Talking a blue streak: Mandy Rennehan is CEO of the Year 2019

How a “ballsy little bugger” with no post-secondary training transformed herself into an international retail-reno maven—and Atlantic Business Magazine’s 2019 CEO of the Year Let’s start with Five Moments from the extraordinary, label-defying life and times of Mandy Rennehan. She, of course, is the entrepreneur-founder and CEO of Freshco, the Nova Scotia-conceived, privately-owned retail maintenance, […]

Guilty of fraud, sentenced to jail: how did it come to this? The story behind Knowledge House Inc. and the longest criminal trial in Nova Scotia history

The moment to write the end of this endless story has finally arrived. It is July 25, 2018, a stifling, sweltering summer morning in Halifax. Outside, the city is suffering through a province-wide Environment Canada heat warning. By mid-day, humidex values are predicted to soar past 36 degrees. Inside, however, the heat—and the suffering—are of […]

Verafin: The origin of Atlantic Canada’s $2.75-billion, crime-fighting unicorn

You know the one. “Nasdaq Buying Newfoundland Online Security Company in $2.75 Billion U.S. Deal,” trumpeted the headline above a CBC.ca news story on November 19, 2020. (Yes, Virginia we are talking billion with a capital B, and the dollars are very much American.) “Largest Ever Canadian Venture Deal,” chimed in the Globe and Mail. “Verafin […]

How seven Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq First Nations acquired a billion-dollar company

By Stephen Kimber If you want to follow the stuttering steps back to the origin story for last year’s jaw-dropping billion-dollar deal—the one in which seven Mi’kmaq First Nations acquired a half interest in fishery giant Clearwater Seafoods Inc.—you could do far worse than start with the Marshall decision. No, not that one. I don’t mean to suggest […]

Filmmaker Floyd Kane talks life in East Preston, making Diggstown and opening doors for Black Nova Scotians

By Stephen Kimber Floyd Kane was frustrated, restless, anxious. On one level, he knew he shouldn’t have to carry the burden of all those angst-anchoring emotions. He should be basking in the glow of everything he’d accomplished and all he was yet to accomplish, thank you very much. He’d grown up in East Preston, a […]

Annette Verschuren’s ‘one more interesting thing’

Ten years ago, Annette Verschuren told a newspaper reporter she had “one more really interesting one in me.” That, of course, was NRStor, the innovative clean energy storage developer. Now? She is, I point out as delicately as possible, nudging 65. Is she ready to retire? “No, no!” she says quickly. “You know what, Stephen? […]

Mind your own business

This column originally appeared in the July-August 2017 issue of Atlantic Business Magazine. For each of you who has lamented the lack of business acumen among our political ruling class, or longed for a shimmering titan of industry to step from the boardroom and lead us all to the promised political paradise of tax-limited, bureaucracy-free corporatist […]

Portrait of a picketer

Elissa Barnard, who has spent more than 30 years as a reporter and editor at the Halifax Chronicle Herald, is one of Nova Scotia’s best known and most respected arts and entertainment journalists. “My identity,” she says simply, “has been tied up in my job.” Today, she is carving out a new identity — […]

What would Graham say?

As a bitter strike at Atlantic Canada’s largest and most storied daily newspaper heads into its second year, both sides frequently invoke the memory of the Halifax Chronicle Herald’s late publisher to justify their competing arguments. But the more important question now is, will Graham Dennis’s 170-year-old newspaper even be around for anyone to remember […]

Sobeys Safeway meltdown

The early morning conference call to discuss Empire Company Ltd.’s fourth-quarter results began as scheduled at 8 a.m. ADT, June 29, 2016. It was supposed to last an hour. Instead, the question-and-answer session plunged past 95 minutes. That’s because more than the usual number of retail stock market analysts queued up to electronically question the […]