Challenging the status quo: Why women’s role in business and leadership matters

For Amy Robinson, buying local was a value instilled in her since childhood. Living in a city outside Ottawa, her family would drive to nearby small towns to shop at farm stands, buying local produce such as honey or maple syrup from farmers.

Those who didn’t farm would work at automotive plants, which are part of a major sector in Ontario, yet very fragile due to factors like their dependence on the U.S. market.

Robinson recalls her uncle, who worked at such a plant as a journeyman doing electrical work in southwestern Ontario. He always worried about losing his job, which is why, she says, her father would buy Ford cars — they were made in plants in Ontario and he supported the workers.

“I think that instilled in me this ‘made in Canada’ ethos,” Robinson says. “I could understand that if someone didn’t buy Canadian-made cars, that people, including people in my family, would suffer.”

This experience was one of reasons she started her own business, LOCO BC, which supports local small businesses and products.

After studying environmental science, getting a second degree from Kwantlen Polytechnic University, and doing co-op programs at BC Hydro and Dairyland Foods, which is now known as Saputo Dairy Products, Robinson became more interested in business. 

She later worked for the regional government of Metro Vancouver, focusing on business and sustainability, and was one of the first to develop programs that would support sustainable business.

After attending a conference in the U.S. and listening to some of the first social entrepreneurs, including Stonyfield Farm and Ben & Jerry’s, talk about the difficulty of maintaining a business that focuses on social and environmental responsibility, Robinson understood the importance of local business.

“The system is kind of rigged against keeping those values because you have to show a profit every quarter once you’re a public company,” Robinson says.

At LOCO BC, she connects local businesses with the community, promotes buying local produce, and helps to shift policy around, making it easier for small businesses to thrive.

Data from Statistics Canada shows that majority women-owned businesses accounted for 19.6 per cent of all private sector businesses in Canada in the first quarter of 2024.

The challenges women face when it comes to entering the entrepreneurial journey starts with a lack of information, such as where to start or which licenses to get, says Archana Samtani Singhania, business advisor at WeBC, an organization that provides business support services for women. 

An immigrant to Canada, Singhania started her business during the COVID-19 pandemic and chose to go into the food sector, making ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat food products for the South Asian community. 

She says her first struggle was finding ways to know whether she was doing everything correctly.  

“It was [a lot of] effort and energy that I needed to put into finding information and ensuring that I’m doing it right,” Singhania says. “That was all daunting for me because I didn’t know where to access information from, where to go, who to ask.”

Access to capital and getting funding are among other reasons that prevent women from building their business, she adds. 

Half of women business owners face challenges when trying to access financing for their businesses, a 2023 survey by The Scotiabank Women Initiative shows.

Twenty-two per cent of financing applications from women-only owned businesses were outright rejected, compared to the average of 15 per cent for all businesses.

“For anyone to get a business loan from a bank, they generally need collateral. They need to show that they’ve invested incredible amounts of their own money. Men tend to get loans far more easily at lower rates of interest compared to women,” Singhania says, adding she helps women lower barriers to get business loans through her work at WeBC. 

Women have a harder time getting loans because of the biases that persist in society, Singhania says, such as needing to take more days off if their child or family member is sick, whereas men will work more hours. 

Women can also be influenced by stereotype threats, where they fear being judged based on negative stereotypes about themselves, says KPU business instructor Maria Kilina. 

Due to this, women may experience a reduced desire and ability to advance and lack the confidence they need to step into leadership roles, she adds.

“Less than five per cent of the CEOs of public companies in Canada are women,” Kilina says. “Although we can normalize women as leaders and don’t feel any limitations … [and] challenges to get to leadership roles as women, there is still a glass ceiling that exists based on the numbers that we observe.”

Some of the practices universities can do to encourage women to study entrepreneurship is growing confidence, reassuring women that they can be successful entrepreneurs, and working to unlearn biases, Kilina adds. This includes creating communities where women can get together, share their ideas without judgment, and express themselves. 

“Reinforcing and emphasizing in a various number of ways, from what language we use in the classrooms to just directly showing that women are just as welcome and qualified to become entrepreneurs as their male peers, [is important],” she says. 

Kilina has had several businesses in the past and now has a business that focuses on one-on-one coaching and workshops for organizations. She says she was inspired by other women who did similar things and their persistence and determination to never give up, no matter how hard it was or which circumstances they faced. 

Bringing role models, such as alumni who became successful entrepreneurs, into the classroom for talks is another way to help female students gain confidence.

“Students get very inspired, especially female students, and they associate themselves and they see what’s possible. They see the potential of what they can grow into,” Kilina says.

Simranjot Sekhon, vice-president finance and operations and a faculty of business representative at the Kwantlen Student Association, says seeing how business can impact society made her choose the field as her career path. 

“I chose accounting as my major because … I’ve always dreamt of being a chartered professional accountant in the future. I’ve also seen how it plays a crucial role in … financial decisions,” Sekhon says, adding seeing women in accounting inspired her to follow the same path.

Involving mentors who can guide female students and providing more mentorship program opportunities are ways universities can help motivate female students to study business, she says. 

“If [students] get mentors, they can learn from them,” Sekhon says. “They can see how successful women in leadership roles have managed the corporate world …. They can also inspire them to envision themselves in a similar position.”

Networking opportunities are also important, she says, adding that such events are often male dominated and women might not get a chance to create connections. That’s why universities should think about designing more workshops for women to help with networking opportunities, she adds.

“Another key focus would be ensuring that business courses at KPU incorporate diverse case studies that show how successful women have reached their dreams in the industries. That will make women more confident to pursue their dreams.”

As a faculty of business representative, Sekhon would like to have one-on-one conversations with female students to discuss the difficulties they are facing or any other barriers that stop them from pursuing business. 

Advocacy also plays a role in helping women get into business. Whether it is advocating for equal pay and job opportunities or tackling gender bias, all those areas contribute to a woman’s success, Sekhon says.

“A big constraint [is] gender bias .… It’s the perception of society that women should take care of the family and their children, and men should be the ones working and earning [money],” she says. 

“Most of the time, women have to leave their dreams behind and just take care of their family and children …. If women want to achieve something, they should be given the opportunity to achieve that.” 

Kilina says having women represented in business industries is crucial as it creates a diversity of perspectives, which eventually will lead to better ideas and more innovation. 

“It creates representation of customer females. It creates representation of employee females. So the female leader will understand those groups of customers and employees better and address their specific needs.” 

Singhania says the collaboration that women bring to the table is important for society and communities to thrive. 

“We think differently, we act differently. We are more collaborative and more accommodating,” Singhania says. “We never just think about ourselves and how we will benefit, but more so the community and how the folks around us are going to benefit.”

Robinson says being collaborative and taking a relationship-building approach helped her succeed over time.

She recalls securing funds for business research being a challenge. There is a perception that, in a capitalist system, for-profit businesses should be able to support themselves without relying on external funding, unlike charities or non-profit businesses, she says. 

“That’s kind of how capitalism works. If they are not a charity, why should we put funding towards something that helps them when there’s so much other need out there?” 

Her ability to be flexible and work with what she had has helped her when it was hard to fund the research.

“Sometimes, we’ve had a very small budget, so I’ve had to figure out how to partner or find interns, volunteers, and things like that to make things work,” Robinson says.

Robinson continues to engage with local businesses and create initiatives to support them. One such initiative is the annual BC Buy Local campaign, which aims to raise awareness of local businesses, increase their visibility, and encourage more local spending. 

“We need women entrepreneurs, and I do think it’s advantageous, in many ways, to run a business versus to be in the traditional workforce,” she says.