Book Mark Brand through The Keynote Curators
Biography
Mark Brand is a social impact entrepreneur, educator, facilitator, and internationally recognized speaker whose work is rooted in dignity, equity, and radical hospitality. Through restaurants, community organizations, classrooms, and global stages, he challenges conventional approaches to hunger, homelessness, addiction, and social inequality. His work demonstrates how business can become a powerful platform for creating opportunity, strengthening communities, and building more inclusive systems.
In 2010, Brand reopened Vancouver’s historic Save On Meats in the Downtown Eastside, one of Canada’s most marginalized communities. Under his leadership, the restaurant became a model for social enterprise, community hiring, and dignified food access. He later founded A Better Life Foundation, which develops scalable food-security programs, provides daily meals, and advances initiatives designed to ensure that people experiencing hardship receive nourishment with dignity and care.
Brand also founded Upward Mobility Kitchens, an organization that builds kitchens, cafés, and community-powered meal programs to create access, employment, and long-term opportunity. Its work has expanded from Canada’s West Coast to Halifax, where Brand leads Upward East operations, oversees a school lunch program serving thousands of students each day, and anchors Upward Kitchen & Café as a community hub. He is also developing Upward Farm, an initiative focused on regenerative agriculture, food sovereignty, sustainability, and stronger connections between people and the land.
A certified Ten Directions Integral Facilitator, Brand helps organizations navigate complex challenges through design thinking, systems-level analysis, and honest, actionable dialogue. His experience at Stanford’s d.school and as an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California strengthened his belief that lasting change begins with a thoughtful and inclusive process. He has spoken at TEDx Vancouver, Singularity University’s Global Summit, C2 Montréal, and events around the world.
Through candid storytelling and lessons drawn from years of frontline community work, Mark Brand encourages audiences to confront bias, become everyday advocates, and develop sustainable models of service. His keynotes offer a powerful examination of resilience, leadership, social entrepreneurship, food security, and the responsibility organizations have to the communities around them.
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Mark Brand believes that good business doesn’t have to come at the cost of doing good. Discussing the tenants of blending corporate and community leadership, Mark draws on his own decades-long experience of successful social entrepreneurship to guide and encourage audiences in their own endeavours.
Fully customizable, Mark can discuss his own experience (and lessons learned); the best practices for employing people who traditionally have had barriers to employment; mentorship; the importance of leverage and partnerships; thinking outside the box; and sticking to your philosophies during tough economic times.
Mark Brand, a celebrated entrepreneur, social innovator, and thought leader, brings a transformative perspective on leadership and purpose-driven business. In this engaging session Mark shares actionable insights on balancing profitability with impact, fostering team loyalty, and building brands that resonate deeply with customers and communities.
Mark’s journey as the founder of multiple successful ventures, including socially conscious restaurants, offers unparalleled lessons for leaders navigating the complexities of scaling operations while maintaining authenticity and connection. Attendees will explore how to:
Cultivate a mission-driven company culture that enhances employee satisfaction and retention.
Leverage community engagement to boost brand loyalty and customer trust.
Lead with empathy to inspire high-performing teams.
This keynote is designed to empower managers with tools and strategies to transform their leadership approach, aligning it with the values and expectations of today’s consumers and employees.
Successful and vibrant communities are built with real inclusion. Mark Brand works in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, a community long recognized as being in flux. The space of one city block separates million dollar condos and 8×10-single-room occupancy’s dedicated as housing for the mentally ill and addicted.
Brand’s work in the DTES encompasses food security, training, employment, and strategic partnerships with developers and social enterprises alike. He works to change policy municipally–and perception nationally–in an effort to help create and build better communities that are rich, inclusive, and wonderful places in which to live and work, and where residents look after one another.
He speaks on this topic with the passion that translates to all levels of business and society, regardless of color, creed, or financial status.
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