Jessie Cullen started working with BeaverTails Ottawa when she was 14 years old. Now, she’s taking over as CEO for the National Capital Region.
Cullen stepped into her father Andy’s former role last week, joining founders Pam and Grant Hooker in the leadership of BeaverTails Ottawa Inc.
“On my second day in the role, I was out at 5 a.m. at Jacques Cartier Park, towing the BeaverTail booth that goes there,” she said. “It’s chaos, but controlled chaos.”
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Her father will remain with the company as president, where, in addition to other responsibilities, he’ll be able to provide support to his daughter.
On Wednesday, Cullen told OBJ that it was an honour and a huge responsibility to take on the CEO role. But she said it was also the culmination of a lifetime of experiences.
“My dad started (with BeaverTails) when he was 17 years old,” Cullen said. “Even when I was a toddler, myself and my brother, we were propped up pushing the hot chocolate button over and over again during busy canal season. So it’s been really ingrained in me since I was a kid.”
Cullen officially joined the company as a 14-year-old. Her first day was Canada Day 2013, and after that she continued serving up pastries throughout high school.
She went on to study strategic management at McGill University and then, after some time travelling, returned home to Ottawa to work as general manager of BeaverTails’ ByWard Market location for a year-and-a-half.
In 2024, she accepted a job as junior marketing manager with a Quebec-based company called Marketing Blendz. From there, she joined the new Altea Ottawa fitness centre on Carling Avenue just as it was preparing to open its doors. She spent a year there as front-of-house supervisor.
Then, the opportunity to join BeaverTails in a leadership capacity came around.
“I was coming to a point in my career where I had some decisions to make as to whether I wanted to grow with Altea or do something else next,” she said. “There was this looming date, with my father wanting to retire. So I actually pitched them when we were in Mexico for the annual franchisee conference.”
The effort paid off. “My heart is warm that they’re willing to have me in this position.”
At the helm of the company, Cullen said she plans to put her marketing experience to good use, noting that the business hasn’t yet found its groove in the digital world.
“BeaverTails is such a unique business that we’ve never really had to advertise,” she said. “We are very lucky in Ottawa, and honestly across all of Canada, to get by on the goodwill of our brand name. However, I do think there are some opportunities in social media and online marketing for us to capitalize. So I’m looking forward to being able to take that aspect of the business to the next level.”
Along the way, she’ll be taking inspiration from her father’s way of doing business.
Cullen describes her dad as “a doer,” adding that the structure and daily habits he implemented allowed him to run a successful business without overcomplicating things.
“At the end of the day, you can make a to-do list and if you go in order and cross the items off, you should be good to go. That’s what he’s taught me,” she said.
Cullen will preserve all that the brand has come to represent for customers in the nearly 50 years since the business opened, but she also has a vision for the future that is a little more creative.
“My first and foremost goal is to bring to this leadership a fresh, young perspective, which I know can mean a lot of things,” she said. “We’ve been so lucky as a business to thrive on trust and our delicious pastries. But we won’t be able to rely on that forever. We have to start being innovative, maybe more pop-ups and events. I think I’m coming to this with a tenacity to potentially continue to grow the business, whether that’s more locations or anything else.”
