The Finance Cafe was created for women entrepreneurs and made by women entrepreneurs… so let us introduce ourselves:
I’m Shannon Pestun, a proud Cree Métis woman, entrepreneur, former banker. Speaker and advocate for the advancement of Women’s Entrepreneurship.
And I’m Shauna Frederick. Entrepreneur, mentor, chartered professional accountant, and an On-the-goCFO working with entrepreneurs to take the frustrations and anxiety out of the numbers.
We founded The Finance Cafe because of a common passion to advance women’s entrepreneurship and a common belief that to do that, we needed to change some of the dynamics we’ve seen around women – and money – and create a new way to support women entrepreneurs with the financial management of their companies which includes changing the conversation and stories women have with finance.
Through our own experience – and diving into the research, we’ve learned that, for many women:
- Talking about money is taboo
- Confidence and capability gaps exist
- Making financial decisions is a major sources of stress
- They don’t know what their financials are telling them
- They have questions on what their finances mean, but don’t feel comfortable asking
Did you know that the majority of women (61%) would rather talk about their own death, than talk about money?
How alarming is this! It is unfortunately not uncommon for women to feel uncomfortable talking about their finances, and many of us have been conditioned to feel this way …
- Women have been taught that talking about money is impolite
- Women continue to face a gender wage gap
- Women are told to not to ask questions
- Women are often judged for speaking out
- Women ultimately lack the same access to financial, social and entrepreneurial capital in comparison to men
It's time to change the narrative!
When we first created The Finance Cafe, our goal was to create a financial literacy program that was centred around the unique needs and circumstances of women entrepreneurs and diving deeper into the areas where women show greater confidence and capability gaps.
We built the program around a holistic view of financial literacy – a view that financial management is more than numbers. It’s about the combination of our lived experience, skills, attitudes and behaviours and how these come together to shape the financial decisions we make along our entrepreneurial journeys. We built it with the goal to empower women to see the story of their businesses through numbers, challenge their money beliefs and explore how their financial knowledge, attitudes and behaviours shape their entrepreneurial journeys. For us, it’s about helping more women unlock their full potential as entrepreneurs.
We thought we could stop there.
But as we started promoting the program, women from around the world started reaching out to us with their personal stories. They wanted to talk about money!
And we knew we needed to create more conversations.
Here's how we want to help!
Financial literacy is the foundation to your success as an entrepreneur. When we don’t know what our financials are telling us, it’s hard to trust that we’re making the right decisions for our companies!
From knowing how to develop your financial business plan, to managing, budgeting, and investing your capital, The Finance Cafe wants to help you feel more in control of your business and where you want it to go.
We want to inspire you to feel excited and empowered and ready to tackle their complex financial decisions, with less doubt and more trust in your business’ success!
Dropping a new podcast weekly!
Our future topics will include:
- Your money mindset as a tool to build a strong, healthy and profitable business
- Creating financial goals that set you up to build the business – and life – you want
- Common money mistakes and how to avoid them
- How the fear of failure can ruin your business
- Using differentiation to capture more market share
- How to create a successful social enterprise
- How a business that started in a crockpot went global
- How to create a safe place for (financial) risk taking
And many more…
Follow us on social media, including Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, to find our latest posts and be sure to check out The Finance Cafe podcast.
We know how much your business means to you which is why we’re here to help you build your company’s story – one number – and one conversation at a time.
The Finance Cafe