If the following nine women share one thing in common (aside from their years at BSS), it’s that they have taken an idea their idea and brought it to life. Those ideas have taken shape in many forms: a documentary film, a fashion label, elegant flower arrangements, even a financial service. Their impressive efforts, triumph over self doubt and general stick-with-it-ness make them model entrepreneurs. (A few confided that they weren’t exactly model students!). Perhaps most impressive is that each woman has reached this point in her life and aspires to achieve more because she understands the power and pleasure of doing things on her own terms. Make no mistake, all of this is easier read than done. But what purpose is a success story if not to inspire similar success in others? By Amy VERNER ’99 · Photos by Caitlin CRONENBERG ’02
Aja Singer ’02
Aja Singer always knew she wanted to pursue fashion. But when she arrived at McGill University, she sidelined her passion to major in science, specifically, anatomy and cell biology, and minor in art history. “The first year, I was pretty happy, but as the years progressed, I felt I was missing out on being able to do something creative,” she says by telephone from her New York studio.
So she applied to Parsons, the prestigious design school in the heart of Manhattan, and made the move stateside in 2006. That was when the genesis for her contemporary clothing label, Alex and Eli, which she started with Anna Zeman, began to gel. “We were very studious and not like the regular fashion students. We were nerds,” she explains, with a laugh. “One day, we went for a walk and were sitting on a stoop and started talking about [the line]; there were lots of points where we could have turned around and stopped but we didn’t.”
With Alex and Eli, Ms. Singer, who attended BSS from Grade 6 through 13, tapped into an underserved apparel category: chic suiting options (sleek trousers, jackets with edgy detailing) that would not break the bank. The New York Times profiled the duo in 2009 when they launched their collection and their now signature blazers have been spotted in the hit show Gossip Girl and on paparazzi darling, Kim Kardashian.
All of the clothing is made in New York’s garment district. Ms. Singer points out that much of their success has come from being incredibly self-motivated. “You definitely have to love what you’re doing because there’s so much personal sacrifice,” she says, citing twice yearly New York Fashion Weeks as the most demanding time of the year. “The month before, we’re working very long days but [we] love it.”
She and Ms. Zeman are thinking long term, from web sites to special collaborations and licensing. “All of those things are helpful financially,” she explains. Despite a lightning fast start, they realize that success in the fashion industry does not happen overnight. In the meantime, Ms. Singer, who turns 27 in August, has already learned that being an entrepreneur means trusting her instinct above all else. “You get a lot of advice and only 25 percent of it is actually worth taking,” she says. “Know what you want to do and stick with it.”
Elizabeth Thomson ’67
When Elizabeth Thomson took her first trip to Hong Kong, she had no idea that she “was going to be staying the rest of my life.” But as she explains from her office after a long day (early morning, Toronto time), “if life gives you a gift, you have to accept it.”
She had been a Boarder at BSS her family is from Thunder Bay and attended the University of Western Ontario before pursuing law at McGill University. “I think if there had been more business studies during law school, I would have realized that I was always interested in business,” she recalls. “I was always seeing another opportunity around the corner.”
Today, her company, ICS Trust (founded in 1980), provides corporate, legal, accounting, bank, trade and tax services all under one roof, assisting companies that want to break into the Asian market and beyond. “We give them a platform they might not otherwise be able to find,” says Ms. Thomson, who is also on the board of the Canadian and U.S. Chambers of Commerce in Hong Kong. The latter named her Entrepreneur of the Year 2008 at the annual the Women of Influence Awards, also hosted by the South China Morning Post.
As she sees it, women are particularly well suited to entrepreneurial endeavours. “It gives you a lot more personal freedom than being an employee,” she says, adding that her husband, Kishore Sakhrani, is the company’s director. “What I would say to Old Girls or young girls is try it out. I’ve been really happy to see a lot of young women coming to Asia.” Perhaps not surprisingly, she served as the first International Governor for BSS from 2004 to 2009.
