Skip to main content
guest column

Sara Ahmadian wasn’t always a successful entrepreneur invited to prestigious events at the White House.

The male-female divide still stands strong in North America's start-up world.

In 2010, Industry Canada estimated that only 17 per cent of small businesses had female CEOs. And it doesn't stop at our borders. The discrepancy is even starker in the U.S., where recent statistics show that 87 per cent of venture-capital-backed businesses have white founders, while 12 per cent are Asian, less than 1 per cent are African American and fewer than 3 per cent of those companies have female CEOs. The gap is worrisome, to say the least – and it's precisely that gap that President Barack Obama wished to address this month when he graciously invited me to attend the White House's Global Emerging Entrepreneurship event.

The numbers hit home for me. As an immigrant from Iran and a female engineer, I know how intimidating and scary it can seem to start a business, grow an idea and take the leap into a male-dominated industry where minorities have consistently had less access to investor funding and support. Needless to say, it hasn't been easy.

I wasn't always a successful entrepreneur invited to prestigious events at the White House. Like every person who stood in that room with me, my success and drive have been shaped and defined by the bumps and hurdles that have stood in my way. We all arrived with our baggage, stories and failures only to have President Obama remind us that those stories are precisely what led us here.

I arrived in Canada a decade ago with little understanding of my new home's language and traditions. Without friends, family or connections, the idea of starting my own business seemed insane. So I set to work building a new family of sorts, an eclectic group of brilliant and passionate engineers and tech experts that would inspire me to work on incredible projects like the Google-backed robotics hackathon.

Ultimately, those same people would grant me the experience and confidence I needed to start a company of my own. And that's precisely how I found myself getting an invitation to the White House, representing my company Seamless Planet alongside dozens of other talented and driven entrepreneurs with important stories to tell. Stories we hoped would one day #StartTheSpark and inspire change in others. After all, if a new immigrant from Iran who didn't speak the language and didn't know a soul could pull it off, anyone could.

"Encouraging the spirit of entrepreneurship can help us to tackle some of the greatest challenges that we face around the world," said Mr. Obama.

Addressing a selected group of entrepreneurs from 22 countries along with a group of very high profile investors such as Marc Cuban, Barbara Corcoran and Daymond John, President Obama made it clear that he saw a role for us as entrepreneurs in diminishing poverty, inequality and violence.

Announcing new commitments in support of the Spark Global Entrepreneurship Initiative – a bold project meant to generate $1-billion in new investment for emerging entrepreneurs worldwide by 2017 – he issued an important call to action for companies, organizations, and individuals across the globe to increase their support for emerging entrepreneurs from all backgrounds.

As a minority in more way than one, I couldn't be happier and prouder to be part of Mr. Obama's vision and action plan to educate and increase access to entrepreneurial resources and networks. And I can only hope that Canada will one day follow suit.

My day at the White House was but the first step in a process, one that's led me to renew my commitment to mentoring and encouraging new entrepreneurs from all walks of life. Because all too often, people have expected me to be a man, if only because I'm an engineer and entrepreneur.

Those expectations and preconceived ideas have made it difficult to have people take me seriously. It's time for that to change, and Mr. Obama reminded me and all of my graciously invited entrepreneurial counterparts that the change starts with us.

During my visit, I received a letter from Mr. Obama that I now keep close at hand. "I hope you take pride in all you've accomplished," he wrote. " Young people like you are tomorrow's leaders, and you give me great hope for the future."

So let's decide: what kind of leaders will we all be?

Follow us @GlobeSmallBiz and on Pinterest and Instagram
Join our Small Business LinkedIn group
Add us to your circles
Sign up for our weekly newsletter

Interact with The Globe