Introducing:

Jess

Baker & Communications. Voted “Most likely to fix a problem with duct tape”

“If you don’t have bread with a meal, are you even eating?”

On How She Got Here

Jess was born and raised on unceded Algonquin Territory (Ottawa), to a family of Italian immigrants. Life pretty much revolved around soccer, food, and family. She knew how to precision-slice a dry sausage by the time she left elementary school, and was known to hide her favourite cured pork products around the house so no one else would eat them.

Despite being extremely passionate about eating, Jess never really considered a career in culinary arts until after taking a detour into the sciences. Upon graduation, Jess worked for a union, which she continued to do after a move to Vancouver. Through this experience, Jess’ understanding of labour movements, power, and the darker sides of workplaces expanded.

In 2011, Jess decided that working with her hands and creating food was the career that made the most sense to her. She got her first job as a cook and baker at a pizzeria in Vancouver, and simultaneously enrolled in pastry school. She very quickly realized that this is where she was meant to be.

On Roles

When BBU opened, Jess naively thought that she could meet the demands of the bakery as the sole baker, or perhaps one of two bakers. She quickly realized that alongside honing her craft as a bread baker, she would need to turn her focus towards recruitment and training. Jess’ role has always been multi-faceted, but her main focuses since day one have been: baking and menu development, recruitment and training, and communications and marketing.

Most of the words that you see, from the website, to social media, to our newsletter, were crafted by Jess. She is rarely out of things to say, for better or worse.

On Life Outside of BBU

A perfect day for Jess always includes a writing session, and the chance to slow down. Jess is an avid reader and writer, and dreams of making writing a daily part of her life. She has been working on her memoir for 37 years. Her creative writing has been published in two anthologies of Queer Italian-Canadian writers.

At least once/year, Jess dreams up a new business idea in painstaking detail. This usually happens if BBU is closed for more than a couple of days. So far, she has only ever followed through once.

Jess is also a passionate dog mom to her rescue pup Geordi, and is honoured to share her life with the coolest cat in the world, Lujain.

On Leadership

I greatly admire leaders who think outside the box, and who tackle problems and challenges in creative ways. A lot of staff who have known me, jokingly call me “Coach”, and I can’t say I hate it. A coach is someone who trains, empowers, leads by example, and teaches their team how to be strong and face adversity together.

Like Billy Beane—legendary GM of the Oakland Athletics—I fantasized about playing pro sports. Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be, for either of us. Beane’s career as a baseball scout and then a GM (as depicted by Brad Pitt in Moneyball), demonstrates the value of thoughtfully going against the grain. Beane fought back against traditional notions of what makes a player “good”, which were mostly superficial notions about aesthetics, and in doing so, he changed the game. Beane asked his colleagues to look at facts and data, and set aside their biases so that they could create the best possible team. Under this new model that Beane championed, the Oakland A’s went on to have spectacular seasons on a shoestring budget.

I want to push against traditional notions of how leadership and business ought to be, and explore new creative ways of building a good business.

On Hope

Jess is always looking towards the next horizon, and as such, has endless hopes for BBU. Most importantly, she hopes that BBU can enjoy some semblance of stability after a very destabilizing few years. She hopes that stability can lead to growing the team, which would allow BBU to flourish creatively. Jess feels the most joyous when the team is testing new products, and engaging with their creative sides.