Marc founded Building Up because he felt it needed to exist. He believes that the role of a social enterprise is to connect people who want to make socially-minded purchasing decisions with the opportunity to do so.

Marc graduated from the Richard Ivey School of Business, canoed across Canada, and understands the untapped transformative powers of construction. He combines lessons learned from life in the woods with a people-first outlook to lead this organization toward its vision.

Tarah graduated from Princeton University with a BA in Economics and Finance. She spent the first ten years of her career working in finance, where she became a VP for Deutsche Bank’s investment bank and a venture capital partner and investor.

Tarah joined Building Up as a volunteer in 2016, purposed with leveraging the power of business to address social, economic and environmental issues. Tarah passionately believes that Social Enterprise is the most impactful tool to build a better future.

Adam’s role includes keeping the project pipeline plentiful and ensuring the organization has sufficient revenue. The more work, the more people BU can train, and the more people BU can train, the more people end up in careers.

Adam also oversees miscellaneous projects, all still with the goal of getting the most people working.

Obioma – Obi for short– joined BU in 2021 as the Alumni Program PM before stepping into the Director of Case Management role. Her team is responsible for ensuring participants are successful along their apprenticeship pathway.

Obi discovered her passion for people and community in the financial service and non-profit sectors after overcoming the barriers faced by newcomers to Canada.

Diego manages labour contracts and develops new labour opportunities.

He and his partner Melisa have two daughters, Riley and Esther, and a furry daughter, our dog Ophelia.

He loves camping, getting away into the deep woods, and as a true Argentinean, he loves his soccer and BBQs!

For the past few years I have been doing building and property maintenance on a 100 year-old building in midtown – my background is as a (mostly) residential painter and doing building & property maintenance in residential, commercial and institutional settings.

I have done a lot of different types of work (trades and non-trades), and my favourite work has been in adult education; I have worked as an educator in math and the trades, and also around mental health and wellness, sexual health, safer drug use, anti-oppression & anti-racism, alternatives to the justice system, and lots more.