Daphne Kao

Vice President of People & Culture, Choom

Daphne is the Vice President of People & Culture at Choom, an elevated retail cannabis company with store locations across British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario.  With over a decade of Human Resources experience in both corporate and start-up environments, Daphne has spent the most recent part of her career focused on the retail sector.

Prior to Choom, Daphne led the HR function at Knix, an E-Commerce women’s apparel company based out of Toronto where she was responsible for the foundational build out of the function.  Daphne has also spent over 4 years at Aritzia where she led as the HR business partner for various departments during her tenure, including Retail Operations, Customer Service, Store Development, E-Commerce, Marketing and in retail stores in Ontario.  Daphne’s HR experience extends beyond retail brands with time spent at large corporations such as AOL (now a part of Verizon Media) and Altus Group, a global leader of commercial real estate services and software.

Daphne was born in Taipei, grew up in Toronto and has split her time between Toronto and Vancouver.  Daphne holds an Honours Bachelor of Science from the University of Toronto, is a Certified Human Resources Leader through the Human Resources Professional Association in Ontario, and has been trained through the Coaches Training Institute.