Absolutely. We planned for this.
Thank you very much, committee members, and thank you, Mr. Chair, for the invitation to appear in relation to the study on small and medium enterprises in federal procurement.
Let us provide some background about ourselves and our work with the Canada-United States Council for Advancement of Women Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders, and the role that federal procurement can play in creating a strong and vibrant economy.
I am Annette Verschuren, and I am the Chair and CEO of NRStor Inc., an energy storage development company. Prior to this role, I served as president of Home Depot Canada and Asia, overseeing the growth of the company's Canadian operations from 19 to 179 stores between 1996 and 2011.
My colleague Elyse Allan, a great friend and partner, is President and CEO of GE Canada and Vice-President of GE. Elyse leads GE Canada's growth across its business portfolio while also building GE's innovation and digital capacity.
Led by top executives in the United States and Canada, the women's council has a mandate to develop advice to help boost women's economic engagement. We share the many inspiring stories of progress and successful women to motivate others to follow their lead.
Extensive research proves that there is an economic advantage in female leadership in the workforce. Being a female leader in the workforce for 41 years, I can guarantee you that. Our work, divided into five pillars, will contribute to the increased economic growth, integration, and competitiveness of Canadian and U.S. economies. To date, the women's council has released three pillars. They are supporting and growing women-owned businesses; increasing the number of women in science, technology, engineering, and math; and attracting women entrepreneurs, encouraging women to start businesses. Two additional pillars—increasing women's access to capital and the advancement of women as leaders in the private sector—will be released in the coming months.
As the champions of the first report, “Supporting and growing women-owned businesses”, we identified the following barriers affecting women business owners. They include access to growth capital; lack of access to talent, networks, and expertise; the pressure to choose between entrepreneurship and family obligations; and the persistent social and psychological biases.
Today we will focus on how the government can support women-led SMEs through implementing a supplier diversity program. We will also highlight the power of procurement to spur innovation, as discussed in the Advisory Council on Economic Growth's paper “Unlocking Innovation to Drive Scale and Growth”, released in February 2017.
There are challenges and barriers for women in business, but multiple studies show a strong business case for investing in women entrepreneurs. Research has found that businesses observe 15% in additional profit when the share of women in leadership positions rises from zero to 30%. Companies with at least one female founder outperformed all male-founded teams by 63% over the past 10 years.
Several studies, including those done by RBC and the Center for Women's Business Research, found that increasing the number of women-owned small businesses in Canada could add $198 billion to Canada's GDP. Yet, despite starting nearly half of all new businesses, women owned fewer than 15% of businesses with 100-plus employees in the U.S. and Canada. Just to be totally accurate, it's 15% in the U.S. and it's 7% in Canada.
Access to growth capital is critical for success. In both Canada and the United States, firms with at least one female founder received less than 16% of all venture capital funding. There are too few women in decision-making roles in the financial services, asset management, and private equity sectors, and only 7% of partners at leading venture capital firms are women. Women have a smaller pool of fellow entrepreneurs, technical talent, and informal advisers to tap as they start and scale companies. This makes it harder for women to get introduced to potential customers, partners, and investors, and as a result grow their companies.
Elyse.