Mandy Rennehan
Mandy Rennehan is the founder and CEO of Freshco, a full-service reconstruction and retail maintenance firm operating across Canada and the eastern U.S. The “Blue-Collar CEO” was born in 1975 and raised in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and left home at 18. With no formal education, the self-taught Rennehan was 20 years old when she launched Freshco, now a multi-million dollar empire whose client list includes many Fortune 500 retail giants. A passionate advocate for women in the trades, Rennehan is involved in a variety of groundbreaking mentorship initiatives for girls and women seeking meaningful careers. The quick-witted, down-to-earth Rennehan insists on a happy work environment and believes employee satisfaction is the key to her company’s extraordinary success. She has received numerous awards, including a 2017 RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Award, and was one of the Women’s Executive Network’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women in 2015, 2016 and 2017, one of Atlantic Business Magazine’s Top 50 CEOs, and one of Profit Magazine’s W100. Freshco won the Canadian Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce LGBT Business of the Year Award in 2017.