For many Alberta business owners, the challenge right now isn’t opportunity. It’s uncertainty. Geopolitical pressures, shifting trade relationships, labour constraints, and rising operating costs are creating decisions that feel harder to time and riskier to make. As Todd Millar, President and CEO of TEC Canada and Chair of BTF Alberta 2026, put it, owners are dealing with forces that sit well beyond tariffs alone, including “on again, off again discussions with current political entities” that make long-term planning difficult.

When George Armoyan, Executive Chairman of G2S2 Capital, sat down with Christine Pound for a BTF keynote conversation, he spoke less about growth curves and more about judgment. It was less about timing exits and more about surviving cycles. From immigrating to Canada as a teenager to building one of the country’s largest private investment companies, George’s perspective has been shaped by volatility. Whether it was high interest rates and ailed bids or unpopular sectors and family expectations, his approach remained grounded, direct and unapologetically long term, which is exactly why it resonated with so many business owners in the room.

Some enduring businesses are built far from the usual centres of capital and attention. They take shape in environments where resources are constrained, execution matters and results speak louder than reputation. That perspective came through clearly during a conversation at BTF Winnipeg with Joshua Simair, Co-Founder and former CEO of SkipTheDishes. His experience offers a grounded counterpoint to many common startup narratives and resonates deeply with business owners thinking about growth, transition and long-term value creation.

Selling a business is often imagined as a finish line. In reality, it’s a mirror. That’s what Josh Hotsenpiller, serial entrepreneur and founder of multiple venture-backed companies, learned through years of scaling and selling. From the outside, his trajectory looks textbook: fast growth, strong valuations, multiple exits. But as he told us in his conversation with BTF, the process revealed something few founders expect, how far most businesses are from being truly acquirable. Now an Operating Partner at Stone Canyon, Josh helps other entrepreneurs prepare for that same moment of truth, turning “profitable” companies into acquirable ones. His advice is as honest as it is actionable.

Some entrepreneurs plan every step before they take it. Others build the path as they go. Geoff Bell is one of the latter.From oil rigs in northern B.C. to multiple tech exits, his story proves that success rarely follows a straight line but persistence always pays off. When we spoke with Geoff ahead of BTF Vancouver 2025, he shared lessons from three decades of building, scaling and selling companies. His focus: how to make a business truly exit-ready, when to step back as a founder and why every entrepreneur should design for independence from day one.

Every owner knows that transformation is hard. But few realize that hesitation, not competition, is what quietly erodes company value. That’s the insight Rocky Ozaki, Founder and CEO of The NoW of Work, shared when we spoke ahead of BTF Vancouver 2025. Having spent the past decade helping established companies modernize for the digital age, Rocky sees a consistent pattern: most organizations know what needs to change but delay acting on it until the market forces their hand.