b'PROFESSIONAL Q&Aofficer on the North Coast ofof the administrators was a mentor.Symposium). How B.C., where I learned a lot aboutEvery mentor along the way hasare Indigenous youth how to help communities set upprovided insight into how the worldfaring? What obstacles businesses and organizations. I wasworked and how I could contributeor opportunities are trained in how to write businesspolitically and in terms of economicthey facing?plans for people, work in finance,development and business building.Indigenous youth across the country and award funding to communities.are OK. They are stepping up and By Matthew Bradford After that, I became a loan officerYouve been heavilyrising to the challenge of succeeding with an Indigenous lender whereinvolved in facilitatingin many aspects of our society, I learned even more. That led toIndigenous youthincluding business, cultural compe-other opportunities that were notdevelopmentespeciallytency, language, environment, specific to entrepreneurship butthrough entrepreneurshiptraditional governance, media, more about supporting communi- programs (e.g., thesocialmany different areas. Its all ties and Indigenous studentsYoung Entrepreneurshipvery inspiring.and youth.From there, I took on senior roles. One was as the CEO of a New Relationship Trust for 203 B.C. First Nations, which I started and ran forUn choix 13 years. The trust launched with $100 million and we gave out aboutpour se $82 million over 12 years. The value of the fund when I left was $95 million, so we got to be sustainableretrouver.and help our communities and individuals. We also got a chance to give out scholarships and bursaries in B.C. So there hasnt been one path, really. Entrepreneurship has always been my focus, but there was never a specific goal to become a CEO or COO. I just kept learning and looking for opportunities. Did you have any mentorsLe Centre Louis-Riel o\x11 re aux tudiantes et tudiants who had a profound impactautochtones un espace o ils peuvent pro\x07 ter dune on your journey? large gamme de services de soutien. Un an est My main mentor has been mydisponible pour conseiller et guider les tudiantes et uncle Frank Parnell, who encour- tudiants dans un environnement propicela russite aged me to work with First Nationsscolaire. Le Centre organise et fait la promotion and build capacity at all levels. Hedactivits, de clbrations, de prsentations, dateliers also encouraged me to undertakeet dvnements culturels, o\x11 erts en personne etprofessional development at alldistance,la communaut Boral en entier. times and supported my profes-sional development for years. I consider a lot of people mentors. There were Indigenous Chiefs and Elders in my Prince Rupert and Haida Gwaii communities who I saw as mentors. When I was elected to the council for my community for three terms, one 2022indspiration37'