Bold Leadership Feature: Kathy Leskow

Kathy Leskow is the founder and CEO of Sherwood Park’s Confetti Sweets. The business began as a home operation, with Kathy baking cookies for local farmers’ markets out of her kitchen. As demand grew, so did her business—Confetti Sweets now has a storefront and distributes their products in grocery stores across Alberta.

The confectionary industry might not be one that immediately comes to mind when thinking about digital transformation. Certainly areas like telecommunications, finance, or advertising are leaders in the digital sphere, but digital transformation is for everyone—particularly businesses who wish to thrive for years to come as innovative technology becomes more and more ubiquitous.

What is digital transformation?

Digital transformation involves the integration of digital technologies into all areas of a business, which ultimately allows both your operations, and the ways you deliver value to your customers, to evolve. But, digital transformation also goes far beyond implementation alone. With new technology comes significant change, and such change must be managed strategically through a strong, agile organizational culture.

This is true regardless of industry, but how a business might adapt to the cutting edge is far from cookie-cutter.

“I am always looking to streamline our processes. For example, I love equipment that can take over repetitive tasks such as scooping cookie dough, dispensing cupcake batter, etc.  I believe it makes our bakery more efficient and the end product more uniform.  I also love any software that will automate tasks, such as scheduling.  Unfortunately my staff often disagree with me on this, and they resist technology. When I found the [Bold Leadership], I was immediately drawn to the subject matter, and I was eager to learn about new ways we could use technology in our business.”

Digital transformation requires leadership. Only by defining your mission and vision as a company can you begin to translate that vision into a digital strategy. Diving deeper, the question moves from “What is digital transformation?” to “What does digital transformation mean for me and my business?”

​​”I quickly learnt that I did not exactly know what digital transformation actually was.  I also learnt that digitizing processes is not always better, and you need to be thoughtful about what you are wanting to achieve. It taught me how to measure success, and I can now go back to my employees with proof that it does (or doesn't - I hate being wrong!) improve our processes.”

Kathy alludes to two key tactics to keep in mind when leading digital change. 

Be ready to support your organization. As Lori Schmidt, AWE Bold Leadership Program Advisor describes, “Culture change is something that cannot be forced; it requires the support of every member of the organization.” Supporting your team throughout adjustments to their workflows is paramount. From listening to hear about the benefits and challenges of new processes, to making space for the fear and emotion that change can bring about, knowing that your team is all in this together can make a world of a difference.

Help your team see and buy into the unifying purpose of your organization. “Help your people be prepared - with a new mindset, new skills and motivation around a renewed purpose,” Lori states. Attitude is everything, and by building a mindset of enthusiasm in response to change into your corporate culture, you can work to prevent resistance in the future.

Lastly, a key component of a digital strategy, or any strategy for that matter, is setting specific, achievable goals so that you can measure your success. 

“A big part of the course was also setting strategic objectives and KPIs.  The course gave me focus and has pushed me to achieve specific goals. I highly recommend the course to anyone that wants to move their business forward.”

Achieve Bold Goals with Bold Leadership! Curious about how you can lead digital transformation in your business? Learn more about the Bold Leadership program today!

Bold Leadership Feature: Vered Levant

Vered Levant owns a human resources company called VimyHR. Her company helps businesses that need support with human resources, but not a full-time HR employee. With her team of consultants, she offers a variety of services from recruitment to succession planning. The solutions that VimyHR offers are customized depending on what the organization is like and what services they need.  

Vered’s been working in human resources for about 15 years. After studying economics in school, she was hired as a Labour Market Information Manager for a not-for-profit organization. In her role, she learned about the challenges that small businesses were facing. After about two years, she changed roles to a position with the Government of Saskatchewan; this was her first human resources position. “I was asked to move into the HR department as they were blending the two areas. I had no HR exposure whatsoever, but they trained me and told me I was a natural.” 

She later on moved to Calgary and began working in a corporate environment. When there was a downturn in the economy in 2016, she wasn’t happy in her role anymore. “I didn't see a light at the end of the tunnel doing layoffs. I hadn't been exposed to that side of HR before. So, I needed a break. I was pretty burnt out.” 

