Annastacia Plaskos, founder of renovation company Fix It Females, says she wants to show other women that “you can make the same amount of money that a male can in this industry.”Alex Franklin/The Globe and Mail
Annastacia Plaskos grew up surrounded by the trades. Her father ran a flooring business, and when her parents split up, her mother continued to run the company. As a teenager, she encouraged her mom to add painting to the list of services and helped to grow the business.
After high school, Ms. Plaskos attended university and took business courses. But her heart wasn’t in it.
“It wasn’t something I wanted to do, and so I [thought], what can I get into that allows me to have some financial freedom while still challenging me mentally and physically? I decided to get into the trades.”
Ms. Plaskos shadowed a contractor for several years before she felt she had the skills to set out on her own. Then, she launched Fix It Females, a home renovation business that does everything from house painting to drywalling to building. The business rapidly grew from three to nearly 40 employees within a few years – all of them women.
“For me, showing other women you can do this, that it is possible [is important],” she says. “You can make the same amount of money that a male can in this industry. It is doable.”
Bringing collaboration and adaptability to the table
Ms. Plaskos is one of a growing number of women entrepreneurs in male-dominated sectors who are helping to fuel small business growth in Canada. According to a recent study by GoDaddy, 43 per cent of businesses with 0–9 employees are run by women, while 48 per cent of the country’s female-led businesses were started in the last five years. Many women leaders also make a concerted effort to hire an all-female, or mostly female, staff.
Heather Cannings, program lead for women’s entrepreneurship strategy for Nventure, a non-profit aimed at financing and supporting entrepreneurship in Canada, has seen a small increase in women launching and leading businesses in traditionally male-dominated industries. A 2023 survey found that self-employed women in manufacturing, scientific and technical sectors rose between 2021 and 2022.
Ms. Cannings says that women can contribute unique qualities to these kinds of industries. “I think women are bringing not only technical expertise but they’re also bringing collaborative leadership, which is super important.”
Women also tend to be very adaptable, she adds, “which is incredibly valuable in these non-traditional spaces, where innovation and problem-solving are key.”
Case in point: Aja Horsely, founder of Calgary-based honey company Drizzle Honey. The environmental studies graduate created the company while researching rooftop beekeeping, finding herself fascinated with the process of producing honey.
“I was driven by ethics and wanting to help the beekeepers make this amazing, beautiful product,” she says.
Aja Horsely, founder of Drizzle Honey in Calgary, had to pivot from beekeeping to branding when she became allergic to bees.SUPPLIED
Ms. Horsley started the business on her own, doing all the heavy lifting (hives can weigh up to 36 kilograms) – until she became allergic to bees.
She had to quickly rethink her approach and switched gears, hiring local beekeepers to source the honey while taking charge of branding and packaging herself. She also applied and was selected to participate in a business accelerator where she learned strategies to build her brand. Dragon’s Den’s Arlene Dickenson was an early investor.
Ms. Horsley says from the beginning, Drizzle’s staff has been proudly all-female, and that has been an advantage.
“[Women workers] are very creative and flexible, and I find they can be very driven. When they get an opportunity in a non-traditional work environment, they are willing to work very hard to get where they need to get.”
Giving women ‘space to grow’
Monisha Sharma, chief revenue officer at Fig Financial, a Canadian digital personal loan provider, was motivated to join Fig because as a champion of financial knowledge for women, she found a lack of growth opportunities for women in finance. She was almost always the sole woman at the table, she says, and there were few accessible tools to help women achieve financial independence.
Ms. Sharma leads an all-female team and is part of a leadership crew that is 50 per cent women and persons of colour. She says that for women in non-traditional spaces such as finance or tech, working at smaller companies can sometimes be beneficial because decisions are based on data rather than who is at the leadership table.
Monisha Sharma, centre, with her Fig Financial “money” team, Mackenzie Young, left, and Molly Scott.SUPPLIED
“There is a focus on data driven-decision making which does provide a lot of space for women, people who are racialized, anyone who looks and sounds different – they all get room to grow.”
At bigger, more established companies, this kind of equity continues to be a challenge, she says. “There’s a large glass ceiling.”
One of Fig’s initiatives is Women in Fig, an internal mentorship program that provides opportunities for women to receive support and to grow in their careers.
Programs like these are key to women’s success in non-traditional fields, says Nventure’s Ms. Cannings. But she cautions that women don’t just need a support group. They also need active champions – male and female – who can open doors for them and “who are going to provide access, hands-on training, technical roles.” Even more importantly, they need investors and backers who will be with them for the long haul.
Ms. Horsley agrees, saying that when she started Drizzle, buyers wouldn’t answer her emails or would give her absurdly high quotes. It was difficult to be competitive, she says, because she doesn’t feel she was given the same pricing that a male counterpart would to get the business off the ground.
Over the last decade, however, Ms. Horsley has found that things are changing for the better. “Investors know that women are underfunded,” she says. “The buyers at large corporations know they need to include product purchasing from female-owned companies.”
As more entrepreneurs like Ms. Plaskos, Ms. Horsley and Ms. Sharma intentionally create companies that are safe spaces for women and people of diverse backgrounds, the positive impacts will have a ripple effect, Ms. Cannings says. Companies like theirs can provide forums for workers to support one another and to be inspired by female leadership.
“It gives us a sense of shared experience,” she says. “We can show up as ourselves.”
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Stacie Campbell/The Globe and Mail