Transportation

30 Under 30: Sarb Purewal is steering Seven Horses Transportation toward automation

As an asset-based company, Seven Horses owns all trucks, trailers, facilities and properties related to the business.

By Rushmila Rahman /

Sarb Purewal, 29

Vice president and chief operating officer, Seven Horses Transportation Ltd.

Life Story: As a kid, Sarb Purewal was always curious about what his father was up to. Growing up in Langley and Surrey, he saw his Punjabi immigrant dad start out as a truck driver and work hard to build his transportation and logistics company from the ground up.

“I was always able to see his weaknesses and strengths and would try to see if I could be his partner in crime or something,” says Purewal, who started working in the family business at nine years old. Some of Seven Horses Transportation’s oldest employees still remember Purewal doing payroll and administrative work first as a child, and then as a teenager, when he would work before and after school to help his dad out.

Despite hearing warnings about family businesses, Purewal came on board straight out of high school. “It’s only hard to work with family when you make it hard,” he maintains. The company rebranded from Davinder Enterprises to Seven Horses in 2010, with one of Purewal’s first steps being to automate many of the company’s processes.

As an asset-based company, Seven Horses owns all trucks, trailers, facilities and properties related to the business. As VP and COO, Purewal backward-integrated the supply chain by developing warehouses and outdoor spaces where clients can store product. That move. oiled the company’s systems well enough  to accelerate growth in a margins-focused industry by attracting big international clients.

Now, as a group (aside from its land-development arm, Pure Developments), Seven Horses is generating $40 million from sales.

Bottom Line: Since 1999, Surrey-based Seven Horses has grown from a team of 10 to over 100 employees. It runs a fleet of 100 trucks and over 200 trailers, and has two additional arms of the business: Pure Developments to develop large-scale industrial land for business use, and Campbell Heights Warehouse and Storage to help high-end clients (like Walmart) to store product. Some of Seven Horses’ biggest projects include developing the Lafarge Exshaw plant in Alberta and the Walterdale Bridge in Edmonton.