After pausing her career, she started getting phone calls from old colleagues and small business owners for HR support and guidance. “About six months later, I thought, ‘wait a minute, there's something here. There's something that I can create to support small businesses that don't need full-time HR help but need some expertise to know how to pay people, how to recruit, how to manage difficult situations and coach their employees.’ Then VimyHR was born.” 

““I have never loved what I do more than I do today.””

— Vered Levant

Vered discovered AWE’s Bold Leadership Program on social media. “After I got accepted into the program, I was really excited just to learn more and have more support. It can be very lonely being an entrepreneur.” In the program, Vered could connect with like-minded female entrepreneurs. She knew she was wearing too many hats in her organization and needed to take the advice she was giving her clients about streamlining their business.  

The program’s coaches have helped Vered automate her processes so she can spend more time serving her clients and reducing non-billable hours. The coaches have also given Vered line of sight to what’s in the pipeline of her business, and where her consultants are spending their time. “We've surpassed our targets already for new client relationships in the first quarter. I need to get my back office cleaned up to be able to manage that capacity.” 

When the pandemic hit, interest in Vered’s company climbed. People started to see human resources in a new light. It also led her company to need to digitally transform faster than she had anticipated. Vered is implementing Monday.com, one of the tools she learned through the program, to assist her organization in streamlining activities and staying organized.  

With the help of a Bold Leadership Expert Advisor, Vered is currently in the initial stages of offering HR-related courses. “We're finding that we’re getting a lot of requests for interviewing support, the do's and don'ts of screening, reference checks, all those pieces. So, we’re going to put them into courses and work on that over the next several months.”  

Vered’s favourite aspect of the Bold Leadership program: 

“I loved hearing the stories of other organizations and how they're leveraging these tools and their success stories. The speakers that were brought in were really fascinating and inspiring. For them to share their digital transformation journey, how much it's helped their business and their vulnerability around that, that it's not going to be perfect. It's continually a journey and you're going to make mistakes and it's okay. I think that was the big thing for me. It was such a fear to go in the wrong direction, and now I'm realizing I know that I can do this.” 

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Vered completed the Bold Leadership Program with AWE. The program is designed to support women entrepreneurs who are creating new strategies and implementing technology and processes that will improve their business performance. Applications are now open for Bold Leadership, learn more and apply today. Deadline to apply is August 15! 

Bold Leadership Feature: Janet Caryk

Janet Caryk is a psychologist and business owner based out of Edmonton, AB. She made the pivot to private practice after being a long-term employee at a hospital. Her private practice is called Centre for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. She’s been in private practice for about 22 years now. Janet’s services aid her clients in treating OCD, panic disorders, and more with cognitive behavioural therapy. Rethinking therapy, Janet’s clinic offers group therapy programs, free events, and more for her clients.

In the mid-90’s there was a prospect that healthcare was going to change relating to maternity leave. Although the healthcare changes never took place, it got her thinking, “I'm not going to wait around for my pink slip. I have to do something, and that's when I started talking to my colleagues about starting a clinic.”

After sitting with the idea of owning her own practice, she began to lean into it, transitioning out of her full-time job. “I told my boss at the hospital, I'm thinking of leaving and I'd like to go part-time here. He agreed to that. I think it was like about six months of working part-time I decided that I was going to go full-time with my private practice. Then I developed the clinic with my business partner.”

Initially, Janet participated in an AWE Program to assist her with opening a gym. AWE assisted Janet is examining the decision for every angle. After careful consideration, she decided franchising a gym wasn’t a good decision for her business at the time. “Now, you can imagine that deciding not to open the gym was the best decision I ever made as a businesswoman. It was about 18 months before COVID hit.”

When COVID hit, there’s was a large demand for her psychology services. The increase in demand and limitations in meeting clients in-person lead her to have to make a digital shift quickly. She leaned on the Bold Leadership Program to assist her in becoming more tech savvy. Now, she can host events and appointments remotely and is gaining confident in her technical ability. “I think the most important thing is that I've changed my mindset. I don't automatically say ‘I'm low tech, I can't do that’. I'm no longer low tech. That's not an accurate statement. I'm not high tech either, but I am learning.”

