Breaking Down the Barriers for Every Businesswoman
With Nancy Wilson
Women have always faced discrimination and barriers pushing them down — especially in business. Society and existing systems hold women-owned and led businesses back from success. This needs to change. Through diversity and representation, the voices of women are growing. People are beginning to advocate for change with the strong support of every businesswoman* in the field.
How can you do your part in supporting this advocacy for change? Nancy Wilson joins us in this episode to share how she witnessed the difficult experiences of women entrepreneurs. But she doesn't stop at awareness. She's taking an active role in making them better. She talks about the barriers that hold them back and how people, as a group, can work together to start making changes on the systemic level.
Join us and learn why advocating for a businesswoman supports everyone. Tune in to this episode to hear more.
*kw: businesswoman meta: Every businesswoman faces so many challenges at work. Whether women-identifying or non-binary, it's time we stepped up to advocate for those voices.
Here are three reasons why you should listen to this episode:
Learn about the many barriers to success that a businesswoman faces.
Raise your awareness and learn why making an environment better for a businesswoman makes it better for everyone.
Discover the power of collective action.
Resources
● Visit the Canadian Women’s Chamber of Commerce and become one of their members advocating for women business owners and entrepreneurs.
● Knix, a business founded by Joanna Griffiths
About Nancy
Nancy Wilson is an accountant and the Founder and CEO of the Canadian Women's Chamber of Commerce. She is also a Chartered Professional Accountant with experience in various corporate accounting roles. Nancy also started her own accounting and advisory firm, where she worked closely with women business owners and entrepreneurs.
As an accountant and business owner, Nancy experienced the barriers and challenges women face in business. She founded the Chamber in 2018 to create a powerful network of women advocating for change and equality in Canada.
Found out more about Nancy and her advocacy work with the Canadian Women’s Chamber of Commerce on their website. Add your voice of support when you join their community.
Episode highlights
[01:23] Nancy, the Businesswoman
● Nancy Wilson is the founder and CEO of the Canadian Women’s Chamber of Commerce. She lives in Toronto.
● She previously worked in the corporate world, taking on different roles as an accountant.
● Working in corporate had a negative impact on her, so she left. Unfortunately, the rampant sexism and misogyny continued as Nancy went into entrepreneurship.
● She started her own accounting and advisory firm and worked with women-identified business owners looking for accounting and financial advice.
[04:15] Nancy, the Leader
● Nancy wanted her leadership, and in turn, the Women’s Chamber of Commerce, to be inclusive and accessible. This included diversity and full representation.
● The Chamber is based on feminist principles and has a systems change approach. They believe that what needs to change is the systems that are barriers to women’s success.
Nancy: “Women are absolutely able to start and run successful businesses. What needs to change is the systems and the policy. That needs to change to basically remove these barriers to pave the way for women to succeed even further.”
● Nancy started the Chamber at the peak of the #MeToo movement. She was furious about all the stories and experiences women go through.
● Too often, women are met with skepticism and disbelief when they share their stories.
● Nancy leads the Chamber to listen to women. She leads with trust and belief in them and their stories.
[07:11] The Canadian Women’s Chamber of Commerce
● Chambers of Commerce have been around for hundreds of years in Europe and Canada.
● Chambers are associations usually formed by business owners to lobby and discuss policy. The Chambers give recommendations and respond to government consultations.
● The Canadian Women’s Chamber of Commerce is the first and only one run and led by women.
● Before their launch, no national organization represented and advocated on behalf of women-identified or non-binary entrepreneurs on a government policy level.
● Nancy checked if the two largest Chambers in Canada were already doing the work they wanted to. She found only one result in policy books.
Ange: “That's a powerful evolution of a mechanism that already exists that wasn't necessarily as inclusive and representative as it could be for all business owners.”
[10:58] Barriers Against Women and Non-Binary Entrepreneurs
● Nancy categorizes the barriers that women entrepreneurs experience. First is access. Second is policy and legislation. And lastly, there are also social and cultural issues.
● There are also sector-specific issues. For example, women primarily run retail and service businesses, impacting their access to capital.
