Vancouver's Hassan Khosrowshahi is one of five new inductuees to the Canadian Business Hall of Fame, the hall announced this morning.
The others inducted as part of the hall's class of 2022 are:
• Maureen Kempston Darkes, General Motors Group vice-president;
• André Desmarais, deputy chair, Power Corp.;
• Paul Desmarais Jr., chair, Power Corp.; and
• Paul Guy Desmarais Sr. (posthumous 1927-2013) former chair and CEO, Power Corp.
The hall was founded in 1979 to recognize exceptional, and visionary individuals for their contributions to Canadian economic development and prosperity.
That same year was pivotal in Khosrowshahi's life, as he fled his homeland of Iran weeks before the country's revolution that brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power.
He had been working at his family's manufacturing business, Minoo Industrial Group, but he left that behind.
Khosrowshahi arrived in Vancouver in 1981, and the next year opened a computer store. That venture coincided with spiralling demand for computer products, and he grew Future Shop to become Canada's largest electronics retail chain when he took the company public in 1993.
Khosrowshahi kept control of Future Shop, however, through his family-owned holding company, Inwest Investments Ltd.
In 2001, when Future Shop had 88 stores, he sold the venture to U.S. electronics giant Best Buy for $580 million in cash. Best Buy kept the Future Shop banner for some Canadian stores until 2015.
Khosrowshahi diversified his investments after the Future Shop sale, and focused on real estate development and pharmaceuticals, among other investments. His family's Persis Holdings Ltd. is known to many for its Wesbild property-development subsidiary. Wesbild developed Coquitlam's Westwood Plateau.
He has served as a director of the Bank of Canada and Canada Post. He was on the executive committee at the Business Council of B.C., and he served as the chair, and as a director at the Fraser Institute. He is known as a philanthropist.
Khosrowshahi is married to Nezhat Knosrowshahi, and the couple have two children: Bezhad and Golnar.
Uber CEO Dara Knosrowshahi is Knosrowshahi's second cousin. •
