Zita Cobb, CM, is a Canadian businesswoman and social entrepreneur.[1][2] In 2006, she established Shorefast, a Canadian social enterprise, with her brothers Anthony and Alan Cobb on Fogo Island, Newfoundland.[2][3][4]
Zita Cobb, CM, is a Canadian businesswoman and social entrepreneur.[1][2] In 2006, she established Shorefast, a Canadian social enterprise, with her brothers Anthony and Alan Cobb on Fogo Island, Newfoundland.[2][3][4]
Cobb is an eighth-generation Fogo Islander.[5] Cobb has six brothers,[6] and her father was an inshore fisherman. She grew up in a household with no electricity or running water.[6] She battled and survived tuberculosis at the age of six, which she credits for the confidence that she carried with her later into her career.[7] Cobb studied business and graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa.[8][6]
Cobb started working with various oil companies in Alberta, and traveling in Canada and Africa.[6] She worked at Ottawa-based JDS Fitel for ten years and became the CFO.[6] The company merged with the U.S. company Uniphase in 1999 to become JDS Uniphase.[9][6] In 2001, she exercised stock options worth US$69 million, and left the company to sail around the world for 4 years.[6]
In 2006, Cobb and her brother Andy founded Shorefast, a Canadian social enterprise, in response to the economic and cultural difficulties her Newfoundland outport home had experienced over the past decades.[10][6] She contributed $10 million of her own money to the organization.[6] The Canadian government contributed $5 million, and the provincial government contributed another $5 million.[6] Shorefast built the Fogo Island Inn, which opened in 2013 and continues to be operated by Shorefast Social Enterprises Inc.[11][12] The inn is a 100% social business, and all operating surpluses are reinvested in the community of Fogo Island through the projects and programs of Shorefast.[13] The inn aims to build another leg on the existing economies of the island and to provide employment.[14]
On June 30, 2016, Cobb was made a Member of the Order of Canada by Governor General David Johnston for "her contributions as a social entrepreneur who has helped revive the unique rural communities of Fogo Island and Change Islands through innovative social engagement and geotourism."[15]
She has been recognized with honorary doctorate degrees from Carleton University,[16] Memorial University of Newfoundland,[17] McGill University[18] and University of Ottawa.[19]
Cobb was inducted into the Junior Achievement Business Hall of Fame in May 2018.[20]
On November 12, 2019, Cobb interviewed 44th President of the United States Barack Obama for a public event at the Mile One Centre in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, which was hosted by the St. John's Board of Trade.[21] More than 5,000 people attended the discussion, which covered topics of community, climate change and democracy.[21]