The Bold Leadership Program helped Janet streamline her back office, which consists of accounting, paperwork, payroll, etc. “I tried so hard to figure out the best way to organize everything and the most cost-efficient way. What AWE helped me do was sit down and really have a hard look at the numbers.” By looking in depth at all her accounting, she was better able to find areas for improvement and opportunity, all while being supported by AWE.

The next big project that her Bold Leadership coach is going to help with is leveraging different online platforms so that her clinic can be easily found, and to measure which platforms are performing best.

“My experience in the Bold Leadership Program was really amazing. Everybody's so helpful, supportive and nice. There is lots of communication, willingness to help answer any questions that you have, and lots of collaboration. I call it my mini-MBA”

Janet’s advice for entrepreneurs growing their business in the digital era:

“You can’t be as successful unless you're willing to embrace the digital components. If you resist these changes, you're just not going to be competitive. You're not going to be able to grow without embracing this kind of technology.”

Janet recently completed the Bold Leadership Program with AWE. The program is designed to support women entrepreneurs who are creating new strategies, and implementing technology and processes that will improve their business performance.

Bold Leadership Feature: Diana Frost

Diana Frost is the owner of a colouring book company called Colouring It Forward. Diana is Algonquin Métis, an artist and a musician. Diana was an engineer for 20 years, then had a dream about creating a series of colouring books and decided to pursue her creative side. “It started with a series of coloring books that I made with artists and elders from different nations. The coloring books include real artwork, and also stories and teachings from the elders. It's a way for people to learn a little bit about the First Nations culture in a positive way.” Colouring It Forward was rapidly successful, with 2500 copies being sold in the first 6 weeks of launching. This captured the attention of CBC, radio, and print news sources. 

When the pandemic happened, retail bookstores were shutting down, which negatively impacted the B2B side of the company. However, Colouring It Forward already had a Shopify website, so Diana began to utilize more digital tools to focus more on selling directly to customers. The Bold Leadership Program assisted Diana greatly; she went into the program knowing she was going to implement what was needed to further her business. With AWE’s support, Diana has been able to optimize the website, merge her email so that everything was in one place, and launch her subscription box with assistance from Angus Gastle (AWE coach).

“I came up with the idea to make a gift box, like an Indigenous wellness box, called Equinox Box. While I was still doing the program, I think it was on March 1, I launched it.” The launch was successful with 30 purchases. Then after some media attention, it took one week for the subscription boxes to nearly sell out. “So, I opened up [sales] for another 50 boxes. And they sold out the next day. Again, I sold 50 boxes that day, and then the next day, they were completely sold out.” The Bold Leadership Program propelled Diana’s business forward in replacing the dependable income she had lost from bookstores closing due to COVID-19.

Diana had a very positive experience in the Bold Leadership Program and expressed great gratitude. “The coaching has been tremendous. Angus has done so much work on my platform and putting me in touch with people. They’ve helped with simplification of my platforms. I really appreciate knowing that there's someone there that I can ask for help. Anything that has to do with the digital platforms, I can ask Angus, and he'll help. Having people you can ask questions to, or to give you feedback is invaluable.”

“I feel like I have a better understanding now where my weaknesses are digitally, and my strengths. The Bold Leadership Program helped me with identifying goals and objectives specific to the digital platforms I was using. As a solopreneur, you don't have a lot of time. You end up putting fires out all the time and you don't have a lot of time to plan. Being part of the program gave me that time; it was forcing me to listen and answer important questions. I knew I had to grow digitally.”

When asked about advice for entrepreneurs growing their business in this digital era, Diana touched on the dilemma many small business owners face. “I think the most important thing is to make sure your messaging is consistent and to be patient. Interact with your prospected clients, or your customers. Try lots of new things but don't try too many platforms right at the beginning. Pick one or two and do it well. I remember at the beginning of my business I was trying to do so much for different platforms, plus doing B2B as well; it was too much.” Diana also highlighted the importance of consistency when using digital tools like social media. “Some people say you have to post every day, but I don't think so. I think what you need to do is be consistent. Make it quality over quantity. Make sure you check back on your posts because if people leave you some kind of comments, they'll want you to responded to it somehow.”