The Surrey Board of Trade is pleased to welcome Tara Bosch, Founder of SmartSweets, as guest speaker for Surrey’s Top 25 Under 25 Awards, taking place on May 9th.
Tara Bosch made Canadian history by scaling her company to be the fastest growing consumer packaged goods brand created by a solo female founder…ever.
When a love affair with candy devolved into an unhealthy relationship with food, Tara became inspired by a conversation with her grandmother about the detrimental effects of sugar. She soon dropped out of college to fulfill her dream: to create the future of candy. With distribution in over 180,000 stores across North America, she landed a $360M majority acquisition just 4 years after launching the company from her basement.
As a leader, Tara is wildly passionate about empowering the next generation of entrepreneurs and believes their big impact-driven visions are needed more than ever before in the world, leading her to create a first-of-its-kind initiative- Bold Beginnings. In addition to fostering connection and tailored support for Canadian entrepreneurs, Tara is working to normalize the feelings of self-doubt, imposter syndrome, and insecurities that all entrepreneurs face, while putting funds back into the ecosystem supporting entrepreneurs to bring their visions and companies to scale.
Publicly, Tara has been recognized for how she beat the statistics of women in entrepreneurship not only by being a solo founder, but maintaining ownership of her brand, keeping gender parity on her board and scaling a team that has always been 80% female-identifying.
She is the recipient of several entrepreneurial awards, including being named Canada’s Most Powerful Women Top 100 Award, Forbes 30 under 30, Inc 30 under 30, and EY Entrepreneur of the Year’s National Product Innovation awardee.
In the media, Tara’s work has been profiled in Entrepreneur, Inc, Forbes, Fortune, the Globe and Mail, CNBC, and Business Insider.
The 14th Annual Surrey’s Top 25 Under 25 Awards is an event that celebrates the incredible initiatives of Surrey’s youth 25 years old or younger. The 25 winners were chosen based upon their business or community achievements, leadership ability, community involvement, professional achievements, and the uniqueness of their business or community projects.
Date: Thursday, May 9, 2024
Time: 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Location: Sheraton Vancouver Guildford Hotel (15269 104 Avenue, Surrey)
Admission: Complimentary – pre-registration is required.
Register at businessinsurrey.com or by emailing info@businessinsurrey.com
Co-Presenting Sponsor: KPU Melville School of Business
Silver Sponsor: WorkSafeBC
Bronze Sponsor: ThoughtsWin Systems Inc.
Media Sponsors: Surrey NOW-Leader
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