A Burnaby, B.C, real estate developer and philanthropist has been named as the Canadian Business Leader of the Year.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce has honoured Ryan Beedie with its 2023 award.
Beedie, who was born and raised in Burnaby, is the president of Beedie, one of Western Canada's largest industrial and residential development companies.
He's also widely known as a philanthropist, having personally contributed more than $125 million to 350 organizations — including Simon Fraser University, Ronald McDonald House, B.C. Children's Hospital and The One Campaign, an organization fighting poverty around the world. He also sits on The One Campaign's Global Leadership Council.
In 2018, Beedie launched Beedie Luminaries with a personal commitment of $50 million, to provide post-secondary scholarships for promising but disadvantaged students, mainly in British Columbia. Most recently, Beedie Luminaries launched its Spark program (Single Parent Awards for Resilience and Knowledge),providing single parents facing financial adversity with support for full-time or part-time studies.
Beedie’s work has earned numerous awards and acknowledgments, one of the most recent being the Order of British Columbia.
Beedie and his wife, Cindy Beedie, continue to live and work in B.C.
