Women Shining Magazine Women Shining Spring 2018 | Page 38

IN EN SS OM NE W I S BU Women’s Enterprise Centre Your Best First Step S erving aspiring and existing women entrepreneurs in BC - WEC (Women’s enterprise Centre opened their doors in 1995. Their head office is located in Kelowna, BC. They also have offices in Victoria, Vancouver and the tri cities area. I recently had the opportunity to speak to Laurel Douglas (CEO since October 2004 - back row of image next page 4th from left side). Interviewer: Can you tell us a little about WEC and your role in the organization? LD: I am the CEO. We serve Women entrepreneurs aspiring and existing in BC. I am also very passionate about helping women across Canada. I represent Canada as one of the permanent engagement groups of the G20. Interviewer: Are there any plans to open another office? Where do you get your greatest demand from? LD: We would love to. We definitely have a lot of demand from the Terrace, Prince Rupert area. Most of our funding is Federal through Western Diversification Canada. We also receive support from the province of BC. We have spoken to them about the possibility of another office. As a non profit organization - it is quite a commitment to open a new office. When I started I opened the Victoria office because I thought that was important. 36 Interviewer: What type of business market do you serve? LD: We have 2 very distinct markets, a rural market and an urban market; they are very different from each other. Last year, with our training, we served women from 100 different communities in BC. Interviewer: That’s impressive - and would take a lot of man power. LD: I did not even know there were a 100 different communities in BC. Relative to provinces like Quebec and Ontario, BC is a small province. But it is the biggest province after those two. We have a much more distributed population compared to our three other partner organizations (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta). They are all part of our international association which is called WEOC (Women’s Enterprise Organizations of Canada). Interviewer: What happens when you go the province of Quebec and it is a different language? Do you have a representative there? LD: We have a French partner in BC that serves entrepreneurs whose first language is french, there are a number of entrepreneurs here from Quebec and France. We do not have an obligation to provide services in the two languages, however, we have this partnership so we refer to them.