Ms. Thomson insists that any culture shock came not from adjusting to life in Hong Kong but from making visits back to Canada (her daughter, Simone attended BSS and has since returned to Hong Kong).
“It really doesn’t matter here if you’re a man or woman; it’s a paradise for entrepreneurs,” she explains, noting government administrative red tape that exists here in Canada. “You get support for being an entrepreneur and there are many others like me who have made things happen and have built their business from nothing to something.”
Devin Connell ’00
It’s late afternoon hours after the lunch crush yet patrons continue to pop into Delica Kitchen, the boutique eatery created by Devin Connell.
There’s the man who wolfs down his mini banana bread loaf on the spot, a woman who arrives to pick up her order of heat and serve dinners, and a new mum who stops by for her regular java fix.
That each of them exchanges greetings with Ms. Connell is a testament to the welcoming environment she’s created.
Since opening Delica Kitchen in November 2009, she has developed a loyal clientele who come several times a week for her hearty chili and inspired sandwich offerings (favourites include the Buffalo style roast chicken and Italian tuna melt).
The food business is in Ms. Connell’s DNA parents Linda Haynes and Martin Connell founded ACE Bakery. Although she earned a degree in graphic design from Parsons The New School of Design in New York, she kept up various gastronomic pursuits, attending classes at the prestigious Cordon Bleu and apprenticing at the Slanted Door, a renowned San Francisco restaurant.
But it didn’t take long for Ms. Connell to realize that owning a business is no cakewalk. “Part of you thinks that you’re the boss and so you can sleep in, but that doesn’t exist,” she says.
In as much as she went in with a solid understanding of her concept fresh, wholesome takeout fare she concedes that she wasn’t entirely prepared for the business side. “I’ve never been good at math and numbers so that’s been a steep learning curve; I would have taken more business courses or gotten more practical experience.”
At least she’s put her graphic design know how to good use; the clean look of Delica’s web site and branding bears her stamp.
Overseeing all these different facets, however, means that balance is always a challenge. “You can get caught up in the minutiae and it can be hard to get the big picture,” she says. “It’s important to be in here but I also need to step back to get perspective.”
Ms. Connell has a heap of ideas on her plate, starting with a line of frozen prepared foods that would be carried at gourmet food stores such as McEwan and Pusateri’s.
“What makes me really happy is having new people in my life who are my customers and making them happy.” Plus, she now has extra appreciation for the small victories. “Getting through my to do list feels awesome.”
Jane Apor ’89
If this profile of Jane Apor reads different from the others, there’s a reason; the writer (ahem) also happens to be her sister. This means that any attempt at objectivity is futile and you might as well just indulge me as I share her story.
I’ve watched Jane parlay a creative pursuit into a bona fide business. Around a decade ago, Jane was on the beach in the Hamptons and made a necklace from a shell and a strand of seaweed. At the time, she was living in London and working as the Director of Retail Events and Promotions at Estée Lauder. (She attended what is now known as the Schulich School of Business at York University, where she graduated with an MBA in Arts and Media.) She returned to Toronto in 2002 thinking that she would take the summer off before resuming with the global cosmetics company and that’s when the necklace idea this time using materials less slimy than seaweed began to take shape.
But despite the overwhelmingly positive response to these lariat necklaces (complete strangers bought them off her on the spot), it took Jane a few years to get comfortable with the idea that she had traded corporate life for something so artistic and unstructured. “I was in denial,” she admits. “I thought I was stringing beads.”
Technically, she really was doing just that; but by handling every piece, she made a conscious decision to take her line, which she titled J.Rox, in a deliberately niche direction. “There’s not only beauty and substance, there is a personal touch,” she explains, noting that there is also an aspirational element.
“I don’t represent the typical artisan. I wear my jewelry and people see that and respond to my style.”
