Shahrzad Rafati


Shahrzad Rafati is an Iranian-Canadian chairwoman and CEO of RHEI, formerly BBTV, a global tech company headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, which develops AI solutions for content creators and media companies, including its "emotionally intelligent" Made platform, and data licensing solution, RHEI Data Pro.
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Early life

Rafati was born 1979 in Tehran, Iran and immigrated to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada as a teenager. In 2005, she completed her BSc in computer science at the University of British Columbia. Rafati also studied French at Université Paris Sorbonne (Paris IV), and is a graduate of the Young Global Leaders Oxford Module: Transformational Leadership at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. Shahrzad also received her Honorary Doctorate from University Canada West in 2020.

Career

Separate from her role as a CEO of RHEI, Rafati is also a board member for Bjarke Ingels Group, an architecture firm, and was named Vice Chair of the board for Invest in Canada in 2019. She has been a board member of the Vancouver Economic Commission, and the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs.
In September 2018, it was announced that Shahrzad was appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to represent Canada on the Business Women Leaders task force, which was formed to advise global leaders on issues of women's economic empowerment as part of the G20 Summit. She was later appointed as Canada's representative for G20 EMPOWER, a private sector alliance with the goal of advancing women's representation at leadership levels in the private sector. In 2019 she was also appointed as the Vice Chair of Invest in Canada, a federal agency that aims to create jobs in Canada by facilitating foreign business investment by highlighting Canada's talent pool, economic growth across multiple industries, and geographic advantage as a hub for global trade. In January 2025, Rafati was also appointed by the Prime Minister to the Council on US-Canada Relations.

Awards