The Indigenous Leader Speaker Series is a partnership between the University’s Indigenous Engagement Office and the Goodman School of Business. The series is not only an important opportunity for the School to amplify the voices of Indigenous business leaders, but also a chance for students to hear first-hand from a leader committed to doing business in a socially and environmentally sustainable way.
2023 Leader: Karen MacKenzie
Virtual Event on National Indigenous Peoples Day
Karen MacKenzie is a proud Cree-Métis woman and the Co-Founder and President of MacKintosh Canada, an Indigenous owned, international consulting company.
Karen is a proven leader, a skilled consultant and an empowering coach. Karen brings her traditional knowledge of indigenous ways into the contemporary workplace as this wisdom and way of being reflect “wise practices of high performance organizations”.
For this event Karen will be joined in discussion with Robyn Bourgeois, Vice-Provost, Indigenous Engagement at Brock University.
Previous Indigenous Leader Speaker Series Honourees
2022 – Mallory Yawnghwe
The Founder and CEO of Indigenous Box, joined us to discuss her journey and her company’s values, which are based on the teachings of shared abundance through reciprocity and connectedness. Indigenous Box is a subscription box and corporate gift service that promotes Indigenous entrepreneurship by creating opportunities for emerging, under-represented and established Indigenous businesses to reach new customers.
2021 – Jenn Harper
Niagara entrepreneur Jenn Harper, the founder of Cheekbone Beauty a sustainable and socially conscious cosmetics company, was honoured at the inaugural Indigenous Leader Speaker Series.
“Jenn Harper is an exemplary Indigenous leader who has translated Indigenous ways of knowing and doing — reciprocity, ecological responsibility and creativity — into a successful business model,” said Robyn Bourgeois, Brock’s Acting Vice-Provost, Indigenous Engagement. “She’s someone who has overcome great odds to get where she is today and is the epitome of Indigenous excellence.”
Cheekbone Beauty is committed to helping close the educational funding gap that exists between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students, donating 10 per cent of its profits to the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society. Harper also strives to educate as many Canadians as possible about the Residential School System and the effects it had on her family and friends through decades of generational trauma.
