Praveen Varshney
PRAVEEN VARSHNEY has been a principal of Varshney Capital Corp., a Vancouver based merchant banking, venture capital and corporate advisory services firm, since 1991. He is a director or officer of various publicly traded companies including Mogo (Co-Founder) and BetterU Education Corp. He is a Co-Founder of G-PAK and former CFO of Carmanah Technologies Corp. which became Canada's largest solar company. He was Co-Founder of a predecessor of Mountain Province Diamonds who’s Gahcho Kué in September 2016 became the world’s largest new diamond mine since 2003 & De Beers’ second-largest producer behind its Jwaneng mine in Botswana.
Mr. Varshney is a Toniic member and a long-time member of both EO Entrepreneurs Organization & TiE (Founding Director). He’s on a number of non-profit boards such as The Varshney Family Charitable Foundation, OneProsper.org and a Founding Member of instrumentbeyondborders.org. Mr. Varshney is a SVP Vancouver Partner, a Vancouver Police Foundation Trustee, and on the Advisory boards of Room to Read - Vancouver and The Thomas Edison Innovation Foundation in New Jersey, USA.
Mr. Varshney is a past recipient of Business in Vancouver's 40 Under 40 Awards.
3 words to describe Nature?
Amazing, beautiful, wonderful.
3 things Nature taught you?
To be grateful for the things in life that are free & can provide so much happiness – grass, flowers, trees.
Can also be a force to be reckoned with so to be respectful of that & situations that can arise.
There has to be a God, who else & how else could all this have been created!
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Any beach on the planet, especially in Pt.Roberts, WA, USA where we have a small cabin by the ocean.
Walking through Pacific Spirit Regional Park near our home in Vancouver with our labradoodle dog, Ozzy.
Anywhere in Hawaii like on the Big Island where we have a home.
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Wonderful!
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Alive!
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
In awe!
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Thankful to be alive & happy.
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
A bit scared & a bit in awe.
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
A bit scared & a bit in awe.
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Wow tough choice, I’m going to go with Ocean.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10 but 12 if you’ll let me go with it.
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
Growing up during the younger years, because our parents didn’t have much money, we did a lot of picnics so I have vivid amazing memories of all the various parks in the city & neighboring areas we’d visit, my siblings & I would toss a baseball around & even play hockey on the grass with street hockey sticks!