Chamber executives make history

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This article was published 15/07/2022 (1531 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When the Brandon Chamber of Commerce held its annual executive changeover ceremony earlier this year, the organization unintentionally hit a major milestone.

The chamber has had women as president before — most recently Cathy Snelgrove in 2019-20, and Tami-Rae Rourke in 2017-18 — but for the first time ever, the roles of president (Tanya LaBuick), vice-president (Jaime Pugh) and secretary-treasurer (Lois Ruston) are all held by women at the same time.

A chamber member came up to LaBuick at that ceremony and asked if it was the first time that had ever happened. After some reflection, they realized it was.

LaBuick is a partner at both CW2 Construction and Design, and Guardian Fencing. She’s also founder of LaBuick & Co., and served as the chamber’s vice-president last year.

“I’ve been a lifelong volunteer, so I’ve sat on many boards,” she said. “I’ve also worked internationally on massive, massive projects like the Olympics and Super Bowl, things like that. I bring lots of different viewpoints about how the world works.”

Pugh is a Brandon University graduate and partner at the local MNP office. She said she gained plenty of experience in management prior to working at MNP, which taught her about human resources and business needs.

“Working with MNP, I’ve had the opportunity to learn to help business of all sizes … hearing what keeps them up at night has helped me grow as an accountant.”

Ruston, former executive director of Westman Immigrant Services, is general manager at R&M Homes.

“I’ve been in Brandon for over 20 years,” Ruston said. “I have a lot of experience in the non-profit realm and have recently entered the private sector, but I’ve served on a lot of boards.”

Because the chamber cycles through its top executive positions with the secretary-treasurer becoming vice-president the year after, and the vice-president becoming president the year after that, it also means that for the first time the chamber will have three women consecutively occupy its top role by 2025.

In the boardroom of the chamber’s downtown headquarters, portraits of past presidents line the walls. The organization has been around for 139 years and the vast majority of those portraits are men. Once these next three terms are up, the addition of LaBuick, Pugh and Ruston’s photos will make it clear there was an effort to buck that trend.

Not only is this a local milestone, but it’s reflective of a larger situation among the province’s chamber organizations.

According to the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce, the umbrella organization that connects all the local chambers in the province, four out of seven of the larger-scale provincial chambers are led by women.

Additionally, 47 out of 63 chambers of commerce in Manitoba have identified women as their primary representative.

In Brandon, 10 out of 14 chamber of commerce directors are women as well, with Courtney Baxter (Westman Communications Group), Samantha Falloon (Myphone), Jennifer Ludwig (Super Thrifty), Meredyth Leech (Leech Group), Tilda Fortier (Greenstone Building Projects), Andrea Epp (Epp Law Office) and Laurie Brugger (Century 21 Westman) comprising the rest of the board’s female presence.

In an interview with the Brandon chamber’s executive team earlier this week, they said that seeking a leadership role wasn’t necessarily the intention when they decided to run for the organization’s board of directors, but it started to seem like a logical step as time passed.

“I think the board’s recruitment strategy was to get more women on the board, have some better representation and diversity in place,” LaBuick said. “That was a plan some years ago, but the succession of Jaime and Lois came organically. The board voted each of them into their positions.”

Pugh said joining the board fueled her desire to see Brandon progress and grow.

“For me, when I joined [the board], it was more about finding out about what the chamber is doing,” Pugh said. “Once you get on it, you realize everything that can be done.”

LaBuick said the all-female executive represents the strong presence of women in Brandon’s business community, and that’s something she’s proud of. It provides local women in business with strong role models, she added.

With a clear succession plan in place, the trio said they intend to create a long-term plan for the chamber over the next three years. Since the previous year’s president stays on the board of directors in an advisory role, the end of one woman’s term doesn’t mean her voice won’t continue to be heard.

“A year is so short for each president,” Ruston said. “Everyone has their focus and wants to make their mark, but we’re looking to spread it over the three years where we work together and have a plan we can deliver over the longer term.”

One of their goals is to make Brandon and its business community harder to ignore.

“We are a substantial contributor to the province and the economy,” LaBuick said.

“We’re the second-biggest city in Manitoba, not just a small city,” Pugh added. “We want to be known as that.”

A potential challenge for the next few chamber executives will be dealing with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and its disastrous impact on businesses and the economy.

