Women Shining Magazine Women Shining Spring 2018 | Page 38
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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.
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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.