● There is a double bind that exists for women. Most people would advise a businesswoman to be more assertive and confident — in other words, emulate men.
● However, research shows that people find these women less likable. More "feminine" women are more likable but seen as less competent leaders.
● All these barriers and issues are further complicated by racism, homophobia, transphobia, and other social issues.
[17:20] Better for the Businesswoman is Better for Everyone
● Data shows that women-owned and led businesses are good investments. Their growth, directly and indirectly, contributes to economic growth.
● Many women-owned businesses contract work out to freelancers. The self-employed contribute to the output of businesses, while businesses support their growth.
● There are more than 200,000 women-owned businesses today. Before the pandemic, there were a million.
● Self-employed Canadians are a group that policy work tends to miss. If they choose to join the unemployed, this can pose a huge problem.
● The demand for systemic change should be motivated by moral and social justice views.
Nancy: “We should all be comfortable in demanding change based on moral and social justice imperatives. I mean, we're talking about fellow human beings, fellow Canadians in our country that are not being treated, not being valued equally. And are suffering because of it, which I think is not acceptable.”
[23:30] The Power of Collective Action
Nancy: “I strongly believe that collective action and coordinated advocacy is probably the only way that we're gonna be able to bring about change at the systemic level.”
● Nancy believes that change at the systemic level can happen through collective action and coordinated advocacy.
● Individual change is a distraction. It distracts people from systemic barriers and issues, discouraging them from forming groups.
● Groups like the Canadian Women’s Chamber of Commerce speak to the policymakers. However, they need women’s voices to inform them of their experiences and thoughts.
● Advocacy means more than just signing petitions and marching in rallies.
● You can also advocate through the way you run your business, your conversations with people, and joining groups like the Chamber.
[27:31] Nancy’s Words of Advice
● Take care and be kind to each other in this nasty world.
● If you're a businesswoman — trust yourself, especially if you're doing something different.
● People will give unsolicited advice and encourage you to go against your gut. Choose to trust yourself.
Nancy: “Trust yourself because they're not doing it. You are doing it and doing something different doesn't mean it's wrong.”
Ange Wallace: Hey there. Welcome to Scale Conscious. I'm your host Ange. In my second podcast series, I'm inviting visionary leaders to give us guidance to create conscious companies and build a regenerative future for all. In this episode, I'm joined by Nancy Wilson, the founder and CEO of the Canadian Women's Chamber of Commerce.
As CEO, Nancy is responsible for achieving CanWCC’s strategic goals with respect to advocacy, networking, and advancement. After experiencing a lack of resources, difficulty finding connections and numerous barriers both as a business owner and indirectly through her clients, Nancy launched the CanWCC in January, 2018.
She's been working ever since to create a powerful network to inform a new strategy for women in business and drive a long lasting change. I'm excited to speak with Nancy about all the great work the Chamber has done so far and learn how they will eliminate barriers for women in business.
Let's get started.
Ange: Thank you for joining us on Scale Conscious. We are so happy to have you. I'm just gonna dive right into it with you, Nancy. First of all, did you wanna introduce yourself? Your name, where you're speaking from, all that kind of fun stuff?
Nancy Wilson: My name is Nancy Wilson. I'm the Founder and CEO of the Canadian Women's Chamber of Commerce. I live in Toronto.
Ange: Amazing. I'm also here. We're local and dialing in together. That's incredible. I'm just gonna get right into it.
I would love to hear more about your experience. I know you've previously had your own service-based business. You've really focused with some social impact on how to support women business owners, not only through the Canadian Women's Chamber of Commerce, but in your own journey.
I'd just love for you to share a little bit about how that personal evolution has informed your leadership in this initiative.
Nancy: Sure. So my background is in accounting. I'm a CPA. I worked in the traditional labor force in corporate roles and different roles as an accountant. Then I left the corporate world.
I limped away broken and battered from the corporate world. That's a whole other story. That could be a whole other podcast. I hear similar stories from so many other women who are currently building businesses who limped away as well and are still recovering.