Jane traces her entrepreneurial spirit to her parents who did not have traditional nine to five jobs. “I grew up on fashion shoots and film sets so I wasn’t conditioned to the norms of an office or dressing a certain way.” But she also says her 14 years at BSS inevitably shaped her mindset. “I could never draw people, but I had a sensibility towards colour and abstract design,” she says of art class. “At BSS, the opportunities were limitless…and I was always challenged and encouraged to try a multitude of things.”
Beyond Toronto, Jane has set up J.Rox trunk shows in countless jetset locales: Palm Beach, Muskoka, Miami and the Hamptons a smart strategy given the colourful yet luxe aesthetic of her semi precious stone necklaces and leather charm bracelets. As long as she oversees everything herself, she is aware that her business can only get so big. But that suits her just fine. “I’m my own window and my own advertising,” she says.
It’s also made her realize that inspiration can come from anywhere. “Be open and embrace it and accept it and challenge yourself to do something outside the norm,” she says, adding that J.Rox has completely changed her life in ways she would never expect. “I had to change the way I dress!” she says, noting that she now builds her outfits around her jewelry. But really, she’s just traded one uniform for another, a stunning necklace instead of a striped tie.
Tara Dawood ’91
In the days leading up to her interview for The Link, Tara Dawood was swamped with planning an event. But not just any meet-and-greet. January 8, 2011, marked Pakistan’s first professional networking lunch for women.
“We never had anything like this,” she says by phone from Karachi once her routine had gotten back to normal. Not that Ms. Dawood, a precocious child who interviewed visiting celebrities before going on to study at Cornell, Oxford and Harvard, has ever been content with normal.
At times, Ms. Dawood comes across as an unassuming guru with one foot each in the worlds of law and finance. “I appreciate the way that law could be a facilitator for self optimization for people,” she says. “I’m a big believer in justice and rights.”
But business savvy seems to course through her veins.
When Ms. Dawood moved to Karachi in 2000, she says she was struck by both the potential opportunity for her do something meaningful as a function of the socioeconomic limitations imposed on others. “It was one of those situations where I found that a lot of women and children were not part of the financial sphere in Pakistan,” she says.
In 2003, Ms. Dawood established Dawood Capital Management, her namesake asset management business. Its success allowed her to create Ladies fund four years later. The pro bono investment advisory service works with female entrepreneurs and women seeking financial guidance, whether regarding Shariah compliant or conventional mutual funds.
“There’s a lot of women’s wealth that is isolated from banks and the banking sector,” she explains. “I worked with a team to discover that if a woman has a designer bag, she will get a bigger kick from it than if she has money on a bank statement. Now, [we’ve created] tiers of women investors and we’re giving them market incentives signals or gifts.” The bottom line, she says: “We are redefining women’s finance.”
She estimates that there are now 100,000 children with financial security. What’s more, she has raised enough money for Plan Canada to sponsor two Pakistani girls.
Ms. Dawood, who attended BSS from Kindergarten through to graduation, does not downplay this achievement. “I think the survivors at BSS are the survivors in life,” she says.
This might explain her realistic (daresay, normal) insight on life’s highs and lows. “I think every human being will always have moments of doubt and moments of conviction. I feel strongly that we are a product of our choices,” she says.
Had her life taken her down a different path, Ms. Dawood says she might have ended up writing legal fiction. Which is not to suggest that door has shut (she pens the Girl Friday columns for the Friday Times in Pakistan). It’s just that she finds her current work so immensely rewarding on so many levels. “I think seeing people’s lives affected in a positive way so they evolve is wonderful,” she says. “There’s nothing I like more than evolving myself.”
Linda Lesueur Darragh ’72
As the director of entrepreneurship programs for Chicago Booth’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago, Linda Lesueur Darragh approaches the subject from many perspectives.
But perhaps most interesting of all is the idea that entrepreneurship is something that can be taught.
