Ladies Unite for International Women’s Day
all photos credit: Gavin Fernandes @photaugraf
Standing at a safe social distance on the steps of the West Island Cancer Wellness Centre. (L to R) Jessica Romano, Kathleen Girard, Dahna Weber, Linda Sestock, Debra Ganong-Séguin, and me. (missing from the photo Sherry Nash).
It started as an idea, a vision really, that struck West Island naturopath Jessica Romano a little more than a year ago. The year 2020, she thought, based on its numerology, was very clearly a year of connection, of mutual support, of helping each other. This was pre-pandemic. Before the world changed. Jessica joined forces with life coach Sherry Nash, founder of the Joy Program, and chef Debra Ganong-Séguin, co-founder of Séguin & Dionne Cuisine personnelle. The three of them launched the West Island Women Entrepreneurs group. Their mission: to provide resources, connections, knowledge, and experiences for women entrepreneurs to thrive.
“It was really just an idea,” Jessica explains. “I kind of came up with it and took it from there.”
This grassroots organization had its inaugural networking event a year ago on International Women’s Day. By all accounts, it was a magical evening with female business owners coming together for a fundraising event for the West Island Cancer Wellness Centre. The food, the wine, the conversation, and the cause were all on point. Everyone who attended couldn’t wait to do it again. A week later, the province went into lockdown.
“That was kind of our first and only event so far,” Jessica explains. But, with International Women’s Day 2021 approaching, the women decided it was time to reconnect, so next Monday, on March 8th, they’re launching their online edition of the 2nd annual networking/fundraising event, again to benefit the West Island Cancer Wellness Centre.
“That’s what we do as women,” Debra muses. “We adapt, so this year we’re adapting and moving the event online.”
The 5 à 7 cocktail is inviting women entrepreneurs to log on from home to mingle online and honour three West Island business owners who are all highly committed to their community, and to elevating women’s place in it. They all have amazing “Second Act” stories of their own, so I wanted to feature them here to celebrate International Women’s Day and to urge everyone to take part in this very worthwhile event.
Kathleen
“I thought it was a joke,” Kathleen Girard laughs when I ask her reaction to being an honouree at the International Women’s Day event. “I couldn’t understand who would nominate me.”
The 45-year-old entrepreneur is the owner and photographer at the very successful Studio Photo Cookie et sa garde-robe now located in the Valois Village in Pointe-Claire. After speaking with her for just a short time, it’s very clear her business is about far more than just creating amazing pictures for clients, it’s about providing an experience, and delivering confidence to her customers.
“We want to empower people. We want them to enjoy the process, see themselves on screen and see how amazing they are,” Kathleen explains.
Kathleen joins forces with make-up artists, hairstylists, wardrobe planners, and offers the full makeover experience. Plus, she’s not above adding a little Baileys to a stressed-out Mom’s coffee to ease the tension.
“I love to see genuine smiles, true reactions in our portraits. We don’t want to be doing something quick and dirty, we want to create something great for your walls.”
It’s a business plan that has cemented Studio Photo Cookie et sa garde-robe as a pillar in the community. Families return to her studio over the years to mark their growth and have a great time while doing it.
“Our business is built on the community, people come to us when they’re pregnant, with their newborn child, for their business portraits, and as their families grow. We want to take our time with them, spoil them, and create something amazing with them.”
Kathleen never imagined she would be a professional photographer, let alone running her own studio. She thought she would be a graphic designer, despite the fact that her photography-loving father put a Minolta SR-T 101 in her hands when she was just five years old. When her own son was born in 2006, she saw photography as a way to create something for herself and find balance for her family. She opened the studio in October of that year.
“I just loved it right away,” Kathleen remembers. “I love meeting people, making connections, and helping them create these images of themselves that will be passed on from generation to generation.”
Fifteen years later, this businesswoman has achieved just that, while staying true to her core mission of empowerment. “What I’ve learned over the years, I could never have learned in school,” Kathleen shares.
But the greatest moments for this successful entrepreneur still come when she’s doing exactly what she set out to do. “It’s just fantastic to see a child, especially a little girl, see herself in a new light. It’s just my greatest joy, to see people feel good about themselves.”
Linda
Just like Kathleen, Linda Sestock’s business success is rooted in her community, and just like Kathleen Linda’s thriving business was born of a second act that she crafted for herself.
The 54-year-old is one of the most successful real estate agents with Royal LePage Village, a career she switched into after her kids were born two decades ago. “I was home with the kids, and I liked being home, so I wrote the real estate exam. I literally had about two free hours a day, my kids were toddlers, but I got it done.”
Linda never went back to her 9 to 5 job in insurance, and instead went from full-time Mom to launching her own business. “The first year was hell,” she remembers. “Baptism by fire.”
