Webinar Title: Women in Business Panel
Description: The purpose of the Women in Business Panel is to highlight and recognize the significant impact these Indigenous women entrepreneurs have on the economy, and provide a platform to motivate and influence other women who are in business, or considering starting a business.
Panelists: April Mitchell-Boudreau, Bobbie Racette, Vanessa Lesperance
April Mitchell-Boudreau is a Niagara-based designer, and proud Indigenous entrepreneur. She is a member of the Turtle Clan and Mohawk Nation with roots at Six Nations. April infuses her design work with traditional materials imagined in a contemporary context, and is committed to wellness though creativity and slow fashion. She started her first company nearly 20 years ago, and now has two jewelry brands, BeadQueen and Lofttan. The inventor of the Lofttan strand system, (carried in 60 stores pre-covid,) April is successfully navigating Lofttan to a direct-to-consumer pivot.
Lofttan jewelry is a unique strand system that allows the wearer to create whatever look they would like to achieve. With this sustainably designed system, people are able to customize for body size, neckline, and occasion. Using traditional Indigenous materials, like sustainably sourced wood, shell and semi-precious stones in a modern context, we encourage our clients to spark their own creativity and do more with less.
April shares her love of beads and cultural teachings with groups across the country, offering interactive beading workshops that deliver cultural teachings for corporate groups such as TD and schools like Ridley College.
April was recently nominated for a WIBA in Entrepreneurship and earlier this year Lofttan was one of three finalists in the Excellence in Manufacturing Award from the Niagara Business Awards.
A huge proponent of the healing found in the Arts, April is past Chair of the Board for the TD Niagara Jazz Festival, past co-chair of the Ridley College Christmas Market, former member of WIN Council, and a current director on the board of the Niagara Community Foundation.
Bobbie Racette is the Founder and CEO of Virtual Gurus, a talent marketplace that leverages proprietary technology to match organizations and entrepreneurs with highly skilled Canadian and American fractional administrative workers. Forbes recently announced Virtual Gurus as one of the top 19 Innovative Tech Startups to watch.
Bobbie is on a mission to create employment opportunities for underrepresented individuals, setting a mandate within her own company that 95% of her workers will identify as female, 65% a part of the BIPOC community, and 45% part of the LGBTQ+ community.
An unstoppable force in the Canadian startup community, Bobbie acts as a mentor for eCommerce North and serves on the Board of the Telus Friendly Future Foundation, helping to build brighter futures for at-risk youth through the power of technology. She’s also a member of The51’s Community Council and Calgary’s CORE Working Group, ensuring the voices of underrepresented folx are included at both local and national levels Named as one of 50 Changemakers for 2021 by Report on Business magazine, Bobbie was also recently honoured by Startup Canada as Indigenous Entrepreneur and Woman Entrepreneur of the Year. Bobbie is a Cree-Metis woman who prides herself on building an inclusivity-first company, championing indigenous people and the LGBTQ+ community.
Vanessa Lesperance is a mixed heritage woman born in Treaty 1 territory (Winnipeg) and deeply proud of her Métis roots. She is on a mission to invoke heart-centered transformation and decolonize business through workplace spirituality. Vanessa created The Mindful Managers based on her research on workplace spirituality to help guide people to lead in a good way.
She's been published in the World Federation Association of Teacher's Education journal; SAY Magazine; LiisBeth Magazine; and has presented at Fairleigh Dickinson University, the 2020 Kindness Matters Conference and was invited to present at the Indigenous graduate student conference Rise Up at the University of Manitoba. In addition, she works with Indigenous women entrepreneurs from across Turtle Island and mentors Indigenous youth in creating pop-up businesses.
When not working, Vanessa loves hiking, yoga and hugging trees.
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