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Women are driving the economy

Last September, Trish Connolly decided to put her business on the line: the president and chief executive officer of Advance Publishing in Saint John embarked on a journey that demanded she trade profit-in-hand for the possibility of more down the line.

Connolly is part of a recent surge of female entrepreneurs across the province who are driving the growth of small- and medium-sized businesses one risk at a time.

Studies showing that women are leading the charge are no surprise to Florine LeBlanc, an employment counsellor with the Community Business Development Corporation.

In Atlantic Canada, women launched three times as many businesses as men over the past decade. According to Statistics Canada, between 1981 and 2001 the number of female entrepreneurs increased 208 per cent compared to 38 per cent for men. More than one million Canadian women are expected to run their own businesses by 2010, with 80 per cent married and more than half with children.

LeBlanc has been in contact with women across the province who have given up job security to run their own businesses.

"Some of these women, they are working at great corporate jobs,'' she said. "Then they have babies and want more flexibility. Not less work, just more flexibility."

She points to Sackville, where 60 per cent of the businesses on Bridge Street are owned by women. The success of female entrepreneurs there is so famous that the Community Development Corporation is launching a women's networking organization called the Diva Network.

"Women are the driving force of economic development in Sackville," she said.

A 1999 Swiss study blew away the stereotype that women are more reluctant than men to take financial risks. The study showed that when men and women are both presented with the same types of choices, the differences in approaching decisions are negligible.

Certainly risk is not unknown to entrepreneur Janis Melanson, who left a promising position practicing law with a Moncton firm to open Bella Promessa Bridal Boutique.

"People are always saying if I had a million, this is what I would do," she said.

Instead of waiting for that million, she opened the shop instead, a move that allowed her to work while caring for her six-month-old baby at the same time.

"On paper, it was a risk,'' she said. "I had to borrow money. I had to leave a secure job. It's very difficult for a lawyer to look at what is on paper and go with the gut."

Connolly once had a secure corporate job as well: she was the chief financial officer at Fundy Communications.

Starting her own business was a risk, but she had to remain open to it in order for her business to grow.

"There's quite a culture of risk in New Brunswick because you don't have a huge number of corporations,'' she said. "For people who choose to stay here, once you get to a certain point in your career you have to leave to start something on your own to continue to grow."

Her original product was not keeping up with the Internet world, so she hired a team of people to help her re-develop the software package she offers to keep up with today's computers.