Alicja Zukowska-Wojewnik is a Canadian entrepreneur, businesswoman, investor, advocate for the arts, loving nature, and farming.

Alicja’s award-winning leadership and career are punctuated by perseverance, keen insights, and a true passion for life, qualities which have accelerated her to senior leadership roles at leading health and wellness brands. Her expertise in the regulatory and quality field led to the appointment by Canada’s Health Minister, Allan Rock, to the Natural Health Products Office Transition Team, where she played a direct role in developing the Natural Health Product Regulations (NHPR) of Canada.

In applying all that she had learned and experiencing incredible professional growth, in 2002, Alicja established renowned contract research organization and consulting firm dicentra, which specializes in addressing all matters related to safety, quality, and compliance for all product categories in the life sciences and food industries. Through Alicja’s leadership, her team of highly specialized experts and scientists provides services to thousands of companies worldwide. dicentra helps these companies bring their products to market which assists the world’s population in sustaining their health and wellbeing.

In 2013, Alicja founded Vitarock: an award-winning, B-Corp certified online marketplace featuring tens of thousands of wellness products. Every single ingredient of each of Vitarock’s products is screened to ensure they’re natural, safe for people and the environment, cruelty-free, and fairly traded. Alicja’s mission has been clear from the start: There are so many people out there who want to adopt a clean, healthy, and socially-conscious lifestyle, but can’t do so because of how much time, effort, and research it takes. Vitarock’s dream is to make it convenient and practical for people to live according to their values and standards, without all of the barriers. There’s no need for guesswork either—if Vitarock sells the product, you can trust that it has gone through rigorous screening and is guaranteed to be Pure, Green, Safe, and Fair.

Alicja enjoys spending her free time on her organic apple orchard, cooking up big feasts, and entertaining friends and family, a part of her Polish heritage that lives strong to this day.

Alicja is also the recipient of the Silver Cross of Merit of the Republic of Poland, awarded by the President of Poland, the Canadian Health Food Association John Holtmann Leadership Award, and the Poland Chamber of Commerce of Toronto Award of Excellence. Her company, Vitarock, has won the Canadian Health Food Association’s Sustainability Award–recognizing organizations that have developed a culture of sustainability internally and that continue to work towards a sustainable future through community, innovation, and transparency. Alicja holds a Master of Science degree in Microbiology and Biochemistry.