With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/938724
BcBUsiness.ca march 2018 BCBusiness 37 was traumatized from his years in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. While earning a bachelor's in bacteri- oloy and immunoloy and a doctorate in experimental patholoy and immunol- oy during the 1950s, from UBC and the University of London, respectively, Levy had no illusions about the roadblocks that female scientists faced. "We accepted that as women that it's going to be tough and you're going to have to deal with a lot of harassment," she says. "You accepted that OK, men are dominant; you have to prove yourself better than them in order to get anywhere. That wasn't too hard." Things improved for Levy, whose many honours include the Order of Canada and EY Entrepreneur of the Year for the Paci‹c region: "Once you start getting higher among the echelons, that harassment gets much less because men are scared of you." Levy led QLT from 1995 to 2002 and served on its board until 2006. How does she see her legacy? "There's an inordinate number of women in senior positions in [Vancouver] biotech companies than there might be in other cities, and I think that's possibly due to my success," says the board member of non-pro‹t Ecotrust Canada, who has directed or advised 13 startups. "And I'm very proud of the fact that we did it here in Vancouver, because it was a most unlikely place for having the kind of success we had." —N.R. hOW CAn We GeT mORe WOmen inTO sTem? "there has to be a wilful decision made on the part of leaders, and they're mainly men," levy asserts. at Qlt, senior management was gender-balanced, she says. "i think management meetings and man- agement works better when you get the yin and the yang," levy adds. "the views of different kinds of people is probably extremely important in making the right decision." TheOReTiCAL BiOLOGy sARAh (sALLy) OTTO Professor of zoology and director, Biodiversity Research Centre, UBC; Canada Research Chair in Theoretical and Experimental Evolution A dual U.S.-Canadian citizen who has a BSc and a PhD from Stanford University UBc; developed the hollow flashlight, which is powered by heat from the hand and won a global google science fair award Amanda Mallow chief human resources officer, absolute software corp., vancouver developer of security and it asset management software Michelle Malpass director of community performance, traction on demand, salesforce consult- ing and application develop- ment firm based in Burnaby; partner, social venture partners vancouver AJung Moon founder and director, open roboethics institute (ori), vancouver-based interna- tional think tank investigat- ing ways that robotics technology stakeholders can collaborate to influence how robots shape the future; ceo and technology analyst, gen- eration r consulting inc., ori division providing ethics road maps for organizations using artificial intelligence/machine learning and robotics Sarah Morgan founder and ceo, nano-lit technologies, vancouver developer of the smart diffuser, a lighting retrofit using quantum dot technol- ogy that reduces energy consumption and improves health and well-being Chloe Morrow senior vice-president, product management, vision critical communications inc., vancouver customer intel- ligence software provider Lois Nahirney president and ceo, dnapower inc., north vancouver–based developer of a dna lab test examining genetic markers associ- ated with aging skin; and skin dna canada inc., the test's canadian distributor Cybele Negris co-founder, president, ceo and director, Webnames.ca, canada's original web domain reg- istrar, based in vancouver; member, premier's technology council Kirsten Newlands senior vp, vancouver, dhX media ltd., halifax- based developer of video content and brands for children Lisa Payne cfo, minesense technolo- gies ltd., vancouver cleantech firm that makes ore extraction and metal recovery more sustainable Grace Quan ceo, hydrogen in motion inc., vancouver developer of mobile storage tanks for hydrogen fuel equipment and vehicles Amy Rae principal, vanedge capital, based in vancouver and focused on investing in software-as-a-service businesses and digital media technologies Lauren Robinson coo, highline Beta, vancouver startup co- creation and new venture development firm Shannon Rogers president and general counsel, global relay com- munications inc., vancouver developer of cloud-based message archiving and compliance services Catherine Roome president and ceo, technical safety Bc, independent, self-funded organization overseeing safe installation of technical systems and equipment, based in new Westminster Julia Rubin assistant professor, faculty of electrical and computer engineering, associate faculty member, department of computer science, and director, resess (reli- able, secure and sustain- able software) lab, UBc; research focus is software integrity and robustness Meena Sandhu vp, marketing, predictable revenue inc., vancouver provider of outbound sales training; director, annual saas north conference for software-as-a-service founders, investors and executives; adjunct profes- sor of digital marketing, sauder school of Business, and social media, graduate school of Journalism, UBc Laurie Schultz president and ceo, acl services ltd., vancouver- based developer of gover- nance, risk management and compliance software; chair, Bc tech association Merideth Schutter realtor; founder and ceo, protect, vancouver devel- oper of an app that alerts B.C.'S MOST WOMEN Continued on page 39