A look at the numbers, narratives, and systems that define what’s possible for women founders in Canada.
A while back, I was on a coaching call for a pitch competition I’d entered when the mentor said something I’ve thought about ever since:
“As a small business owner, there’s always going to be one number you obsess over. It’s the one that keeps you up at night. You dread looking at it. When it doesn’t move, it gives you anxiety. When it does move — depending on which way — it either makes you feel like you’re on top of the world or like you want to crawl into a dark, cold corner.”
She went on.
“For some, it’s revenue. For others, it’s profit, inventory, or payroll. For some, it’s website traffic, newsletter subscribers, or product orders. But for all of us, there’s one number.”
I didn’t need to ask what mine was. I already knew.
That number — whatever form it takes for you — isn’t just a metric. It becomes a stand-in for belief. For momentum. For whether the thing you’re building is actually going to work.
But there are other numbers that deserve our attention.
TD Canada’s data shows that about 20% of private sector businesses are majority women-owned. They generate over $90 billion in revenues and employ close to one million people.
On paper, those numbers look like progress. But in practice, they raise a harder question: if women are building at this scale, why does access to capital, to leadership roles, to real decision-making power still feel so fragile?
What Building Really Looks Like
That tension is the backdrop for the TD Women in Enterprise partnership with Women of Influence+.
The video series offers a raw, documentary-style look at what it really takes to build, fund, and scale a business as a woman in Canada today.
The founders featured in the video series come from different industries, backgrounds, and stages of growth, but they share a common reality: access is not evenly distributed.
These are not polished highlight reels. Each of the women founders speak to the decisions, trade-offs, and pressure points that sit behind the numbers.
Linda Kuga-Pikulin, President of Women of Influence+ and ROOM Women’s Network, explains it simply:
“This series was created to move beyond polished success stories. These are honest conversations about the decisions that determine whether a business grows, sustains, or stalls.”
“If I had known how hard it was going to be, Cheekbone would not exist.”
—Jenn Harper, Founder and CEO of Cheekbone Beauty
The hope of the series is that women navigating the challenge of securing funding see something of their own experience reflected back to them.
That sentiment is embodied in the work of Jenn Harper, Founder and CEO of Cheekbone Beauty, an Indigenous-owned consumer brand built on representation, resilience, and long-term scale.
Jenn’s journey underscores how visibility, credibility, and access intersect differently for founders who are building not just a company, but a platform for inclusion within traditionally exclusionary markets.
Jenn Harper didn’t come from the beauty industry or a traditional entrepreneurial path. She came from conviction and a willingness to learn in public.
What followed was a crash course in finance, operations, and leadership, layered on top of a deeper mission: changing how Indigenous people are seen, both by others and by themselves.
Her story isn’t compelling because it’s inspirational. It’s compelling because it’s familiar.
Across every region and sector, women-owned and women-led businesses are driving innovation, creating jobs, and strengthening communities.
Yet access to financial services remains one of the biggest barriers to sustaining that growth.
Capital isn’t just required to launch a business. It’s what determines whether that business can weather uncertainty, invest in people, and scale with intention.
When women start with less, they’re forced to make tighter trade-offs, assume more personal risk, and absorb economic shocks with far less margin for error.
Jenn Harper, Founder & CEO, Cheekbone BeautyBeyond the Metrics
Scaling is often framed as a question of ambition or grit. But the stories in this series make something else clear: growth is rarely a solo act.
Behind every number, whether it’s revenue, headcount, or funding rounds, there are systems that either cushion the risk or compound it.
Advisors who open doors. Financial partners who understand the long game. Communities that normalize asking for help before crisis hits.
For women founders, especially those building in environments not designed with them in mind, support isn’t a “nice to have.” It’s infrastructure.
What the TD and Women of Influence+ series offers isn’t a blueprint for overnight success. It’s something more honest: visibility into the conditions that make scale possible and a reminder that sustainability is built through access, not just effort.
The question, then, isn’t whether women are capable of building businesses at scale. The numbers already answer that.
The real question is whether the systems around them are finally ready to meet that reality.