But, like women everywhere who are motivated by their little ones, she persevered. She made connections through her kid’s playgroup to get her first clients, and by the second year, things started to flow. She remembers her children coming with her to house showings and doing their homework in the car with a snack while she was with potential buyers.
“It’s like growing a garden,” Linda explains. “The first three years are just a lot of hard work, and if you’re not working you’re not getting paid. It takes time to build your network, but eventually, things start to connect.”
Today Linda’s business is 100% referral-based, and she’s finding time to give back to the community that has elevated her to achieve her dream.
“I love houses, but what I really love about real estate is the clients. I love people. I really love solving their problems, and figuring out how to help them find their true home.”
Linda says she was “excited” and genuinely “tickled” when she found out she was being honoured on International Women’s Day by the West Island Women Entrepreneurs.
“I’m just doing what I love,” she says. “I love helping, and I especially love supporting women.”
To that end, this business dynamo also serves as president of the Montreal Lakeshore University Women’s Club, regional director of the Canadian Federation of University Women, and helps fundraise for the West Island Women’s Shelter among other organizations.
“It just makes me feel good to give back to this community that has given me so much,” Linda shares. And then true to form, she asks me if I can plug the latest effort she’s involved in. “It’s a petition to urge the government to improve conditions of seniors in our CHSLD’s,” Linda explains. “It ends on March 16th, and I’d love for everybody to sign it.”
Clearly, this incredible go-getter has learned a thing or two over the years about getting her message out there, especially if it’s for the greater good.
“I wasn’t expected to go into business,” Linda sums up. “And now I think of my daughter, and I’m glad she has every opportunity ahead of her. But I think, as women, there’s still a lot more to do.”
Dahna
“I don’t know which starting over story you want,” Dahna Weber laughs as I ask her about the road to her business success
“I lived abroad for eleven years, spent six years in Japan teaching English, then I went into sales and marketing, and had success in the chocolate and confectionery industry. But when my son was six I started to have to travel too much,” Dahna remembers.
Around that same time, her marriage fell apart, and she knew she had to find a way to be home more for her son, so she decided it was time to take the leap into entrepreneurship.
“I chose the most difficult time in my life to launch a business,” the 54-year-old recalls. “But I’ve learned from working with so many women over the years, there’s never a good time, you just have to do it.”
Dahna launched Motherhood Incorporated (now rebranded as MINC Magic) more than a decade ago. The business plan was to help working moms become solopreneurs and sell their skills for profit so they could be in charge of their own schedules.
“I always knew I would be an entrepreneur,” Dahna enthuses. “My Dad instilled that in me, he was a builder and I grew up on building sites. Now, I build websites.”
But Dahna’s business does far more than that. She’s grown her dream into a network of hundreds of professional women who do everything from web design to translation, to social media marketing, business plans, grant applications… You name it, MINC and Dahna have it in their contact list.
And as a specialist in branding, marketing, and web design, she now helps women launch their own entrepreneurial dreams with a program she created in 2018 called Catapult Catalyst.
“That’s what we do,” Dahna explains. “We help them develop their business plan and get themselves out there.”
Dahna easily lists off the traits which are helpful for women to have to be successful entrepreneurs. It’s good to be extroverted, hard-headed, to take risks, and to be self-motivated. But just as quickly she adds, “And if you don’t have any of those, we have ways to help you develop them.”
She’s passionate about MINC-Magic and Catapult Catalyst’s mission of helping women write their own success stories.
“I’ve been doing this for twelve years now and I am so blessed. Being a woman and helping other women is such a gift, I feel very privileged by that. Women, you know, no matter what, we find a way to communicate. There is an instinctive desire to connect.”
Through her Catapult Catalyst program, Dahna has expanded on that need to connect by organizing retreats for her clients to Vermont or Mexico where they work, play, and connect as they plan out their future projects.
“The retreats are just a time to work, hike, drink good wine, work some more, be present, and explore what you want to do next.” During COVID, of course, that’s all on hold, but Dahna promises the “workations” for hard-working businesswomen will be back as soon as the pandemic is behind us.
In the meantime, her own business here at home is booming, and she couldn’t be more thrilled to have been nominated for this recognition by the West Island Women Entrepreneurs on International Women’s Day.
“I just love what I do, and I’m really genuinely touched that I was nominated to be honoured in this way. There are so many incredible women entrepreneurs, and I feel grateful, blessed, and inspired to be part of this. I think with COVID and everything else, now more than ever it is just so important for women to support each other.”
The West Island Women Entrepreneurs virtual cocktail to celebrate International Women’s Day & benefit The West Island Cancer Wellness Centre is this Monday, March 8th, 5pm-7pm.
Reserve your spot here:
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