Indeed, Ms. Darragh points to the internet explosion during the mid-90s as an accelerated period of small business growth and limitless opportunity. As such, academic institutions have continued to modify the way they teach entrepreneurship. Whereas students from previous generations might have been drilled with the message to build a business plan and stick to it, Ms. Darragh says, “That’s about the worst thing you can do. Today, when you’re starting, you want to be flexible and iterate and pivot and change.”
She speaks from experience.
Having completed her Bachelor’s degree in Politics and Urban Geography and her Masters of Science in Urban Planning both at Queen’s she knew she was interested in government at the municipal level and urban economics.
When her university sweetheart was transferred to Chicago to pursue his Ph.D, she followed him there and managed to get a job in the city’s planning department where she was subsequently assigned to a task force investigating economic development. Fast forward 25 years skipping over various twists and turns through jobs related to technology, venture capital and women’s business issues and she gets offered a teaching position at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management before moving over to the University of Chicago in 2005.
Ms. Darragh currently teaches two classes in the winter quarter and another in the spring. While there will always be interest in entrepreneurship as it relates to consumer products and technology, she seems most passionate about social ventures when large financial (or academic) organizations work to achieve objectives that benefit the public good.
Time and again, she says that statistics have shown that entrepreneurial spirit is further strengthened when a person grows up in a family of entrepreneurs. “You could say it’s genetic or environmental, but there’s a lot to be said about the vision of what can be done.” And Ms. Darragh extends this thinking to her four years at BSS. “I think it gave me huge freedom to express myself and push boundaries. I could take risks at BSS and realized it doesn’t matter if you fail or goof and that’s critical to going forward through life.”
Liz Levine ’95
Ask Liz Levine what being an entrepreneur means to her and she answers, “I think it’s the magic combination of being determined to succeed and determined to not listen to anyone else’s set of rules.”
Of course, she arrives at this definition from over a decade of personal experience. Her resumé is both extensive and impressive, ranging from various gigs as a television producer (with CHUM, Global and CBC) to journalist stints at the Vancouver Sun, the National Post and Playback magazine. A newspaper story led her into documentary film (earning her a Gemini in 2004) and from there, she was brought on as the new media producer for JPod, the television series based on the novel by Douglas Coupland. Currently, Ms. Levine is the executive director of development at Brightlight Pictures, an independent film and TV company. But she’s also the co-founder of Random Bench, a production company she started with her best friend from Queen’s university, Adrian Salpeter, and it’s into this endeavour that she pours her passion.
She concedes that some of her friends are still not entirely sure what she does. “The term ‘producer’ is so vague,” she says, noting that there are fiscal and creative producers and she falls into the latter camp.
Ms. Levine attended BSS from Kindergarten until graduating year. “I was definitely instilled with the surefootedness and confidence that the world was mine to make of it,” she says, crediting both the School and her mother’s positive support for her perseverance and drive.
When she does relax, it’s with Anthony, her partner of 14 years who is an artist and writer. She divides her time between Vancouver and Los Angeles (where Salpeter is based) and says a typical day involves 200-300 emails and a stack of scripts. In other words: few red carpet industry shindigs.
Indeed, with the freedom comes responsibility. But the tradeoff is worth it, she insists. “You realize that 60 hours a week cannot just deliver a paycheque, but something with paycheque on top and then the reward is 1000 times greater. There’s nothing as fulfilling as seeing your creative idea come to life.”
Cristin Pennachetti Lazier ’96
It would not be a stretch to say that Cristin Pennachetti Lazier swims against the current as far as her love for swimwear. After all, it is a well known (albeit unscientific) fact that women hate shopping for bathing suits even more than denim or lingerie.
But Ms. Lazier says she’s loved this summertime staple as far back as she can remember and considered starting her own line in earnest a few years ago when she saw a void in the market for stylish swimwear that women could feel confident wearing.
Having worked for five years in advertising, she knew that assembling a few ad-hoc focus groups would produce important insight. “It was a challenge in terms of trying to adapt, based on what the clients said they needed, and, at the same time, stay true to the brand and vision,” says Ms. Lazier.
