world in September 2014.
Melissa serves as the secretary of the Coworking BC Society, a professional and industry organization for the advancement of independent coworking in British Columbia. In her off-hours, she works on digitizing public domain books to preserve Canadian culture and make it more accessible and is working on launching a podcast for people with chronic illnesses.
Melissa is looking forward to travelling more, especially within Canada. One of her favourite trips to date was a road trip to Dawson City for the midnight sun. She is excited by community building and organizations that focus on cooperation, open source, and the sharing economy.
Olesia Kloster
Accountant
Olesia Kloster is the owner of Accounting One, a bookkeeping company. She is passionate about accounting and taxes. Her main goal is to help small and medium sized businesses to grow by implementing the right bookkeeping tools, provide recommendations and help with managing the right decisions for the organization. She thinks that accounting is fun. And it is fun, if you understand it.
Olesia joined HiVE recently. She enjoys the creative aspect of HiVE’s environment. She is helping the HiVE with day-to-day bookkeeping. Her objective is to present correct information to the board of directors and help them to make the right decisions about the HiVE’s future.
Our Board
Our hard-working volunteer board of directors.
If you are interested in joining the HiVE’s Board of Directors, please email admin@hivevancouver.com.
David Kerruish
President
David is a strategy and business change consultant who has worked with some of the smallest and largest social impact organizations in Vancouver. David has led strategy development and range strategic change programs at Vancity Credit Union and most recently at TELUS. He also advises high-impact start-ups on strategy, marketing and operations.
David’s been an advocate of The HiVE since its inception in 2011, having collaborated with HiVE members and supported many events
A keen learner, David holds a master’s degree in business, majoring in marketing, and has recently commenced a PhD.
Sarah Player
Vice-President
Since May 2018, Sarah has worked for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights as their Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives and Development, activating Western Canada for the Museum. The role is principally a fundraising role with partnerships and strategic alliances supporting this function. Previous to this, she was a Senior Relationship Manager for a global top 20 university in the UK, Kings College London. Sarah ran their South East Asian Philanthropy focussing mostly in HK, Singapore and Malaysia, as well as continuing relationships in the UK and other European countries. Previous to that she started a ‘Major Gifts’ department at a Paediatric Medical Research Charity and before that she was a founding member of a social enterprise in London. She also worked in Copenhagen, Denmark for 3 years running international B2B conferences in various locations for a Youth and Student Travel Confederation. Sarah believes that the HiVE is a special place with lots of potential, not least its ability to be a catalyst for change in the social sector, fostering collaboration and leveraging resources. She hopes to help the Board strengthen the HiVE and make it a hub for collaboration here in Vancouver.
Chad Rickaby
Treasurer
Chad is a born and raised Vancouverite. As such, he enjoys taking in our beautiful mountains and coastlines while finding time to drink unnecessarily strong, hoppy beer over casual conversations about the housing market, rain, pipelines and public transit wait times.
Chad holds a Masters in Public Policy and Global Affairs from UBC. He has wide-ranging experience in non-profit, public and private sector strategy and policy development. He brings a diverse background as a management consultant, by day and growing a start-up NGO, by night. As a result, Chad brings a creative, critical and adaptive skillset touching on multiple areas of expertise the HiVE is seeking.
Working with Nordicity, Chad has experience undertaking necessary analysis to develop strategic visions, business plans and program evaluations for a variety of clients. These analyses have included anything from financial modelling to developing key performance indicators (KPIs) to Economic Impact Assessment (EIAs) and Social Return on Investment (SROI). Tangentially, his work has also included analyzing different means of innovative funding such as impact investment, social impact/community bonds as well as assessing options to increase available space for innovative and creative work in urban areas.
As the co-founder of a start-up NGO (Building Assets), Chad also has experience with governance and strategic planning in a social impact organization. As a group that seeks to work with profit-driven organizations in Myanmar to ensure local community benefits, strategic communication has also been a key aspect of his work. Additionally, Chad has developed fundraising campaigns and a knack for grant-writing.