Sitting at the boardroom table in the chamber building, LaBuick knocked on wood before saying that she believes we’re through the worst of it.

“We’re probably not sure what all those lessons will be,” she said of moving on from the pandemic. “The [provincial] government did prove they can act quickly, so I think we’ll look to them to continue to act quickly on things like immigration and other issues we’re facing.”

Ruston said the pandemic showed local businesses what the chamber could do for them and led to membership increasing as a result.

“That’s an important message going forward,” she said. “The chamber is an important resource in good times, and in struggles. It’s shown us that we need to be flexible and collaborate when we need to.”

Later this year, the City of Brandon will elect a new mayor as incumbent Rick Chrest is retiring from politics. Next year, Manitoba is due for its next provincial election. If polling keeps trending in the same direction, it could mean that there will be a new party and a new premier in power.

Establishing relationships can be difficult, but the new chamber executives believe it’s an opportunity to start off on the right foot with these people and groups and get on the same page when it comes to growing the city.

The trio said that, in their month and a bit since being sworn in, they’ve found plenty of former chamber directors, current members and past presidents — including previous incumbent Barry Cooper — have been eager to provide advice should they require it.

Former chamber president Cathy Snelgrove told the Sun she was “very excited” to see the organization’s first all-female executive team.

“Women are playing a bigger and bigger role in business in general and I think it’s great when we get to see a full female executive because I think it really demonstrates inclusiveness and how far we’ve pushed to be represented,” said Snelgrove, who has been a senior partner at local consultancy firm Siere for the last 15 years.

“When we can see people like us going on and doing things, it gives all of us hope. When young girls or other women see women in leadership roles, it gives them something to aspire to. It encourages them to have a belief that they can do anything.”

Snelgrove said she knows that message can sound cliché, but it’s a message that’s needed to inspire the next generation.

She can’t recall if anyone told her specifically during her year as chamber president that it was meaningful to see a woman in the position, but she remembers the impact that women in leadership roles have had on her during her career in business.

For example, she said former chamber president Tami-Rae Rourke encouraged her to run for the organization’s board of directors. That “pass it along” mentality is key to promote diversity of thought.

Speaking by phone from Montreal, Rural Manitoba Economic Development Corporation chief executive director Margot Cathcart said she hadn’t realized that the all-female executive was a milestone. If it doesn’t cross people’s minds when there’s an all-male leadership group, it shouldn’t be a concern when women are in charge.

“What’s important is that we have a strong leadership group,” she said. “I think it’s impressive that we’re seeing that kind of leadership coming out of Brandon.”

Because it’s important for women to see other women in leadership positions, Cathcart said she believes the business community has a responsibility to help mentor the next generation of leaders.

“There’s an incredible, rich fabric of leadership coming from women globally,” she said. “But you still see those little nuanced messages like, ‘Oh, here’s a great female leader.’ No, she’s a fantastic leader. I think we need to start moving away from some of those messages and recognize great leadership no matter what gender, ethnicity or different perspectives people have.”

When it comes to women starting their own businesses and getting involved in entrepreneurial activities, Alanna Keefe of the Women’s Enterprise Centre of Manitoba said the pandemic saw many women leaving the workforce and going into business.

“Whether you’re male or female, choosing passion and doing something for you … is, I think, more commonplace than it has ever been,” said Keefe, who is the centre’s director of operations and stakeholder engagement.

According to Statistics Canada, 18.2 per cent of private sector businesses were majority-owned by women in the first quarter of this fiscal year. The federal government’s Women Entrepreneurship Strategy estimates that advancing gender equality could add up to $150 billion to the country’s gross domestic product.

The centre’s job is to help women in Manitoba start or grow their businesses through advice, financing and training.

The finance part, Keefe said, is especially important because women typically have a harder time accessing loans or credit through traditional banking institutions.

Though she doesn’t know the circumstances that led to Pugh, Ruston and LaBuick being appointed to the executive at the same time, she said she believes it was because they were the right people for the positions at the right time and not because someone wanted the novelty of having three women in the roles at once.

“Is it coincidental, or is it intentional?” Keefe asked. “I want to believe this was a conscious bias towards women in leadership roles and not the unconscious bias that often accompanies gender roles.”

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