Fortunately, things went more smoothly when it came to recruiting the artistic talent. Old Girls Devin CONNELL ’00 and Courtney WOTHERSPOON ’00 (friends of Lazier’s sister Jessica PENNACHETTI ’00) helped design the website and print designs, respectively.
The result is a well edited collection of one and two piece suits boasting pretty patterns inspired by beachy chic getaways such as the Hamptons, Capri and the Seychelles. There is a selection available at Vocado in Liberty Village, although most people contact her directly via word of mouth.
Ms. Lazier says that she’s now building her brand using the skills she learned as an account executive. With one exception this time, she’s essentially a team of one (a patternmaker creates the prototypes and they are manufactured locally).
In the four years since conceiving Destineau, Ms. Lazier has given birth to two daughters, Brooke and Paige. She also works four days a week for the City of Toronto.
Ms. Lazier loves that the learning curve never hits a plateau. “In some aspects, you seriously learn something new every hour versus every day,” she says. “To a certain extent, you’re creating the process but there’s also a way of doing things that you can’t control.”
Oh, and in case you were wondering, the name Destineau was born out of a portmanteau of “destination” and “eau” (“water” in French for any lapsed language students). But “destiny” seems to figure in there somewhere, too. If nothing more, Ms. Lazier points out that she has wonderful creative latitude from which to grow the collection. “I’m never going to run out of places in the world.”
Rosemary Little JeFares ’83
Rosemary Little Jefares likes to say that being an entrepreneur is not a question of resources, but rather, being resourceful. Of course, this is the type of insight that can best be gleaned after years of experience 15 years in Ms. Jefares’ case.
In that amount of time, she has built a “wee floral empire” as she refers to her business, Quince Flowers.
Ms. Jefares did not see floral artistry in her future back when she studied fine art at York University. But by the time she moved to the U.K. to pursue her Masters at the University of York, focusing on the sociology of visual culture her creative seeds were evidently sown.
On a whim, she began working part-time at a flower shop run by Lady Julia Hodgkin (wife of British painter Howard Hodgkin) which was well located within design/restaurant guru Terence Conran’s retail spaces.
Ms. Jefares admits she was a quick study, learning all botanical aspects as she went along. “I still find all that so fascinating, even after 15 years,” she says.
Once she decided to go solo, Ms. Jefares was determined to set up a similar shop within a shop arrangement back in Toronto, thereby gaining better visibility among a wider range of clients.
She set up Quince Flowers in UpCountry, the furniture retailer known for its updated vintage style. In 2008, she moved into a light filled location on Queen Street East in the city’s burgeoning Riverdale neighbourhood. This is where most of the assembling from striking, stunning wedding centerpieces to simpler, verdant bouquets takes place.
She counts restauranteur Mark McEwan as one of her longest clients. So when he opened his namesake specialty food store at the Shops at Don Mills, Quince was invited to create a small concession, aptly named Flowerbar. Ms. Jefares has two staff working out of that space and four at the main location.
Today, one quarter of her revenue comes from standing orders and she remains a go to source for magazine editorial shoots.
While the recession marked a less bountiful period (“The first thing people cut were flowers,” she says, matter-of-factly), Ms. Jefares now feels optimistic. She has many exciting initiatives on the go, including a partnership with the Women of Baycrest Hospital called Blooms for Baycrest, a subscription bouquet service that helps fund women’s brain health. Quince Flowers has also sponsored the Canadian Opera Company from last year through 2012, providing all inhouse arrangements and opening night bouquets.
Ms. Jefares, who has two children under ten years old, cryptically says she’s planning to redefine how we buy flowers over the coming years. Whatever this means, it’s clear her business continues to blossom.
Amy Verner attended BSS from Junior Kindergarten through Grade 9 and remembers liking art class much more than English. She has been a lifestyle writer for the past eight years.