Ekaterina Aristova
Ekaterina spent multiple terms as a Desk Bee at the HiVE where she was lucky to form lasting friendships and connections with fellow Bees. She continued to stay connected with the HiVE through her work as an Event Animator and a freelance photographer. Although a few years have passed since her Desk Bee days, Ekaterina still cherishes the time spent at the HiVE.
Ekaterina currently works at the Happy City and at Vancouver Photowalks. Ekaterina’s keen interest in urban planning and design stems from the desire to have a positive powerful effect on both human wellbeing and the health of our planet. At Happy City, Ekaterina uses her diverse skillset, which includes GIS analysis, graphic and web design, academic as well as grant research, and workshop facilitation. As a Vancouver Photowalks guide, Ekaterina takes local and visiting guests through Vancouver while teaching them photography basics. She also successfully expanded Vancouver Photowalks community through the social media outreach and campaigns. Ekaterina graduated with Honours in the Environment and Resources Studies (BES) from the University of Waterloo in 2013.
Her personal projects include interactive web mapping, community cycling and mapping events, as well as workshop design and facilitation for the Vancouver School Board Sustainability Conference. She also has a history of supporting environmental initiatives through volunteering with local non-profits including Evergreen and the Surfrider Foundation (Vancouver).
In her free time Ekaterina spends time hiking, climbing, skiing and exploring the city on bike or on foot.
Jonathan Deitcher
Secretary
Jonathan Deitcher is an independent biomedical communications expert who helps scientists and doctors worldwide clearly communicate groundbreaking research in leading scientific journals. He works closely with researchers in the fields of neuroscience, dermatology, and health economics and outcomes research to create high-quality content. Beyond creating content, he helps researchers develop processes and strategies to communicate with diverse audiences.
Besides his passion for the life sciences, Jonathan is a motivated entrepreneur who is proud to have worked independently for his entire career thus far. Starting his career at the height of the global recession drove him to hone his ability to identify opportunities that most people overlook. He enjoys helping aspiring entrepreneurs develop their own freelance businesses.
Sid Gupta
Sid is passionate about working with and developing start-ups and have extensive experience in startup culture across diverse industries. He is always fuelling his curiosity by putting himself in newer and unfamiliar environments. This is exhibited by his diverse education and work experience having studied Mechanical Engineering, being an independent musician touring South East Asia and Europe, having worked with a startup audio recording studio, pursuing his MBA in Canada, leading a portfolio of projects with a startup project management company in Nanaimo, and managing a coworking space called SOUP Cowork for a year. Currently he is in the process of developing a network of coworking spaces for a broadcasting group called Vista Radio integrated with a radio station serving smaller markets.
He has worked closely with the grassroots movement, Moose Hide Campaign, volunteering with them to increase awareness in universities and organizing their annual gatherings. Outside of work, you will find him composing, playing or listening to music or exploring new trails on his bike. He always welcome discourse on ideas that will change the world for the better through social innovation.
Jenna McNeil
I have been a HiVE member for three years and have seen the view from several roles: Desk Bee, Event Animator, Space Committee Member and Hot Desker. Now I work full-time at the HiVE for the Open Green Building Society and Regenerative Applications Inc, happily wearing many hats. I am also a partner of Unleash Leadership, a consortium of consultants who offer leadership training to individuals and teams.
Before joining the HiVE community, I held a variety of sustainability roles and moved to Europe in 2014 to complete graduate work and research optimal organizational structures for social, financial, and ecological resilience. This led me to work as part of the founding team of a journalism non-profit and a sustainability consulting group, and eventually move to Vancouver to work for a local foundation and venture capital firm. I remain interested in organizational dynamics, especially the roles of empathy, trust and entitlement.