I left the traditional labor force and thought “I'm going to start my own business”. I formed an accounting and advisory firm, specifically wanting to work with women-identified business owners and entrepreneurs that were looking for accounting and advice on the financial side. That was certainly an interesting time for me. Honestly, it was so damn hard.
Ange: Yes.
Nancy: So much harder than I thought it would be, coming from a traditional employer-employee, you know? I had such high hopes for it, but there's so much sexism and misogyny happening in the traditional labor force. All of that followed me out of my corporate roles into entrepreneurship.
Added on top of that is the challenges that all entrepreneurs face as well. It was really, really tough. I say to the members of the Canadian Women's Chamber of Commerce or CanWCC as I call it, or we call it. I try to tell them as much as possible how much I really respect the work that they're doing.
It is really hard work. It's something that I found really, really difficult. I can appreciate the struggles that they're going through. In terms of the leadership and how I wanted to shape the organization, there's a couple different things that I really wanted to inform my leadership and inform the way that the Chamber was embodied.
The first thing is, I wanted to make sure it was truly inclusive and accessible. That's geographically as well as demographically. Canada is very regional, so that's a challenge.
I also wanted to make sure that all of really diverse voices and fully representational perspective was coming through on our advocacy.
It was also really important to me that the Chamber was based in feminist principles. That has really come through, so I'm happy with that. Of course, a systems change approach. Our foundation is, “there is nothing wrong with women entrepreneurs”. There's no deficiency there.
Ange: That’s right.
Nancy: Women are absolutely able to start and run and grow successful businesses. What needs to change is the systems and the policy that needs to change to basically remove these barriers to pave the way for women to succeed even further.
When I was starting the Chamber, it was the fall of 2017. That was when Me Too was really at a peak. I was furious basically every day, all day long, I was furious.
Another big piece of my leadership, both with my team as well as the members is: we listen to women. We trust what they say.
Ange: Yes.
Nancy: We believe what they say.
Ange: Yes.
Nancy: You'd be surprised or maybe you wouldn't.
Ange: Right.
Nancy: So many experiences that women have with these microaggressions or disrespect. They tell someone, even someone in another women's group and the response oftentimes can be “Are you sure that happened? Really?” “Oh, I don't know.” It's like, no. If you're telling me that happened, I absolutely believe you and trust you. Your feelings are valid.
Ange: Exactly. I love this idea that you took your own experience in entrepreneurship and the innate struggles that are across the board for entrepreneurs and then especially what women and non-binary people face in their lived experience of entrepreneurship.
Pulling up that history and mission, give us a little bit of a sense. First of all, some people may not even know what a Chamber of Commerce does.
Tell us a little bit about why your organization is unique in Canada, both as a chamber of commerce and your special mission.
Nancy: Chambers of commerce traditionally, they've been around for like hundreds of years in Europe and over a hundred years here in Canada.
They're essentially associations or groups of businesses. Their members are business owners. Typically, they form together to form a bloc that lobby as a bloc or speak to policy as a bloc.
They will produce policy recommendations or respond to consultations from the government. As well as, over the years, chambers of commerce have started to, and often provide their members with various resources or discounts on products and services.
As a chamber of commerce, we do all of that. Our focus fundamentally is advocacy.
Just as advocacy is the focus of other chambers of commerce. The reason why the Canadian Women's Chamber of Commerce or CanWCC is truly unique, is because we are the only women's chamber of commerce in Canada.
There has never been a Women's Chamber of Commerce in Canada prior to our launch, which was in January of 2018. So prior to 2018, there was no national organization that represented and advocated on behalf of women-identified or non-binary entrepreneurs or business owners at the government policy level. That's a huge gap.
When I was researching. Starting the chamber, I pulled the policy books, which are just all the policy recommendations for a series of years. I pulled those policies for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, which are the two largest chambers in Canada. I pulled them both for, it was either the last three years or the, the last five years.
I'm reading through them because I wanna see. There's no point in starting a chamber of commerce if they're already doing the work for women.
Ange: Right. That makes good sense. Yeah. Check, double check. Are they already doing this? Is anyone doing this?
