Post by Yara Leadership Society

The Globe and Mail Report on Business Magazine’s sixth annual Best Executive Awards includes two visionary Iranian Canadian leaders: Mona Salamat Kennedy and Bahar Joshan Poosh.   Mona Salamat Kennedy is the Chief Financial Officer at Open Farm Pet. As people are increasingly choosing healthy, ethical, and sustainable foods for themselves, they are also choosing it for their pets. “Our customers choose us because of the nutrition, sustainability and transparency of our products” explains Mona Keneedy. Open Farm is a Toronto-based premium pet food company and one of the fastest-growing pet food brands in the segment. In the last three years since Mona joined, the brand’s revenue has tripled while expanding into eight countries and more than 8,500 retail locations. Mona immigrated to Canada after completing high school in Iran. She obtained her BComm from Queens and an MBA from INSEAD. With finance leadership experience at Maple Leaf Foods, Indigo, she took on her first C‑suite role during the pandemic, as Chief Financial Officer at Roots. Mona Kennedy understands the value of customer trust, working directly with farms and ranches to source protein and meat from animals raised in humane ways.   Interior designer Bahar Joshan Poosh had a revelation during the pandemic. Condos are often built/designed with investors in mind rather than people who rent them. She joined Fitzrovia, a rental-apartment developer which has nearly 13,000 rental units under management or in development in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. As the company’s executive Vice-President of Design, leading a team of 13, Bahar keeps livability and community front-of-mind on everything from apartment tower configurations, structural considerations and retrofits to suite layouts, finishings and amenities (daycares and dog spas, high-end gyms and coffee shops that serve up cocktails at night). She lives in a Fitzrovia building with her family, so she can tweak services and amenities based on her own experience and feedback from her neighbours. Bahar who has a degree in industrial and product design from Tehran University, immigrated to Canada from Iran in 2011. #WomenInLeadership #CanadianBusiness #BestExecutiveAwards #ROBMagazine #TopExecutives