I haven't just managed every function. I've done the work inside each one.
Twenty years acquiring, building, and operating a multi-location retail business — a 130-product consumer brand, a national industry leadership role, every function built from the ground up and worked from the inside. Paired with genuine AI fluency: the kind that multiplies what an experienced operator can now deliver.
Most leadership candidates have managed a function. Some have managed many. Very few have built and worked inside every function of a complex business — the marketing, the IT, the brand, the finance, the supply chain, the people. And almost none of those operators have built genuine fluency with the AI tools that are now reshaping how every one of those functions gets done. That combination — twenty years of operating depth plus active, daily AI fluency — is what I bring.
What Twenty Years Actually Built
Every Function, Hands-On
Hands-on experience across every function of a multi-component business — retail operations, consumer brand, e-commerce, marketing, IT, finance, HR, and real estate
A Brand Built From Zero
Built a 130-product consumer brand from zero to $5M in annual sales — product development, sourcing, regulatory, packaging, positioning, and training
National Industry Leadership
Six years on the Board of Canada's largest natural health products association — the Canadian Health Food Association (CHFA) — including two years as President.
Daily AI Practitioner
Daily AI power user across real business operations — early adopter, hands-on practitioner, and a working command of the latest frontier models
"The Assaf family has added a level of professionalism that was really needed to develop a successful brand and business."
— Traci Rae, Account Manager, Flora · Canadian Natural Health Retailer cover feature
Featured in · Canadian Natural Health Retailer (cover story) · Business in Focus · Grocery Business · Health & Wellness Retailer
What got me here was a habit, not a credential — identify what needs to be learned, learn it deeply, and apply it directly to the problem in front of me. That's how I came to operate every function of a complex business. It's how I came to AI early. And it's how I'm approaching whatever comes next: hands-on, every day, looking for the right challenge to put all of it to work.
If this is the kind of operator you've been looking for, let's talk.
I'm easy to reach, I respond, and I'd rather have one substantive conversation than ten polite ones.