The 50 most powerful people in Vancouver (2015)

Our 15th annual ranking of this city’s biggest game changers

Whose city is it? That simple question, easy to pose but difficult to answer, helped to inform our deliberations as we sorted through the scores of names of people with a legitimate claim to a place on the list—our 15th annual ranking. Here are the people who are shaping Vancouver’s future for all of us. Click the left and right arrows to navigate this year’s list; each profile is linked below.

Peering at Vancouver’s skyline from almost any vantage point, you’d have to have particularly poor eyesight to miss Ian Gillespie’s mark: the 62-storey Shangri-La, the cantilevered Telus Garden, the neon blue-streaked Shaw Tower and the 46-floor Fairmont Pacific Rim. For the past two years, since acquiring Creative Energy, he’s tried to replicate that dominance underground with low-carbon neighbourhood energy systems—to muted success. In September, the BC Utilities Commission rejected aspects of Gillespie’s proposal for the third time in nine months. His response? A “minor blip” wasn’t going to get in his way. (Photo: Jeff Vinnick.)