Laura Kane
The Canadian Press
TORONTO — Brace yourselves, Canadian entrepreneurs: two new dragons are entering the den.
Bay Street financier Michael Wekerle, billed as “Mick Jagger meets Warren Buffett,” and Vancouver restaurateur Vikram Vij are the newest additions to CBC’s Dragons’ Den.
Returning for a ninth season Wednesday, the newbies join Jim Treliving, Arlene Dickinson and David Chilton to judge Canadians’ business ideas and dole out cash to those deemed worthy.
Wekerle has a reputation for being a rock star in bankers’ clothing, known equally for his wild lifestyle as his business acumen. But he said in a summer interview that he brings a sense of “humanity” to the show.
“I believe in certain core values and I’m glad to say that all the ‘Dragons’ … I find, are very, very strong and ethical people,” he said. “Respect, loyalty, generosity, honesty, reciprocity and the best word, empathy, those are the words that I live my life by.”
He said he proved his talents on the Toronto Stock Exchange trading room floor at age 18. He went on to make fortunes investing in media and tech companies, including BlackBerry maker Research In Motion.
Dubbed “The Oracle of Bay Street” by Toronto Life magazine, Wekerle now oversees a vast investment portfolio and most recently founded the merchant banking firm Difference Capital.
Chilton said that Wekerle brought a sense of “unpredictability” to the show — in a positive way. He said he looked at deals from a perspective that the other Dragons hadn’t seen before.
“We all have a lot of experience in deals, but obviously he has the most. You’ve probably got the most in the country, in some ways. So I thought there was imagination there and creativity in some of the deal structures that was neat to see. I bet some people at home are going to say, ‘Wow, never seen that in the previous eight years,”’ he said.
“Plus he showed up every day,” Chilton joked. “That was a little bit worrisome to all of us.”
Vij, meanwhile, is well-known in Vancouver for his popular Indian fusion restaurants and cookbooks. Born in India, he left home at age 20 to pursue his culinary dreams, eventually opening his first restaurant Vij’s in 1994.
“I’ve done it for 20 years now. It’s time for younger entrepreneurs, younger chefs, to come in and create a newer buzz there.
“It’s funny because the other day, somebody in the restaurant industry called me a veteran, and I was like, oh my God, just 20 years ago, I was called a newbie. So it felt kind of good,” he said.
Vij has previously appeared as a judge on CBC’s Recipes to Riches and Food Network’s Top Chef Canada and Chopped Canada.
He said he brings a few new elements to the table.
“One is that immigrant attitude of saying, ‘Here I am, studied in Europe, I came here, through sheer hard work and honesty, we managed to get to this point, to the finish line.’ I think [I represent] a sector of the industry that has never been represented as often on the panel, a restaurant industry,” he said.
Wekerle added that Vij is an “artist.”
“He creates, he doesn’t use conventional ways to cook his food. He doesn’t use conventional ways to display it. He’s got a very unique art form. That really comes through in the show.”
Also new this season will be a segment where past contestants give updates on how their deals have played out in the real world.
“People always love to hear what’s happened with some of these deals. So there’s going to be 20 updates, which is new. We’ve got an episode where we’ve got family-owned businesses, which is another different dynamic and that’s going to be exciting,” Dickinson said.
“Then we’ve got the biggest deals we’ve ever done. Two $2-million deals. You’re going to see more sophisticated deals.
“I would say this year, it has a new structure. These guys brought new structures to the table that we hadn’t thought about before.”
Despite Wekerle’s bad-boy persona, Dickinson said that he was the most generous of all the Dragons to the nervous contestants.
“Wekerle was the nicest, in a surprising way … just a pure, genuine, ‘I’ll give you the shirt off my back,’ that’s him.”
