Sprott Alumni Professional Achievement Award winner Jordana Pourian brought her skills to the table – now she’s Interim Chief Marketing Officer of Aritzia

Jordana Pourian (BCom/05) is this year’s recipient of the Sprott Alumni Award in Professional Excellence, which recognizes a Sprott graduate who has demonstrated outstanding achievement within their career or community service initiatives.

Jordana is an agile and transformational business leader and womens’ advocate, who has made a great impact in her career. Currently interim Chief Marketing Officer, she has held senior executive positions and overseen a diverse portfolio of responsibilities with Canadian fashion retailer Aritzia, which has more than 100 stores across North America and a global e-commerce platform.

Graduating from Carleton with a Bachelor of Commerce with a concentration in Information Systems, Jordana began her career with Deloitte – a job she secured by attending a Sprott career event, at which she received two job offers. Jordana joined Aritzia in 2007 as a project manager when it was a smaller company. The focus of Jordana’s role was to work on IT implementation, which allowed Aritzia to invest in infrastructure and growth. One of the big projects at that time was putting in technology to support the company’s market expansion and overall growth.

“I had the opportunity to work on that project with a very experienced [senior] project manager, and I learned a ton,” said Jordana.

In 2010, as Director of Project Operations, Jordana led the launch of Artizia’s e-commerce platform. She spent two years working with a team to build the e-commerce business. 

While sustaining the e-commerce business, Jordana realized that she felt more confident and comfortable building infrastructure than running the business. Jordana took this as an opportunity to develop and grow the operations department by taking on various advancing roles. She shifted focus in 2016 to lead the development of Aritzia’s Learning and Development function. Jordana’s vision was to create the organization’s highest levels of people and process performance. And to top it all off, she later expanded her portfolio to take on corporate responsibility for Aritzia.

In 2019, Jordana was appointed to Senior Vice President, Operations, and Chief of Staff. That same year, she was recognized with a Top 40 Under 40 Award from Business in Vancouver.   

In late fall of this year, Jordana transitioned to the role of Aritzia’s interim Chief Marketing Officer, once again demonstrating her professional agility and transformational leadership.

In addition to her professional accomplishments, Jordana is a strong advocate for the advancement of women; she believes that creating an environment where women can succeed is of utmost importance.

Since 2018, she has served on the board of One Girl Can, a non-profit dedicated to breaking the cycle of poverty and impacting gender equality through education and mentorship.

Recently, Jordana started a women’s network called “Balanced.” The group brings together executive women from across the city of Vancouver to connect, share and relate to one another. It creates a creates a rejuvenating space where these executives benefit from peer support as they balance the expectations of their professional and personal responsibilities.

Managing being a mom, wife, friend, daughter and leader can be a lot for one person to juggle. To help manage a large number of responsibilities, Jordana places her spiritual, physical, and mental health as her top priority. Through exercise and meditation, Jordana finds some relief from stress.

Jordana was anonymously nominated by her Sprott classmate and long-time friend Jay Payette, with whom she served as members of the Sprott Business Students’ Society (SBSS). During their time with SBSS, they helped organize the annual SBSS Business Banquet, taking a relatively small event and making it a larger celebration by quadrupling their sponsorship revenues!