Dani Reiss

Early life

Reiss was born on November 7, 1973 to Malca and David Reiss. His maternal grandfather was Samuel Tick (originally Szmuel Tyk), a Polish Jewish immigrant who worked as a fabric cutter for other companies before founding Metro Sportswear. Reiss’ father came into the business after marrying Tick’s daughter in the 1970s and rebranding the company as Snow Goose, developing a unique down-filling machine. David Reiss served as CEO of the company from 1982 to 2000.

Education

Reiss received his Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature and Philosophy from the University of Toronto in 1996.

Career

After graduating from college, Reiss decided to join the family business for a few months to make extra money for travelling expenses. He wanted to be a writer and had no intention of staying in the family business. However, after attending a tradeshow in Germany where he tested out the Canada Goose brand, Reiss became passionate about the business. He learned the family business by working in every area of the company’s factory and travelling with the company’s sales managers on visits to buyers in Europe. Reiss came to realize that European customers associated the brand with the Canadian wilderness, which lead him to change the company’s name from Snow Goose to Canada Goose. In 2001, at the age of 27, he became President and CEO of Canada Goose. When he took over, his two critical decisions were to change the brand’s name to Canada Goose and to continue to make its products in Canada. In order to continue manufacturing in Canada, Reiss invested his own money into the Canada Goose Factory and established sewing schools in Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal. It was around this time that other North American apparel companies were moving their manufacturing to Asia.

Net Worth

Reiss has an estimated net worth of $1.2 billion, according to Forbes. He is the 2,378 richest person in the world according to the magazine.

Achievement

In 2008, Reiss was named as Canada’s Top 40 under 40. In 2009, Reiss and his team established the Canada Goose Resource Centre program in conjunction with First Air and the North West Company to give Inuit sewers access to high-quality fabrics, buttons and zippers free of charge to make traditional clothing for their families. In November 2011, Reiss was awarded the Ernst & Young National Entrepreneur of the Year Award. In 2012, he received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. In 2013, the Canadian Marketing Association named him Marketer of the Year. In 2016, he was named a Member of the Order of Canada. Reiss took Canada Goose public in March 2017, owning approximately 18 percent of the company’s stock. Canada Goose employs more than 3,400 people. Reiss is a board member of Polar Bears International, a nonprofit committed to polar bear conservation, and served as chairman of the board from 2008 to 2017. He donated $1 million to the construction of Polar Bears International’s new Churchill facility in 2018. In 2019, Reiss was awarded the uOttawa Honorary Doctorate for Telfer’s School of Management.