It would be a glass ceiling if they could at least see the lens. But it is a more complex obstacle that entrepreneurs from cultural communities must face, due to a lack of representation in the business world. Fortunately and paradoxically, the year of the pandemic and George Floyd offered some hope.
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“There are three additional obstacles to being a black woman entrepreneur,” says Déborah Cherenfant.
She speaks knowingly. Now Regional Director, Women Entrepreneurs, at TD Bank Group, she owned her own fashion design business between 2011 and 2018.
Representation problem
The first obstacle is a lack of objective.
Black entrepreneurs – and a fortiori black women – are very poorly represented in the business elite.
“We, and I say this by including myself, it is difficult to identify and see ourselves in the models that exist”, states Déborah Cherenfant, also president of the Young Chamber of Commerce of Montreal.
“We have been led to put forward and consider as successes people who undertake in a certain way, in a certain field, and not, as I often give the example, the African grocery store of corner or the hairdressing salon of a young black mom who does braids. “
Black women, especially immigrants, are however inclined to be entrepreneurs.
They easily use their resourcefulness, their ease in finding solutions to everyday problems.
“Entrepreneurship, for black women, in several communities, is quite natural and, above all, it is a question of survival. “
However, she describes these initiatives as subsistence entrepreneurship, “unlike other communities which may have more of the opportunity to make it a dream, an ambition, to have a vision that is far-reaching, even revolutionary. . Unfortunately, historically, many black communities have not had this luxury. “
Their projects are emerging more and more from traditional spheres, but come up against the eyes of the business community – a view that constitutes the second obstacle that black women entrepreneurs come up against.
Under the aspect of organization, structure and environment of entrepreneurship, I think that the biggest obstacle is once again the representation, in the form of prejudices and unconscious “biases”, which does not allow us to see black people as economic leaders, entrepreneurial leaders in their own right.
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Déborah Cherenfant, Regional Director, Women Entrepreneurs, TD Bank Group and President of the Young Chamber of Commerce of Montreal
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This view makes it more difficult to access financing and entrepreneurial support.
“And I say it knowingly,” asserts the director of TD, who worked as a business start-up and financing consultant before launching her own firm.
“If I take the example of venture capital, it is true that the comments, the prejudices, the lack of habit of seeing black women at the head of techno start-ups mean that we will pay less attention. to this type of file there. “
These start-ups sometimes tackle the problems experienced by black communities – profitably, in every sense of the word.
Since the people who are on these juries and boards are not representative of black or cultural communities, they find it difficult to perceive the economic viability that may exist in targeting the issues of black communities.
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Déborah Cherenfant, Regional Director, Women Entrepreneurs, TD Bank Group and President of the Young Chamber of Commerce of Montreal
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The obstacle is real, she notes, but it must be crossed.
“There are many concrete initiatives, be they organizations, programs, strategies. “
She recalls that the federal government announced last September a financial assistance program of $ 221 million to support black entrepreneurs facing systemic obstacles. “It’s pretty historic. “
Network access
The third obstacle is “access to the network”.
The lack of models, and therefore of points of contact, “ensures that we stay away from codes, away from communications and conversations in a business environment which remains above all a boy club or closed to certain people in several respects” , she observes.
Access to the network is already difficult for black people born here, who are more familiar with the local business culture.
“But in addition, as an immigrant, we – once again, an ‘us’ that includes me – do not know exactly what to look for in the entrepreneurial world in order to learn business culture more quickly. . “
The shock of the pandemic
To these difficulties, we must also add the pandemic, which has hit hardest women, black communities and very small businesses, where black women entrepreneurs are concentrated.
A triple convergence …
But Déborah Cherenfant still finds a source of optimism in it.
She recalls that, according to Statistics Canada, 40% of women-owned businesses have been able to modify their products or services in the face of the pandemic, against 28% for all businesses.
The brewing post-pandemic recovery also offers an opportunity for governments, financial institutions and organizations to better support women entrepreneurs from black and ethnic communities.
At the same time, greater sensitivity to black entrepreneurship could result from the surge caused by the death of George Floyd and the momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Black businesses matter too.
Black women, few in female entrepreneurship, will they be more present, will they be differently at the end of the crisis? How can we better give them the visibility they deserve? It’s a thinking that’s fully entrenched in the wake of the 2020 conversations and protests in the wake of the George Floyd murder.
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Déborah Cherenfant, Regional Director, Women Entrepreneurs, TD Bank Group and President of the Young Chamber of Commerce of Montreal
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A new portrait
So there is hope.
“‘Hope’ is a good word, because I have a lot of them,” agrees Déborah Cherenfant. We are in a real turn where the spotlight is on black communities. “
Black entrepreneurs are ready, are already taking action, she assures us.
“It’s just that our look, as a society, on this type of female entrepreneur, or on the type of business created by these people, is not always a thoughtful look, which gives importance, because this is not the regular model, the normal model. I think that we have an opportunity, as a society, to review the typical model of entrepreneurship and to see to what extent it can have multiple faces. “
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