Derrick Emsley, named Forbes Top 30 Under 30 and Canada's Top 40 Under 40, has been actively involved in environmental stewardship from a young age. At 16, he and his brother founded a tree planting company that sold carbon credits to businesses, a venture that saw over $1 million dollars in contracts, and planted 150,000 trees. This venture helped pave the way to the founding of tentree in 2012, where Derrick operates as the CEO, guiding the Company's vision and strategy. tentree is a lifestyle brand that plants ten trees for every product sold. In just under a decade, tentree has set new standards in the sustainable apparel world while also leading to the planting of almost 100 million trees. In 2021, after identifying a need for more transparency in the global reforestation space, Derrick, along with his partners, launched veritree - focused on building the tools to monitor, verify, audit, and amplify global reforestation work.

The idea to start tentree, a clothing company that plants trees came to David while studying finance and economics as part of a student exchange program at the University of Manoa in Hawaii in 2011. After graduating with a Bachelors of Business Administration (BBA) in 2012, David has successfully grown a tentree wholesale network with over 2,000 retail stores in Canada, the United States, and many European countries that has resulted in over 100M trees planted, and growing. In 2022 David shifted his focus to veritree with the goal of creating thousands of other restorative businesses by improving tree planting transparency for consumers and organisations around the world. David has been recognized as a Clean 50 emerging leader and E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year under the social impact category.

Stephen started his career building a company focused on developing and running local business websites. Soon, his business evolved to focus his service offering around migrating small/medium sized businesses from Microsoft Exchange servers to Google Apps Product Suite (Gmail, Calendar, Docs, etc.). Stephen became one of Canada’s first Certified Google Apps Deployment and Change Management Specialists. His technical expertise were critical to the early success of tentree as Stephen used this experience to create a world-class ecommerce experience while using technology to connect tentree customers to their impact and provide transparency into sustainability efforts that were often difficult to quantify. Stephen's focus on the intersection of technology and sustainability evolved into the development of the veritree platform which is now providing planting organizations and sponsors, across the globe, with transparency into their reforestation efforts.

Kathleen is Director of Impact for both veritree and tentree. At veritree, Kathleen leads the team’s efforts for impact and monitoring frameworks, aligned with the latest nature related reporting and disclosure initiatives. At tentree, Kathleen leads the company’s nature related reporting strategy, planting portfolio and impact reporting. She previously worked as tentree’s Director of Sustainability, where she ensured alignment and reporting on progress through initiatives such as CDP, SBTi, and 1t.org. Prior to joining veritree and tentree, Kathleen worked for the World Resources Institute (WRI) as a Senior Manager on the Global Restoration Initiative for over 8 years. During this time, she acted as an advisor to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Forest and Landscape Restoration Mechanism. Kathleen has over 15 years of restoration fieldwork experience across Asia, Africa and Latin America. Kathleen holds a DPhil in Geography and the Environment (PhD) from the University of Oxford and MSc Environmental Sustainability from the University of Edinburgh.

Vik supports veritree’s product, engineering, sales and marketing teams as COO. Prior to veritree, he was the CMO at Clearly, a D2C division of EssilorLuxottica. Clearly is an optical retail leader in Canada, the US, Australia, and New Zealand. Vik was accountable for the P&L, product portfolio, and market share growth. Clearly delivered its best two years of revenue and profit during his tenure. Previously, Vik served on the Canadian executive team of Facebook/Instagram as Head of Western Canada, where he built the commercial business and team in the region. He led the retail, eCommerce, SaaS, FinTech, tourism, and education verticals during his tenure. Before Facebook, he led Strategy at Mobify and was VP of Marketing and Strategy at Monexa. These SaaS companies were acquired by Salesforce and Oracle Netsuite, respectively. Vik also led the regional strategy team at Blast Radius following its acquisition by WPP and held several roles at Microsoft. He is an Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia and holds a BSc in Biotechnology and Economics from the University of Waterloo. He serves as an advisor to several private companies, and a mentor at Creative Destruction Lab.

Matt had been helping tentree overhaul their ecommerce site when he and Stephen started to talk about the potential of veritree. Shortly thereafter the two of them got to work tackling the daunting task of turning the idea into reality. Since then, he has been responsible for growing, and running, the product and engineering department at veritree. Prior to joining tentree and veritree, Matt ran a small technology company that almost exclusively served Australian charities for 7 years. Working with several notable organizations, Matt offered unique solutions to improve the donation platform experience, and user engagement, for various charitable events and campaigns. That, combined with a few years of previous experience working in web development and integrations, has given him plenty of experience solving difficult problems with unique approaches. Outside of technology, Matt enjoys the outdoors and climbing, and was an avid musician, having spent many years both performing and teaching in a professional capacity.

Holly Stone is a seasoned Human Resources leader with a proven track record of establishing solid frameworks for high-growth startups. Originally hailing from San Diego, California, Holly relocated to Canada to obtain her Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degree, specializing in Entrepreneurship and Human Resource Management. Her professional journey began at Native Shoes, where she played a pivotal role during a period of high growth, contributing to an exponential increase in the company's headcount. In 2017, Holly embarked on a transformative year-long sabbatical, exploring 23 countries alongside her husband. Upon their return to Vancouver, she joined Fresh Prep, a rapidly expanding meal kit company committed to promoting healthy eating and reducing food waste. In 2019, Holly assumed the role of tentree's inaugural HR leader, spearheading efforts to foster a people-centric culture, while empowering individuals to unlock their full potential and align with shared objectives. As the veritree concept expanded from an internal tentree project to a fully-fledged company, Holly has provided the HR guidance and structure to ensure best practices are being implemented. In general, she is passionate about cultivating trust-based partnerships, coaching, and consistently exploring innovative ways to enhance the employee experience.

Pedro Villa is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA, CA) with more than 15 years of professional experience in corporate financial reporting and executive roles. Pedro also serves as tentree’s CFO since 2019. Prior to tentree he was the CFO and Corporate Secretary of RYU Apparel Inc, an urban athletic apparel and accessories brand from 2016-2019. Pedro started his professional career at Deloitte in the audit and assurance practice, serving notable Canadian publicly listed companies in the technology and mining industries from 2007-2011. From 2012-2015 he served in various financial reporting and controller roles in the mining industry, most notably Minera Boleo and Huckleberry Mines. A builder at heart, he obtained his Bachelor of Science in Business Management with concentrations in entrepreneurship and marketing from Babson College in the United States.