Heather Reisman

Meet the woman who built Canada’s biggest bookstore.

In 1995, Heather Reisman was offered a chance to invest in Borders’ Canadian expansion.

When the deal fell through, she launched Indigo: a big-box book retailer.

She raised $25M off a concept doc.

By 2001, she executed a hostile takeover of Chapters, her biggest competitor.

But she didn’t just sell books.

She curated them.

Since 1998, her “Heather’s Picks” (260+ titles) came with a money-back guarantee.

Indigo became the largest bookseller in Canada.

In 2009, she co-founded Kobo to compete with Kindle.

In 2011, Indigo sold its stake to Rakuten for $315M.

She scaled. She diversified.

Giftware, candles, toys, wellness. Indigo became a lifestyle brand.

It worked… until it didn’t.

Amazon took over.

Then the pandemic.

Then a cyberattack.

Revenue dropped. The stock crashed from $20 to $0.90.

Boardroom chaos followed. Four directors resigned. Reisman left.

A month later, she came back.

In April 2024, she and her husband took Indigo private, buying the company back at $2.50 a share.

At 76, she rewrote the strategy herself.

Cut the clutter. Go back to books.

Curated titles. Author events. Real community.

Position Indigo as “the anti-addiction” to tech.

“We're all addicted,” she said. “Can Indigo be the balance?”

She’d seen the trend coming.

79% of books sold in Canada in 2023 were still physical.

She called books artifacts. Part story, part memory.

She’s betting that experience still matters.

But there’s more to Reisman than Indigo.

She started in social work. Launched a strategy consulting firm in the ‘70s.

Helped scale Cott to become the world’s largest private-label soft drink bottler.

She executive-produced “Fed Up” and “The Social Dilemma.”

She’s served on the boards of McGill, the Toronto Stock, Exchange, Onex, Sinai Health, Williams Sonoma, and J.Crew.

She helped fund a $100M innovation centre at the University of Toronto focused on AI and regenerative medicine.

She’s an Officer of the Order of Canada.

And in 2022, she was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame as its “most recognized literacy advocate.”