Michaela Tokarski, a chemical engineering graduate from the University of Waterloo, applied to the University of Victoria's business school in 2000 imagining a career in international business. But when she arrived at the West Coast campus, it was the school's entrepreneurship specialty that caught her eye. "I really caught the bug," she says.
While still in school — and with the support of professors — she unexpectedly found herself putting class theory into practice. She joined her brother, Roger Hardy, in co-founding Coastal Contacts Inc., an online retailer of optical products, offering consumers price discounts on prescriptions typically filled by optometrists.
Operating out of an old warehouse in Vancouver, the brother-sister team racked up $39,000 in sales in their first month. Last year, Coastal Contacts topped $100-million in sales worldwide.
Ms. Tokarski credits some of the early success to what she was learning in school. "One day my brother asked me if I had ever taken a course in accounting and when I said 'Yes, one class,' he said 'Great, you are the bookkeeper.'ƒ|" For the first two years, she served as chief operating officer of the new venture and, until 2006, as vice-president of sales and marketing.
(Sean Kilpatrick for The Globe and Mail)
Now 31 and living in Ottawa, the married mother of two young children remains on the board of Coastal Contacts. Last year, she joined MODASolutions Inc. as vice-president of marketing for the Ottawa-based online payments company.
Ms. Tokarski hopes to try some venture ideas of her own down the road. "But I am not letting the cat out of the bag," she laughs.
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