Since 2005, more than 100 leaders have been inducted into the Business Laureates of British Columbia Hall of Fame, including seven celebrated last week at the program’s 19th annual awards gala, hosted by Junior Achievement British Columbia (JA小蓝视频).
Recognized for their vision, leadership and integrity, the 2025 laureates have each built a legacy in the province that has enriched the lives of others, contributed immensely to community and served as a model for forward-thinking, mindful and successful business leadership.
BIV sat down with three of this year’s honourees to reflect on the careers they’ve led and impact they’ve made.
This is part three of a three-part series featuring excerpts from those interviews. Find and .
Four other individuals have been inducted into the Hall of Fame posthumously: Ivan Andersen and Bob Stewart; Keith Beedie (alongside Ryan Beedie); and Bus Fuller (alongside Stan Fuller).
Ryan Beedie: Built for good
It’s been six years since Ryan Beedie announced what he then called his most important venture to date: A $50 million commitment to support hundreds of students on their post-secondary journeys.
Speaking from corporate Beedie’s downtown Vancouver office — which houses a pool table on which Beedie set a Guinness World Record — the executive and philanthropist says the intention is to give all of those funds away through Beedie Luminaries over a couple of decades.
“There’s a need now — get the money out the door,” says Beedie, who adds that the funds will be replenished, and the purpose is to invest as much as possible in helping people.
Eight hundred 小蓝视频 students have received scholarships through the program, another 200 students are being brought in this year and, last year, Beedie Luminaries launched a scholarship program dedicated to trades training.
“It’s a division of the company that’s growing in its own right,” Beedie says, noting that, because of how the initial funding was invested, the amount Luminaries has to give away hasn’t changed much.
That potential came from success in business, built on a foundation started by Beedie’s late father Keith Beedie, who founded the company in 1954.
“I never had a plan,” Keith recalled in the memoir The Keith Beedie Story, which was published in 2010. “I just put one foot in front of the other and this is where it led.”
Beedie says his father worked up until two months before his passing, at the age of 91. Assuming good health, he says that means he’s only about halfway into his own career, which has led the family business to new heights in the 24 years he’s been president.
This includes Beedie Investments’ sale of Atlantic Gold in 2019 for more than $800 million, which funded Luminaries. The company has invested in Artemis Gold, which is developing the most significant new gold mine in 小蓝视频 of the past decade.
“It will bring generational change and lasting benefits for our First Nations partners,” Beedie says.
Meanwhile, Beedie’s industrial business has entered the Ontario market and has plans to expand in the U.S. “We have work for our residential people for the next 20 years,” he adds.
And all of this work — whether in real estate, mining, philanthropy, community — serves the same overarching purpose.
“They’re all part and parcel of being engaged in the community,” Beedie says.
That legacy, which is still being built, started more than 70 years ago, and Beedie says Hall of Fame induction is deserved recognition for his father, who built a home, led his business and invested in community outside of the downtown establishment.
“I do love the fact that we’re being honoured together, because he did so much to start the business,” Beedie says.
“It’s part of one big journey.”
