Finance graduate Bianca Veltri wants to help other innovators build their businesses
Meet Bianca. Bright. Industrious. Supportive.
Hometown: Calgary, Alberta
Program: Bachelor of Business Administration | Major: Finance | Minor: Entrepreneurship
Graduating with a Bachelor of Administration and a successful startup on her hands, Bianca Veltri’s connection to Mount Royal University is intergenerational; both her mother and brother attended the university.
Veltri began her studies at MRU intending on becoming an accountant.
“I was going to get my CPA. I’ve always been a numbers person and I was really set on that,” she says. However, Veltri opened herself up to opportunities that, while tangential, allowed her to merge her love for numbers and the more “creative side of business,” as she puts it.
One of Veltri’s most memorable experiences as a finance major was her participation in the CFA Societies Canada Ethics Challenge. The goal of this challenge is to instill a high standard of conduct in students, preparing them for ethical dilemmas they may face in the investment world. Catherine Roy Heaton, an associate professor of finance at Mount Royal who prepared that year’s cohort for the case competition “was incredible throughout,” Veltri says.
During her time at Mount Royal, Bianca was very involved with the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which offers community-engaged learning opportunities to entrepreneurial students. She began working on her startup, Hive, in January 2023. Hive is an app that helps users plan activities with friends, allowing them to message each other to co-ordinate and book events.
“So, instead of managing a messaging app, maybe a booking system for a spin class, and your calendar, you can do that all in one experience,” Veltri says.
She pitched Hive at the Institute's LaunchPad Pitch Competition in April of 2023 and for her efforts ended up taking home $25,000 in design and accounting support for her business.
“That was a really awesome experience to bring my startup to life,” she says.
Another memorable experience for Veltri is her trip that same summer to the European Innovation Academy in Portugal. During the three-week study abroad program offered through the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Veltri had the chance to develop Hive with a team of students from around the world and pitch it to investors.
“That was a really great experience. I ended up meeting my co-founder that I’m still working with today on my business,” she says.
Hive came about through Veltri identifying a problem in her own day-to-day life: the complicated logistics of getting together with friends. It is this ingenuity and entrepreneurial thinking that informs her passion for helping others get their own businesses off the ground.
Throughout her time at Mount Royal University, Veltri juggled a full-time job working for the startup Showpass while developing her own business.
“I’m really obsessed with calendars. I’m very organized. I really like timing everything. Everything has a time slot,” she says. With effective time management and a support system at work, school and home, Veltri was able to dedicate herself to laying the foundation for a bright career in entrepreneurship.
Veltri is grateful for the support of Ray DePaul, the executive director at the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. “He was incredible throughout all of the programming that I did and really helped me get my startup off the ground and put me where I am today,” Veltri says. Of the many professors she’s grateful for, Veltri mentions (now retired) accounting associate professors Rafik Kurji and Shiraj Kurji, as well as associate professor of finance, Dr. Carlton Osakwe, PhD.
Veltri is currently working at LAUNCH, a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage tech companies. After gaining clarity on her path, and thanks to her education and experiential learning opportunities at Mount Royal, Vetri hopes to establish a career in venture capitalism to help others grow projects they feel strongly about.
“If you’re unsure of what program you want or what job you want or how you fit into the university, I would say try as many things as possible, as early as you can,” she says. “Try the Innovation Sprint, try a case competition. Join a sports team, go rock climbing. Just try to do a bunch of different activities, you’ll meet a lot of really cool people along the way and start to figure out who you are and what you want to do. But the only way you can do that is by trying new things. And if you go into one program and silo yourself, I think it takes away from a lot that Mount Royal has to offer.”