Nancy: Maybe, maybe we don't need a women's Chamber of Commerce. As I'm reading through, I'm not really seeing anything. I decided to just do a word search through the pdf. I search for the word “woman” or “women”. In the Canadian Chamber of Commerce policy book for several years, there is zero hits for the word “woman” or “women”.
In the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, in their policy books, there's one hit and it's one policy having to do with “increasing representation of women in skilled trades”. It's clear that the work wasn't being done. Now the work is being done, at least on a developing scale.
Ange: Yes. Yeah. Amazing. Well, that's a powerful evolution of a mechanism that already exists that wasn't necessarily as inclusive and representative as it could be for all business owners.
So wherever we can find opportunities to do that, we need to take them. You took it and I think that's amazing. So congratulations.
Nancy: Thank you.
Ange: Now you've identified how there was a gap in existing chambers of commerce, which is a really valid thing. Business owners need representation in governmental policy. But help us all understand more about the barriers and the unique issues for women in entrepreneurship.
Historically, and right now, here and now. How has leading a business been more challenging for women in non-binary people? What are those unseen and misunderstood barriers to our success?
Nancy: There's many barriers and, and challenges, obviously!
Ange: Where to begin?
Nancy: I'm not a social scientist, but I would categorize them as falling into three categories:
One is access, so access to capital, access to other resources, access to networks. Then there's policy and legislation that needs to be revised or completely rewritten. Then there's a larger sort of social and cultural issue of perception, prejudice and bias.
I'm not a social scientist or researcher. But when I think of barriers, I usually categorize them into three different categories: One is access, and this is what people talk about the most, access to capital, access to other resources, access to networks.
Then there's policy and legislation that needs to be revised, rewritten completely, in my opinion. Then this sociocultural issue of changing people's perceptions, biases and prejudices based on gender norms and the messaging that we grow up with.
There are issues that are specific to the sectors that women own businesses tend to kind of dominate.
Women are less concentrated in the tech sector, for example. That's a big issue because the government loves tech. Government loves investing in tech or “innovation”, which is the current euphemism.
Ange: That’s right
Nancy: Women-owned businesses tend to be in service and retail and not manufacturing. That has a really major effect on access to capital because when you go for a bank loan, and you don't have a warehouse or heavy machinery to put up as collateral, then the bank is going to look for a personal guarantee for that bank loan.
If you wisely incorporated your business to limit your own personal financial liability. That limitation is removed if you have to personally guarantee a business loan, because you don't have business equipment to put up as collateral. For those of you who have a home, you may have to put up your home as collateral.
These are things that come into play when we consider the sectors and the makeup of businesses in those sectors. In terms of something that's really misunderstood is something that psychologists talk about, they call it the “double bind”.
Ange: Yes. Ugh.Tell us about the “double bind” cause it's awful.
Nancy: A lot of advice to women is to be more assertive, to be more confident, whatever that means, to act a certain way. Really what that advice is saying is “emulate men”. Emulate the way that successful men act, and you in turn will be more successful and it sounds like common sense.
However, research on gender roles have shown that women who display what is considered to be “masculine qualities” tend to be seen by others, women and men as less likable, and they're penalized for acting in a way that is a mismatch with their gender role classification. Then women who show “feminine qualities” are judged by men and women as more likable.
Ange: Yup
Nancy: But If they're showing feminine qualities, we like them, but we also judge them as less competent, as a leader. Right.
Ange: So we're damned if we do, and we're damned if we don't.
Nancy: Right, right. Exactly. Right.
Ange: We need to find that razor's edge balance that makes us likable and a leader. Which doesn't exist, you know?
Ange: So it's pretzel management.
Nancy: Exactly.
Ange: Twisting yourself into a pretzel.
Nancy: Yeah. I'm talking about gender today, but really all of this, everything I talk about is further complicated and exacerbated by racism, homophobia, transphobia, everything.
Ange: Yes. Thank you for acknowledging that. That's absolutely right. Those intersectionalities that make it even tougher for those who are trying to succeed, if that's their lived experience.
Nancy: Absolutely.
