Although my current work is largely in defence and national security, my focus today is veteran entrepreneurship in general. Veterans I've worked with or mentored include brewers, distillers, plumbers, electricians and people involved in hybrid rocket motor companies, as well as people in more general technology start-ups and creative enterprises. Their focus on bringing success to Canada is clearly not confined to one sector. They all universally use the mindset and skills developed in service to build businesses, create jobs and contribute to the resilience of the Canadian economy.
Across my experience in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, the fundamentals of this discussion are consistent. Veterans bring leadership, discipline, resilience and a demonstrated ability to operate in uncertain, high-pressure conditions. They are trained to take responsibility, to make decisions with incomplete information and to execute in complex environments. These are not abstract qualities. They align directly with what is required to build and sustain a business.
Where the difference emerges is not in the veteran. It is in the system they enter after service. In the United States, there is a clearer institutional and cultural signal that military service is a foundation for continued economic participation, including entrepreneurship. There are identifiable pathways through training, procurement and capital that make starting a business feel like a viable, supported next step. In the United Kingdom, although the scale is smaller, veteran networks, mentorship and targeted support create a relatively coherent environment for translating military experience into commercial activity.
In Canada, what I observe is different. We have strong individual programs, committed people and a number of very entrepreneurial veteran-led charities and networks. Organizations such as Treble Victor Group, True Patriot Love and several veteran-founded social ventures have themselves been built by veterans who saw a need and created something new. However, from the perspective of a member leaving service, these do not yet consistently present as a coherent system. What our veterans encounter is less a pathway and more a landscape of valuable elements that must be found, interpreted and stitched together, often at the moment when clarity would be most helpful for the veteran.
From our vantage point at Vimy Forge and Tidal Venture Partners, this shows up in three practical ways.
First, there does not appear to be a clear front door. A veteran who is curious about starting or acquiring a business does not reliably encounter a structural progression from initial interest to testing and validation, to launch and then to growth or, if necessary, to trying again after a setback. In practice, the veteran entrepreneur is left to navigate the system independently rather than be guided through it.
Second, there is a misalignment between the pace and nature of entrepreneurship and the design of veteran support systems. Entrepreneurship is iterative and non-linear. It involves experimentation, calculated risk and course correction. Support systems, by contrast, are often built around predictable, linear outcomes. As a result, the system is often experienced less as support and more as friction at critical moments.
Third, there is an underused opportunity to connect veteran entrepreneurship more deliberately to areas of national priority. These include defence, security and advanced technologies—where veterans bring operational insight into real-world challenges such as logistics, communications, decision-making under pressure and others—as well as sectors like infrastructure, manufacturing, energy, health and local services. Without deliberate pathways into these markets, veterans—often exactly the experienced end-users who define the agile methodology—are often positioned at the margins or even outside of the areas where their experience is directly relevant and can have the most impact.