Co-CEOs Shelley Kuipers and Judy Fairburn Receive the Report on Business Changemaker Award
Huge congrats to our Co-CEOs Shelley Kuipers and Judy Fairburn for receiving the Report on Business Changemaker Award! This prestigious award honours 50 Canadians who are driving meaningful change across the country.
This couldn’t be more true of Shelley and Judy who have built a financial feminist platform where current and aspiring investors (particularly women and gender-diverse individuals) come together to democratize access to capital for women, gender-diverse founders, and outliers building mutual wealth and social/environmental impact.
With a community of thousands, The51 and Movement51, are on a mission. With the backdrop of 65% of Canada’s wealth being in the hands of women by 2030, it’s an economic imperative that women invest their capital in what women want to see in the world; from healthcare to financial services to cleantech to enterprise platforms, and sector focused innovation like food and agtech.
At The51, that means backing the most promising founders to realize their vision, to deliver financial returns and social and environmental impact. We are changing the face of capital, who makes capital decisions and who is invested in.
The enormous gap in funding for women-led businesses is persistent, we still sit at 1.9% of venture funding going to women-led ventures (US stat), and 10% in Canada (2014 stat), and just 11% of partners in venture capital are women.
Shelley and Judy couldn’t be more honoured to receive the Changemaker Award! Truth is, though, the recognition really goes to our entire community—including our team, our partners, our investors, our founders, aspiring investors, aspiring founders, financial feminists and allies who are committed to changing the dynamic of how women build wealth and access capital across Canada and throughout the world.
See the full list and read the article in The Globe and Mail here.
About The51
The51 is a Financial Feminist™ platform where current and aspiring investors (particularly women and gender-diverse individuals) come together to democratize access to capital for women and underrepresented founders. By driving capital and commercialisation, The51 builds mutual wealth and social/environmental impact, shares knowledge and experiences and practices intersectional feminism through financial action. Our community of influential feminist investors, innovators, and consumers are building the Financial Feminist™ economy.
About Movement51
Movement51 (M51) is a Canadian non-profit established by The51 and created to eliminate gender disparity in the realms of investing, entrepreneurship and financial knowledge. With educational programming that focuses on entrepreneurship and early-stage investing through a feminist lens, M51 is powering the full economic participation of women and gender-diverse people in Canada.
About ROB Changemakers
Changemakers is an annual editorial award program, produced by The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business magazine, meant to recognize the individual emerging leaders changing business today. The first list was published in 2021.