The 50 Most Influential Women in B.C.

If you're a reader of the business press—or any story featuring the power brokers in our midst—you'll be struck by one thing above all else: the paucity of women. While some may argue that "them's the numbers"—and yes, women are poorly represented in the boardrooms and backrooms of B.C.—the fact...

See who made our list by clicking through this slideshow.

Monique Mercier
Executive vice-president, corporate affairs, chief legal officer and corporate secretary, Telus

A lawyer educated at the Université de Montréal faculty of law and Oxford University, where she received an MA

Sue Paish
CEO, LifeLabs Medical Laboratory Services

Influence: As head of the country’s largest community-based laboratory services company, Paish leads an organization on the leading edge of private medic

Mary Ackenhusen
President and CEO, Vancouver Coastal Health

Influence: VCH is the largest academic and tertiary health authority in B.C., serving a population of one million with a budget of $3 billion. Acke

Amiee Chan
President and CEO, Norsat International Inc.

Influence: Chan is a rare female voice in B.C.’s tech sector–and a turnaround artist extraordinaire who took Norsat from near bankruptcy to becom

Shannon Rogers
President and general counsel, Global Relay

Influence: Regularly listed as one of Canada’s top women entrepreneurs, Rogers leads a popular cloud-based message archiving and compliance servic

Karimah Es Sabar
President and CEO, The Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD)

Influence: Es Sabar is one of the leading forces in Canada’s life sciences sector, helming Life Sciences BC through a

Barbara Grantham
President and CEO, VGH and UBC Hospital Foundation

Influence: At a time of tightening public finances and increasing public need, hospitals need top- notch fundraisers–and Grantham, a form

Cybele Negris
President, CEO and co-founder, Webnames.ca Inc.

Influence: As Canada’s original “.ca” registrar, spun off from UBC, Webnames.ca remains one of the country’s leading providers of web hos

Christina Anthony
Vice-president, director, portfolio manager and investment advisor, Odlum Brown; chair, Forum for Women Entrepreneurs

As vice-president, director and portfolio manager at Odlum Brown, and with spots on the

Debra Hewson
President and CEO, Odlum Brown Ltd.

Influence: Hewson leads a team of more than 200 employees at storied Vancouver investment firm Odlum Brown (with more than $9 billion in assets under administ

Fiona Macfarlane
Managing partner (Vancouver and Western Canada) and chief inclusiveness officer, Ernst & Young LLP

Influence: The South African native has drawn upon her experience growing up in a country d

Tamara Vrooman
President and CEO, Vancity

Influence: Vrooman has shaped fiscal policy at both a private and public level–serving as B.C.’s deputy minister of finance from 2004 to 2007 and as leader of Ca

Carol Newell
Founding investor and principal, Renewal Partners

Influence: Renewal Partners has been at the leading edge of B.C.’s booming social venture capital movement, and it never would have happened w

Catherine Dorazio
Vice-president, Connor, Clark & Lunn Private Capital Ltd.

Influence: The first (and only) female partner at Connor, Clark & Lunn–Canada’s largest investment counselling firm, with $51 b

Launi Skinner
CEO, First West Credit Union

Influence: Skinner–a former president of Starbucks U.S., where she oversaw 7,000 company-owned stores and 3,400 licensed stores–has led First West since 2010 an

Valerie Mann
Managing partner, Lawson Lundell LLP

Influence: As managing partner at Lawson Lundell–one of Western Canada’s top business law firms–Mann is B.C.’s go-to legal expert on a variety of top

Tracey McVicar
Managing partner, CAI Capital Management

Influence: In addition to running the private equity group’s western operations, McVicar is a popular and influential board director, having served f

Sandra Stuart
President and CEO, HSBC Bank Canada

Influence: Stuart started with HSBC in 1982, rising through the ranks to become CEO of the bank’s Canadian subsidiary this month. HSBC is the only major ba