First Nation entrepreneur means business at Las Vegas conference

By Sam Laskaris

LAS VEGAS – Chelsee Pettit has earned her share of recognition for achieving success in the business world.

Pettit, a 31-year-old member of Aamjiwnaang First Nation, has been involved in various entrepreneurial efforts in recent years.

One of the ventures she’s gained some notoriety for is aaniin Retail Inc., the company she founded in 2021. Her business sells various Indigenous products.

Pettit’s accomplishments include being named as the 2025 Native Woman Business Owner of the Year at the Reservation Economic Summit in Las Vegas.

She returned to this year’s conference, which was held Mar. 23-26 at Caesars Palace, as a speaker during a pair of sessions. For starters, Pettit spoke during a panel called Resiliency Through Retail: Building Scalable E-commerce Systems for Indigenous Entrepreneurs. She was also a panellist for a Women In Leadership fireside chat.

The Reservation Economic Summit, which celebrated its 20th year, attracted more than 5,000 delegates. The event was organized by the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development.

During the Women In Leadership panel, Pettit was praised for enjoying business success at such a relatively young age.

“But we have technology,” she said. “So, it’s actually a little irresponsible if we don’t take initiative and we don’t take advantage of all of the tools and resources that we have to kick-start these spaces.”

Pettit added that older entrepreneurs didn’t have access to technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) to assist them in their businesses.

“I feel like it’s a part of our responsibility for young entrepreneurs to carry forward that work that [others] were doing previous to us,” she said. “We’re in a very fortunate position. And for us to not take full drive towards that, to me, I think is, like, really irresponsible.”

Pettit added she does not mind taking chances. In this regard, she believes she differs from many other entrepreneurs, as they are in all likelihood holding themselves back by not diving head-on into challenging situations.

“I don’t think I have this gene,” she said. “I just go for it every single time.”

During the Las Vegas conference, Pettit also discussed one of her new initiatives, the Foundations First cohort model, which launches on May 1.

Pettit had spearheaded a similar cohort last year with First Nations entrepreneurs from Canada.

As for this year, the Foundations First cohort is accepting both Indigenous and non-Indigenous entrepreneurs from both Canada and the United States.

“The reason why I wanted to do that is a lot of the people that I’ve worked with over the last several years are not Indigenous community people,” Pettit said.

During the cohort, Pettit will be looking to pass on some valuable knowledge, including how companies can become more profitable through better marketing and distribution deals.

Pettit has a pretty good inkling of those she is looking to work with in the cohort.

“We’re kind of at a pivot point where it’s like, we want people who have already made money because we can help them faster,” she said. “So, there’s other resources and things that we can give to the people who are not ready for the cohort just yet.”

Having already staged last year’s cohort is a help when planning for this year’s group.

“We know what worked,” Pettit said. “We know what didn’t work.”