Charlotte Herrold

Nov 13, 2023 | canadianbusiness.com | Charlotte Herrold

“This is when I hit my peak energy,” says Brian Chesky. He’s just sat down across from me in a midcentury-style armchair at the end of a 10-hour day that began with presentation rehearsals and ended with a dozen media interviews. I’m the last journalist he’s speaking to before he heads out for dinner in New York with 30 of his staff from Airbnb.

Jul 31, 2023 | canadianbusiness.com | Charlotte Herrold

J.J. Walsh has always been a bit of a calculated risk taker. The London-born entrepreneur dropped out of her geography and economics program at King’s College when she was 19 to work under the iconic fashion editor Isabella Blow (who is credited for putting Alexander McQueen on the map) at British Vogue. “I was interning at Condé Nast and I remember seeing her in the building and thinking, ‘What am I doing at university? I want to work for her’,” Walsh recalls. “So I left school.