Sarah Illman CO-FOUNDER & PARTNER

Sarah was born and raised in Burlington, Ontario by an entrepreneurial mother who taught her at an early age about hard work, honesty and treating others with respect. Another guiding force in Sarah early years were her dance and ballet classes, where she learned about practice, patience and perseverance which has been a winning formula for her ever since.

After graduating from Mohawk College with Marketing diploma Sarah began her career in sales. She worked for Cadbury Trebor Allan as a Territory Manager for 4 years. Sarah was proud of her successes with Cadbury, but disheartened that her success was at the cost of the health of people and the environment. Her intuition told her to take the leap in a new direction and a few months later Sarah found herself in the natural health industry.

Sarah took the industry by storm, running a juice bar, managing smaller health food stores and eventually settling into a position as a body care specialist. Her desire for challenge and growth pushed her into a new direction and she accepted an administrative position at Whole Foods Market in Oakville, where her work ethic and success caught her soon to be partners eye. Soon after Sarah and Simona ran one of the most successful departments that the company had ever seen.

Social responsibility and environmental stewardship are just a few of the values that are important to Sarah. She is a firm believer in “walking the talk” and supports wind power and carbon offsets for her daily living and travel. Sarah is passionate about fair trade products and hopes to follow in the footsteps of one of her mentors, Muhammad Yunus, and open a micoloan bank supporting environmentally sound projects. She donates to many charitable organizations such as Green Peace and Foster parents plan and looks forward to organizing One World’s many charitable events.

Simona Irwin FOUNDER & PARTNER

Simona had an early start in the retail industry helping her entrepreneur Grandmother run her successful Christmas store from the age of 6. During the summer of her youth until the end of high school she was able to learn the key fundamentals of small business through experiences in accounting, marketing, wholesaling, importing, tradeshows and manufacturing. At fifteen Simona read a life changing book that introduced her to the concepts of alternative medicine and natural lifestyles, which was the catalyst that drove her to pursue her education as a Natural Health Practitioner.

After many successful years managing two organic juice bars, Simona looked for a greater challenge to increase her business experience and test her abilities.  Her career at Whole Foods Market was a stepping stone to her rapidly growing company. Simona started out as the Body Care Buyer and quickly moved into managing the Oakville Whole Body Department. Her success included rapid company and product growth, increasing employee morale and participation, mentoring new leaders and increases in profit and growth.  A year later she returned for another successful term at the Toronto location which eventually ended four life changing years with Whole Foods Market.  Her desire to create One World Distribution was based on both her experiences and tools from Whole Foods interdependent business model.  Simona seized the opportunity to move the industry to a new level and provide the services that she felt were missing in her retail experience.

Simona is active in her High Park community and is part of the Toronto Eco-Friendly Business Network. She is dedicated to many charities and causes including local environmental charities and global child protection agencies.  Her company One World is a proud supplier of fair trade products that supports sustainable businesses globally.  Simona is passionate about human rights and the environment and looks forward to eventually supporting small businesses who share her convictions.  Simona believes in a business model that couples profit with people and is proud to help to create a blueprint for this philosophy through her company’s practices.