Whether or not women need their own business organizations is again being debated at office water coolers in the lead-up to the Women President’s Organization’s (WPO) annual conference April 27 through 29 in Vancouver.
Lululemon Athletica Inc. founder Chip Wilson once told Business in Vancouver that he doubted the value of organizations such as the Vancouver Board of Trade’s Women’s Leadership Circle, the Women’s Executive Network and the Women’s Leadership Forum. (See “Value of women’s business leadership events questioned” – issue 987; September 23-29.)
But WPO chapter chairwoman Barbara Mowatt has her own answer to why women who meet membership requirements (owning a business that has more than $1 million in revenue) should spend $1,650 per year to join.
“Women are more collaborative and more supportive of each other,” Mowatt told Business in Vancouver.
“Often in the Young Presidents’ Organization, Entrepreneurs’ Organization and the Executive Committee – all of those – they don’t feel that they’re listened to and they’re not dealing with the same issues,”
TEC is similar to WPO because both have cohorts where business owners who are not in competing sectors can openly discuss business challenges.
One major difference is that TEC allows senior executives to join the cohort. WPO is open only to executives who also have a large ownership stake in their venture.
In the past few years, WPO has increased its number of groups to 94 from 74 globally. Canada has nine chapters today, compared with four a few years ago.
Vancouver now has three of those nine chapters. A few years ago there was only one Vancouver WPO group.