Deborah Richardson lives in Vancouver and embodies a fierce combination of artistic and entrepreneurial spirit. She maintains a life-long affair with art and design, working in a wide range of artistic enterprises. Deborah has an attitude that nothing is impossible.

Following her interests in the arts, Deborah attended the Cornish Institute of the Arts in Seattle. She then gained experience in retail and started her first business, cosmetics, within beauty salons. She serviced her clients and soon found pleasure in training make-up artists.

During the period of 1988-1995, Deborah developed her own line of jewellery selling her creations through private and public outlets and holding jewellery design classes. From 1995-2001, Deborah used her interior design talent and her business acumen in creating three beautiful wine shops, Wine Masters, which she ran successfully for five years. Then, while she lived in the Okanagan, she started a newspaper chain, the BC Bargain Hunter. As publisher-owner, for the next eight years, Deborah was setting the format of the paper, designing the clients’ advertisements, developed the online web system for collecting ads and payment and arranging for the printing and distribution while training support staff.

When she moved back to Vancouver, Deborah and her daughter Jessica marketed their jewellery line under the Coral Moon label.  By 2007, they saw an opportunity to represent other Canadian designers and opened The Velvet Room Boutique on 41^st Avenue in the Kerrisdale area. The store carries Canadian designed clothing and Canadian designed jewellery labels along with Deborah’s Coral Moon line, in a beautiful and comfortable setting.

After the experience of developing several enterprises, Deborah is pleased to share and teach the elements of business and the arts to others for their success in their own projects. She is a business mentor for the CYBF and private clients as well as works with retail owners in start up and re-development of their businesses.