I currently live in the West End with my partner. On weekends we can be found walking through our beautiful neighbourhood eating almond croissants and wishing we had a dog, but we also try to find ways to get out climbing, sailing or camping. There is always something that I am trying to learn; currently this includes metalsmithing, Turkish cooking, and speaking Albanian.
Jeremy Murphy
Jeremy is a co-founder of HiVE and an urban planner/sustainability specialist who continues to generate cutting-edge community solutions. Creative public engagement and facilitation, Integrated Design Process delivery, LEED certification, sustainable community design, and innovative policy creation are among Jeremy’s greatest skills. His experience with community planning, sustainability expertise, facilitation, and sustainable building design allow Jeremy to make useful contributions to any project. Jeremy combines big idea sustainability thinking with on the ground application, ensuring his projects are on target, enjoyable, and effective.
Geoff Pitfield
Geoff is currently co-founder and head of product at IVC Soundsystem, a mobile technology startup based in Vancouver and San Francisco. He has held executive and founding positions at multiple technology companies over the past 2 decades, worked as consultant to Fortune 500 C-level executives as an engagement manager at McKinsey & Company’s New York office, and consults to early stage startups and investors through MetaDelta Management Consulting, of which he is the principal.
Geoff has extensive experience in building and leading nimble, effective organizations in different roles including founder, board member, CEO, investor, and advisor. He has a background in product development, finance, marketing, and strategy.
Geoff holds an MBA with honors in Finance and Marketing from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, an MS in Engineering from Stanford University, and a BS in Product Design from Stanford. He lives in Vancouver where he likes to cook, bike, ski, and play competitive pinball.
Jacob Sayles
In 2007 Jacob recognized the growing trend of independent, yet isolated workers and opened Office Nomads, the first coworking space in Seattle. To support this business and others like it, he created Nadine, the first open source coworking platform, and founded Open Coworking, a non-profit dedicated to the Coworking Movement. In 2016 he relocated to Vancouver, Canada take on the role of Director of Technology for 312 Main. He is currently a partner at Kanawha Design Studio, a consulting firm that supports collaborative and cultural spaces with business planning, operations, community development, IT infrastructure, and the many uses of technology to support their memberships and communities.
HiVE Acknowledgements
We’re only as strong as the community that holds us together.
Thank you to all of those who have helped the HiVE grow and thrive over the years. In particular, we’d like to thank a few organizations and individuals who have been invaluable in making the HiVE the success that it is today:
Founding steering committee: Erica Crawford, Nicole Jasinski, Remy Kovacs, Martin Knowles, Matthew Lahey, Jeff Rotin, Jeff Malmgren, Jeremy Murphy, Eesmyal Santos-Brault, Michel Labrie, Tom Wynn, Claudie Bierth, and Maia Love
Original funders: Vancity, Recollective, Vancouver Design Nerds, Brenda Martens, Eesmyal Santos-Brault, Jeremy Murphy, and Martin Knowles
Past staff & contributors: Krystal Paraboo, John Fialkowski, Katie Stewart, Maya Goodwill, Sarah Barnes, Nicole Jasinski, Heather Tremain, Tara Geach, Aaron Cruikshank, Margarete Hernandez, Maureen Dickson, Olive Dempsey, Scott Hughes, Ron Kato and MLA, Junxion Strategies, Laura Bethany Soerheide, and Marten Sims.
Past board members: Erica Crawford, Remy Kovacs, Jeff Rotin, Jeff Malmgren, Michel Labrie, Tom Wynn, Mirjana Galovich, Josh Usher, Marie Roussel, Anthony Taylor, Alan Cheung, Eve Rickert, Denise Dickson, Jackie Kanyuk, Rob Farrow, Eesmyal Santos-Brault, Alicia Medina, Kate Harland, Devon Carr, Andrew Larigakis, Jorge Amigo, Maggie Knight, Landon Hoyt, Janet Webber, Jessica Borich, Bertine Stelzer, Shaheen Chaudhary, Lauren Kelly, and Geoff Teoli.