Karla Briones is a business strategist who coaches new immigrants, BIPOC, and underrepresented business owners to become successful entrepreneurs with scalable ventures.

She is the founder of Immigrants Developing Entrepreneurs Academy (IDEA) – an online platform designed to educate and connect newcomers to the Canadian business ecosystem. This work led to the creation of Immigrant Entrepreneur Canada (IEC), the national center of excellence and hub for immigrant entrepreneurship. IEC engages and empowers immigrants to Canada through programs, mentorship, advocacy and community building to acquire, start and scale ventures.

She’s a Nation’s Capital Immigrant Entrepreneur of the Year award recipient, named Top 25 Immigrant in the Entrepreneurship category by Canadian Immigrant Magazine, and a TEDx Speaker on immigrant entrepreneurship.

Karla is a guest small business columnist for the Ottawa Citizen, an entrepreneurship professor at Algonquin College and served on the board of directors for the Ottawa Board of Trade, as well as volunteering as a business mentor for Futurpreneur Canada and other entrepreneurship community groups.

Karla owns Global Pet Foods Kanata & Hintonburg (15 years) and Karla Briones Consulting.