Ange: On that note, women and historically underrepresented founders: they're working hard. They're in our communities. They're creating compelling solutions and services, like you talked about to some of our most pressing problems.
I joked in the preparation notes for this episode that I buy my bras from a female founded company because they're categorically more awesome. I love the design, they're more comfortable. I know they're designed in Canada and I'm not even ashamed to name drop. This is not an endorsement by the way, but it's Nick's.
Joanna Griffiths, she became a historical founder with her exit. She raised funding, pregnant with twins. I think about these kinds of women who are creating companies and addressing these kinds of products and services for us. I know we're making an impact. I also recognize that it could be more equitable.
The future of business in Canada could be much more equitable. For example, if we brought in universal childcare or UBI — universal basic income — how could these strengthen our economy in communities?
When you're out advocating in the Can WCC, you're essentially getting to the heart of it, asking: “Why is making entrepreneurship better for women, better for everyone?” I'd love to dive in on that with you.
Nancy: The business case is clear and, and the data is strong that women-owned businesses and women-led businesses are a good investment. If supporting women owned and live businesses. Having that sector, or that population of businesses, having them grow and scale will certainly contribute to economic growth directly as well as indirectly by employing staff. But also because of the sectors that a lot of women owned businesses are in.
They also contribute indirectly to our economy by supporting the self-employed. A lot of women-owned businesses don't necessarily employ a hundred people, but they contract a lot of their workout to freelancers.
Every freelancer, or not every freelancer, but a lot of freelancers are self-employed. They don't have another job. This is their full-time job. So that's someone who's also a business owner. There's a symbiosis going on in the business world where self-employed folks contribute to the outputs of business. Businesses in certain sectors contribute to the revenue and growth of the self-employed.
When you look at women-owned businesses that employ people, they're considered SMEs or small and medium sized enterprises. There's about, I'm not gonna get the number exactly right, but let's say 225,000 of them approximately. But there's a little less than, let's just say pre-pandemic numbers.
There's about a million women who are self-employed. They really work together very well. Having all of those folks, being able to support themselves and support their families is incredibly important.
Self-employed Canadians are a group that is really misunderstood and often missed by policy. If all of the self-employed women today decided the government is not supporting us via policy. But if I go get a job, then maybe I'll be eligible for E.I. and all these other programs. If they all joined the search for jobs, our unemployment rate would skyrocket.
They are an employer because they're employing themselves. So I've gotten off track a little bit.
Ange: That's okay. It was a good tangent. I'll take it.
Nancy: It's certainly good for the community, but whenever I talk about the business case and data and all of these things. What I do want to add is that I wanna emphasize the core reason why I think we should demand systemic change. Movement towards equity is not necessarily based on data or the business case.
We should all be comfortable in demanding that change based on moral and and social justice imperative. We're talking about fellow human beings, fellow Canadians in our country that are not being treated, not being valued equally, and are suffering because of it. Which I think is not acceptable.
If someone is asking for data to support treating another human being fairly, which to be honest, is supported by law, I would say: “Check out the charter.”
Ange: Yeah, check out the charter. Exactly.
Nancy: Data is not necessary. It should be law. You don't need evidence to make this change. Quite honestly, you asking for data instead of being outraged that inequity exists is a problem, a real problem, right?
Ange: Cause it almost speaks to underlying attitudes or stereotypes around why we should make the effort and create the change. Our motivation matters in these matters. It matters why we do the work and why we want those outcomes.
Nancy: A hundred percent. Absolutely. A hundred percent. If a corporation's DEI (diversity and inclusion efforts) are being managed by their marketing department, what does that say? That absolutely is happening, right? It's a complicated problem, but it's something that I get very worked up about and very passionate about.
Ange: You do and I like it. It's the energy we need to get it to make it happen. You know you're talking about, you get worked up about it. People listening may also be worked up on this.
I think it's really good when we have these moments where we feel galvanized. What I love about the work you're doing is you're inviting people into action. Whether joining the community for free — I know that's an option on your website I saw — or as members in the chamber. Talk to me a little bit about, share some of your reflections of the power of collective action.
How does participation with your organization help us join the movement and make the impact you're talking about?
