Page 18 - INSIGHT MAGAZINE_October 2024

MEMBER PROFILE

Starting a new life in another
country can be a daunting
experience.
But for business owner Olena Weber,
leaving behind her family and friends in
the Ukraine to study abroad in Canada
was something she fully embraced.
“For me, it was fun getting an international
education and learning English, it was a
great experience,” she says, referring to
the spring of 2011 when the then 20-year-
old enrolled in an international business
course at Sheridan College in Mississauga
after visiting Toronto with her parents.
Fast forward 13 years and Olena has
transformed that experience into a
successful Canadian-based immigration
firm that specializes in economic and
family immigration programs to assist
those seeking a new life in this country.
“I just started writing blogs about my
experience coming to Canada and what
it was like here, and how I fell in love
with Canada,” she says, describing how
her company, Weber Immigration, would
eventually come into being in 2014. “It
was more of a lifestyle blog and people
started contacting me asking if I could
recommend colleges they should go to
and what province they should live in.”
At the time, Olena was doing marketing
work for an Oakville company – her first
real job - before being laid off less than
a year later after a change in ownership
but was already determined to start her
own business in Canada, despite the
economic boom in the Ukraine in wake of
the Ukrainian Revolution in 2014.
“Life is too short to do things you don’t
like doing on a daily basis. And especially
nowadays, because the world is so wide
open for you. You can do almost anything
that you like and still make money,” says
the young business leader who received
the Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award
at our 2024 Business Excellence Awards in
May. “So, when I started my business, it
Passion powering young was just all about doing what I liked.”

Olena credits her parents, now retired
entrepreneur business owners, for inspiring her to
become an entrepreneur. The couple had
been in the fashion industry and owned
several retail stores in Kyiv, which Olena
says wasn’t easy due to the political
situation.
PHOTOS BY EUGENE LAPITSKI
18 Fall 2024 www.cambridgechamber.com