Karla Briones is a business strategist that coaches new immigrants, BIPOC and underrepresented business owners on becoming successful entrepreneurs with scalable ventures.  She is the founder of Immigrants Developing Entrepreneurs Academy (IDEA) – an online platform designed to educate and connect newcomers to the Canadian business ecosystem. She’s a Nation’s Capital Immigrant Entrepreneur of the Year award recipient and a TEDx Speaker on the topic of immigrant entrepreneurship. Karla is a small business columnist for the Ottawa Citizen, an entrepreneurship professor at Algonquin College and serves on the board of directors for the Ottawa Markets and the Ottawa Board of Trade, as well as volunteering as a business mentor for Futurpreneur Canada and other local entrepreneurship community groups.