Metro Vancouver women have been selected as finalists for the sixth annual Mompreneur Awards.
The awards are put on by Mompreneur Showcase Group Inc. and ParentsCanada magazine to recognize the country’s top female entrepreneurs.
There are an estimated one million female entrepreneurs in Canada. Mompreneurs is focused on bringing the contributions of this group into the limelight, said Mompreneur Showcase Group founder and CEO Maria Locker.
“There are a lot of misconceptions about the word ‘mompreneur,’” Locker said. “For the purposes of what we try to support, it is for women who have made their own lifestyle based on the business they are passionate about, whether that’s service-based or an at-home business or a bricks-and-mortar building.
“It’s for any woman who values their family life as much as their business and vice versa. They are not willing to sacrifice one for the other.”
As an entrepreneur and a mother, Locker was frustrated that her business ambitions were constantly overshadowed by the societal pressure to focus only on motherhood. Locker recalls feeling guilty for wanting to have career success while also raising a child.
“I am a former schoolteacher and I stayed at home with my two kids,” she said. “What I would find when I would go to the park and have conversations was that many women were entrepreneurs but were very quiet and shy about it, like, ‘I am on mom time, I can’t talk about work.’”
Locker, who grew up in an entrepreneurial family, said her career and personal life have always been intertwined.
“I don’t think we are two people, that we turn off one switch and go from mom to business owners. They go hand in hand.”
There were 23 finalists representing six provinces this year for the Mompreneur Awards. Voting began on December 4 and closed December 10. The winners will be announced March 2 and 3 in Toronto. More than 1,200 women were nominated or registered online, with 90,000 public voters and 30,000 supporters. Out of the 1,200, 205 advanced.
There are four different categories in the Mompreneur Awards, including the Award of Excellence (for an exemplary service or product); the Momentum Award (non-profit or charity); the Startup Award (for a business less than three years old) and the Award of Merit (for a consultant or franchisee).
The top prize is valued at over $30,000 in cash and business services.
“I really think incredible stuff can happen when women bond together and support each other and lift each other up,” said finalist Ashley Freeborn, co-owner of Vancouver-based sleepwear firm Smash and Tess. “We are a very female-centric company and that’s really what we are about is supporting other women.”
Another West Coast finalist, Christina Platt, lives with her two sons and runs Bamboletta Dolls. Platt has won Small Business BC’s Best Community Impact Award.
The other two finalists, Delta’s Monique Parker and Port Coquitlam’s Kah-Mei Smith, are both mothers. Parker runs a hemp fashion line called Wallis Evera while Smith is a team leader at Young Living Essential Oils, a natural health and skin-care line. Young Living projects over $4.5 million in sales this year.
“Mompreneurs as an organization is really about connecting women and empowering them on the entrepreneurial journey,” Locker said. “What we find a lot of women struggle with is asking the right questions, being connected to the right people that understand what they are going through and feeling like they are recognized and supported for all their hard work.”
