A self-made entrepreneur, Marianne Zakhour started her journey as an immigrant. Her determination to independently succeed in a new unknown environment pushed her to maximize her opportunities throughout her career and continue to push herself to new heights.

She is now the co-founder of Orderbot, an order management platform that helps modernize commerce for online ordering and fulfillment. Throughout the years, Orderbot has helped hundreds of clients sell their products online and is proud to have a diversified team from several countries and backgrounds working in one office and sharing the same values and goals. 

In her early twenties, Marianne started her career at CGI, where she worked as a financial and business analyst. “I was working with executives, a portfolio of millions of dollars, doing financial analysis every month and talking about increasing revenue and lowering cost. I learned so much from my very corporate environment. After that great experience I wanted to do something more entrepreneurial” explained Marianne during an interview with LebNet. 

It started with food and a bit of tech 

Being the food lover that she is, Marianne combined her passion for food and tech and moved to San Francisco to work for Boudin Bakery, where she was tasked to increase sales, grow the business, and automate processes. They wanted every technology and process to be “Best of Breed” in order to succeed with exponential growth. 

Her entrepreneurship journey was ignited when she hired a Vancouver based company to develop a custom catering and e-commerce software for some of Boudin’s businesses. She realized how empowering it would be to use such software to help a wider range of businesses grow and sell products. Two years later, she moved to Vancouver and partnered with that same software company owner and they started their venture toward Orderbot: the SAAS software provider.

“I feel so blessed to be in this industry. One can continuously innovate to make consumers’ and companies’ lives easier. With a bit of creativity, it’s not very hard to thrive in this business, but it’s a matter of planning and always reassuring the people you’re working for, whether they are investors or customers,” she said. 

Although Marianne finds joy in helping other businesses, as a founder she is constantly focusing on staying ahead of the curve. “You’re always thinking about the next thing. In software, it’s always about being ahead of the market needs. It’s a combination of product and finances,” she added. Being in a different role than earlier in her career, she strives to look at the bigger picture rather than being “in the weeds,” as she describes it, so she can maintain her focus on growing the business. 

In her younger days as a founder and a professional, Marianne was determined and a multi-tasker at heart. “I got excited very fast. I can multitask and do so much in so little time. It takes a lot of crazy passion to start a business but it takes a lot of well thought out strategy to grow it. Passion and strategy are not always on the same side of the game –  it is important to take a deep breaths and find the right time, funding and team to execute.” 

One of her recent hires, Omar, was someone she met through the LebNet network.  Omar’s exceptional skills and hard work ethic resulted in his hiring and move to Canada from Lebanon to become one of Orderbot’s lead developers. In addition, Marianne has hired 8 more developers from Lebanon to cover the night shift and secure her business’s 24/7 operation. 

Growing by helping other businesses has always been Marianne’s dream and this makes her a thought leader in her industry. But what makes her a true inspiring figure is her dedication to instilling trust and joy in the people around her and helping them create better lives for themselves. Marianne is a passionate and proud Lebanese leader in tech living in Vancouver who is now on the LebNet board and is excited about spreading LebNet’s mission and growing its impact!