Val Litwin
Candidate for BC Liberal Party Leader
Quick Facts About Val
- Grew up in Victoria, BC
- The voice for 36,000 members across BC as CEO of the BC Chamber of Commerce
- Co-founded, scaled, and sold Blo Blow Dry Bar – now 95 locations worldwide
- Chair of The Forum (for Women Entrepreneurs)
- Travelled Canada for Extreme Kindness Tour 2002 leading to co-authoring the best-selling book, Call to Arms
- Married to pediatric intensive care nurse
- Father of two young children
Any government that fails to sincerely place people at the heart of what they do is no longer electable. Yet administrations that don’t understand how economies flourish, aren’t built to last.
Business + Community + Heart
Val is a team builder and proven advocate for women, seniors, small business and underrepresented groups. His success draws from experience founding and running social enterprise, business in the not-for-profit sector. His track record shows he is a passionate, inspiring, values-driven individual who can unite differing perspectives.
Val’s career began in an unusual way – motivated by the post 9/11 world he found himself in during his early 20s. While at his hometown University of Victoria he co-founded Extreme Kindness and created a social movement that spread coast to coast. The group launched a volunteer tour in 2002 and a web-series based on committing random acts of kindness across Canada and the United States. National tours and school visits resulted in a best-selling book (Call to Arms: Embrace A Kindness Revolution) about corporate social responsibility and the power of communities to build social capital.
From there he built and sold the first-to-market franchise concept of Blo Blow Dry Bar
Alongside two inspiring women business partners, Val became a lifelong advocate of women in business and currently acts as the Chair of The Forum (The Forum for Women Entrepreneurs)
Over the past decade Val has shown true inclusive leadership and razor sharp operational and financial savvy in the private sector. VP Operations for the home health care provider, Nurse Next Door And later shaping policy as CEO of this province’s largest business association – the BC Chamber of Commerce – supporting more than 36,000 businesses across a broad spectrum both national and provincial levels to secure historic, deeply-needed policy changes, especially during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. As head of this enormous business network, he advocated for companies of all sizes, ranging from BC’s biggest ports to small coastal fishing villages, from golf and ski resorts to copper mines and co-ops.
Under his guidance the 125-chamber-strong network pushed forward on progressive new policies as Val recognized how BC’s emerging economies needed new thinking. From childcare and cleantech to Indigenous reconciliation and sustainable resource development, the BC Chamber led in areas not traditionally tackled by business associations. Val saw up close how it is through teams that the biggest victories are won, not individuals, and he developed a profound appreciation for the work ethic, leadership and community-focused approach of local chambers.
Val is married to Joy, a pediatric intensive care nurse, and they have two young children. He believes this is an exceptional province and wants to ensure his sons – and all BC children – are able to grow up in a safe society, where they can enjoy a pristine natural environment and good jobs. Having worked as a fishing guide at Kano Inlet in Haida Gwaii for five months during his university days, Val enjoys outdoor adventures, paddle boarding around the Broken Islands and hiking the coastal range.