Nancy: I strongly believe that collective action and coordinated advocacy is probably the only way that we're gonna be able to bring about change at the systemic level.
I absolutely believe that there are like-minded people that want similar things. But we are not yet acting together or demanding change as a, as a group, as a block.
But if we were, the policy makers would really have no other choice but to make those changes because there would be so many of us. But I understand that forming those coalitions and alliances can be tricky. Because relationships are tricky and there's also a lot of distractions out there.
Many of these messages and courses and headlines and articles that are out there, really are asking folks to focus in on themselves and focus on individual change.
Which I'm not saying is bad or you shouldn't focus on yourself. But a lot of that individual change, a lot of that focus on the individual is a manufactured distraction to keep your eye away from systemic barriers and systemic issues, to keep us focused inwards and to prevent us from actually joining together as a collective group.
The whole women's empowerment industry is absolutely a distraction machine. I think that having a group like CanWCC, where we have removed the financial barrier to add your voice to the group. Means that we as the Chamber, were happy to take on the heavy lifting in terms of booking these meetings and going and speaking to the policy makers.
But in terms of what we're gonna say to the policymakers, we need your voice to inform that. We don't wanna add another to-do on your to-do list, because we know that women have a lot to do.
Ange: Long list. Very long lists.
Nancy: Exactly. Which is why we're, we're trying to make it as easy as possible. All we wanna do is hear what you think. Tell us your stories. Tell us, tell us what you think about things.
I also wanna emphasize that advocacy doesn't just mean signing a petition. Speaking to government, marching, anything like that. Running a business every day, engaging in these types of conversations, listening to this podcast, joining CanWCC, these are all acts of advocacy as well. So there are a lot of ways that you can advocate for these issues and joining CanWCC is certainly one of them.
Ange: I love that, and I love your reflections too, you know? I practice self-care. But I doubt that my individual self-care is gonna get us to gender justice. But joining together with other people to present our voices, as you say, in a powerful way. That might just get us there in the end. So, I love that invitation.
I hope everyone listening will put all of your information in the show notes. Absolutely. So everyone can find out how to discover, join, participate, and learn more.
We'll certainly point people in the right direction. I know we're coming up on time. I wish I could speak to you for a whole other hour and go on many more tangents. But we're, we're gonna wrap it up here in a minute.
I love to ask my guest as a closing invitation. Any final words of wisdom as you lead this organization? Thinking, reflecting on your members, anything you wanna leave our listeners with to take away back into their day and into their real world?
Nancy: What I usually say is something along the lines of, take care of each other, be kind to one another. Because I think the world is pretty, pretty nasty these days.
But I also wanna say to folks, to women entrepreneurs and women across the board, actually women identified entrepreneurs, non-binary folk, anyone out there who's listening, who is doing something different, maybe even: “Trust your gut.”
Trust yourself, it sounds trite, but believe in yourself. If you're doing something and you just feel an intuition, this is the right thing to do.
You're gonna get so much unsolicited advice and nonsense from people. A lot of people are gonna tell you not to trust that gut that feeling that you have, that this is the way it should go. But trust yourself because they're not doing it. You are doing it. Doing something different or differently doesn't mean it's wrong.
Ange: That's right. Absolutely follow the siren sound of your own soul.
Nancy: That's right.
Ange: As I hear the sirens in the background. I love that advice and I think that gut check is such a good note to end on. Because we can trust ourselves even when the world has taught us not to. We can learn to do that and make a big impact through our lives, and our businesses, and in our families and communities.
So Nancy, thank you so much for joining me. I've loved this conversation. I'm so excited to join your organization. So you're gonna find my name pop up. I'm so thrilled to get involved and I really appreciate you sharing your story and inviting people to join your movement.
Nancy: Fantastic. I've had a great time. Thank you so much.
Ange: Thanks for listening To Scale Conscious. I'm your host, Ange. This show is produced by Lead Podcasting with special thanks to the Angela Wallace Impact Agency team. Discover more about our work with cpgtartups@scaleconscious.com. And if you like what you heard, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast.
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