WBE Canada Hosts Its First Breakfast with Brands: Tech Industry
On September 19th, WBE Canada (Women Business Enterprises Canada Council) held its first Breakfast with BrandsTM: Tech Industry event, bringing together certified women-owned businesses and buyers from WBE Canada corporate members and industry leaders in the Technology & Telecommunications Industry. Sponsored by BDC, BELL, CTDI and ROGERS, this event connected more than 40 certified suppliers from Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia with buyers from BDC, Bell, CTDI, Government of Canada, IBM, Microsoft, Nokia, Rogers, and TELUS.
WBE Canada’s Breakfast with BrandsTM events continue to be the most successful and meaningful way of bringing purchasing representatives and women business owners together in an intimate setting designed to foster doing business with those directly involved in procurement.
WBE Canada President Silvia Pencak opened the event thanking corporate representatives for taking the lead in bringing diversity and inclusion to the technology and telecommunications industry. Great strides are being undertaken by tech giants in moving supplier diversity forward within the technology, telecommunications and IT sector to support women-owned businesses through procurement opportunities.
As WBE Canada celebrates its 10th Anniversary this year, Silvia also thanked IBM, Nokia and TELUS for their dedication and corporate membership since 2009. Silvia also updated the room on how the Government of Canada is working to remove barriers to entry for SMEs by the adoption of policy changes to simplify contracts, e-procurement and vendor evaluations. These improvements all have a positive impact on how women-owned businesses do business with government.
A panel discussion followed with Rob J Brown, Manager – Supplier Management at Rogers, Andy Thompson, VP, ION Transformation at Nokia and Lisa Siragusa, President of NRG TeleResources and Certified WBE (Women Business Enterprise) discussing the strides being made within the tech industry, the commitments being made and how suppliers see these changes impacting their business.
Event attendees had the opportunity to not only get answers to their questions, but also have direct conversations with the corporate/government buyers and pitch their businesses.
Thank you to all who attended Breakfast with BrandsTM: Tech Industry and we look forward to seeing everyone at our upcoming Annual Conference & Gala, November 14, 2019 in Toronto.
Thank you BDC, BELL, IBM and ROGERS for sponsoring this event.