The Indigenous Business Stories Project is a collaborative project between RADIUS SFU and SFU’s the Beedie School of Business. It began in 2020, and is funded by the BMO Research Award in Canadian Indigenous Business. The purpose of the project is two-fold:
1. To more accurately reflect Indigenous business and leadership in business school and entrepreneurial curriculum
2. To decolonize the business case teaching model and methodology, the dominant teaching tool in business education
We aim to do this by increasing the representation of Indigenous owned and operated businesses in business cases, and by honouring these stories through the incorporation of storytelling as a traditional methodology into the way these cases are introduced and taught. We write these stories in as close to the entrepreneurs voice as possible, and give the final sign off of each story/case to the entrepreneur.
The impetus for this project came from various expressions of need from the Indigenous entrepreneur and business student communities:
- Indigenous entrepreneurs not seeing themselves or Indigenous values reflected in entrepreneurship programming, and
- Indigenous business students not seeing current, representative, or enough examples of the variety of Indigenous businesses or Indigenous business practices in business education.
Our branding was created by the supportive and talented team at Bloom + Brilliance a queer, intersectional and Indigenous feminist-led design agency in the heart of Treaty 1 territory, Winnipeg, CA.
This project aims to not only address the lack of accurate representation of Indigenous businesses, it endeavours to decolonize one of the longest standing teaching models within business education — the business case.
“The Act of Coming Together”
The Story of Bruce Buffalo and Mamawapowin Technology Society
Our primary audience
While we see the potential use of these stories to cross academic disciplines, organizations, and individuals, our primary audiences for this project are: 1) Indigenous entrepreneurs and Indigenous entrepreneurial programs; 2) Indigenous communities broadly in Canada and around the world; and 3) business students, faculty and researchers.
- For Indigenous students, faculty, and entrepreneurs, we wish to provide an accurate reflection of the many ways being an Indigenous person/organization in business can look like.
- For non-Indigenous audiences, we wish to provide an accurate representation of Indigenous peoples in business, their talents, innovation, sacred knowledges and unique opportunities and challenges.
Who leads the Indigenous Business Stories Project?
This work is led by an all-Indigenous team, who bring an interdisciplinary and intersectional lens through scholarly and practitioner expertise. Our process as a team is collaborative with active involvement of all members throughout every stage of research design, data collection, data analysis, case and scholarly writing, engagement with entrepreneurs, and dissemination of findings.
We are guided by a Wisdom Council of external Indigenous wisdom keepers and the collective wisdom of our respective Indigenous communities to whom we are also accountable. This project is focused not only on bringing Indigenous representation to business education by way of content – it is focused on bringing Indigenous practices to business education through Indigenous research methodology, storytelling, teaching notes, knowledge translation, and access.
Project Team
Dara Kelly-Roy, Kw’ekw’exós, PhD
Associate Professor and Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Economic Wellbeing and Freedom, Beedie School of Business, SFU
Dara is Stó:lō Coast Salish and carries the name Kw’ekw’exós through her lineage in Sts’ailes in the mountains up the Fraser Valley. As a researcher, Dara loves stories and being able to empower storytelling within and across global Indigenous communities. Her favourite aspect of storytelling is encountering ancestral knowledges that teach us again, and again in new ways. In this project, Dara brings insights from Indigenous theories, and Indigenous methodologies, and helps to frame sense-making of the Indigenous business stories using Indigenous ways of being, knowing and doing.
Having studied for almost a decade in Aotearoa-New Zealand, Dara brings experience from her time immersed with Māori scholars and Māori communities into her scholarship and teaching. Dara is passionate about research-informed teaching within the graduate programs at the Beedie School of Business, and teaches a course on Indigenous Leadership and another on Indigenous Economies.
Candice Day, MBA
First Peoples Enterprise Accelerator Program Manager, RADIUS SFU
Candice is Secwépemc, from the community of St̓úxtews. After 10+ years of working with Indigenous entrepreneurs and social enterprise owners, a consistent thread of feedback she heard was the desire for more examples of Indigenous owned businesses and mentors to learn from. People weren’t seeing representation of entrepreneurs and business owners who lead with similar values and worldviews when it comes to running a business. Candice’s interest in this project comes from this expressed need, as well as the general gap within business and entrepreneurship education of undervaluing the impact of community, culture, land and relationality with respect to business practices.
Candice brings her experience managing and supporting Indigenous entrepreneurial programming (EntrepreNorth and the Fireweed Fellowship), working with Indigenous community organizations on social enterprise development (Friendship Centres across Ontario & Urban Indigenous Organizations in BC’s Lower Mainland), as well as the connections she’s built with entrepreneurs to her role as project manager of the Indigenous Business Stories Project.
Jordyn Hrenyk, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Rotman School of Management
Jordyn is Michif (Métis) from Métis Nation Saskatchewan, Local #7. She is a researcher focused on Indigenous entrepreneurship, and has been working with business case studies for nearly 10 years as a case writer, researcher, and university Instructor. Jordyn works closely with the Case Writer – as well as the rest of the group – to steward the entrepreneurs’ stories from interviews to publication. Jordyn is particularly passionate about bringing Indigenous stories into the business school in culturally-safe ways, and sees this project as an important pathway towards Indigenizing the business school in a meaningful way. Jordyn brings a strong background in qualitative interviewing and in business case writing to this project.
Carnation Nonhlanhla Zhuwaki, RN MBA
Business Case Writer, RADIUS SFU
Carnation is a Bantu woman born and raised in Zimbabwe. She feels privileged in taking part in a pioneering project that is making strides to decolonize business cases and how business is done.
With 18+ experience in health care and 7+ in administration working and living in various First Nations territories, she was always saddened by the lack of big aspirations by most youth in these territories because there were not enough role models to aspire to. Writing business cases that demonstrate innovation and determined entrepreneurship is my “love” letter to encourage Indigenous youth to dream big!
Magnolia Perron, MA
Program Manager, National Aboriginal Capital Corporations Association
Indigenous Research Assistant, Beedie School of Business, SFU
Magnolia Perron is from Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory and is a proud member of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte. Her interest in this project stems from her passion for Indigenous economic development and entrepreneurship as pathways to self-determination and enhancing the well-being of families, communities, and Nations. She believes in the necessity of curriculum that reflects the lived experiences of Indigenous peoples.
Magnolia brings extensive experience in advocacy, research, policy, and program development. Her work with various Indigenous non-profit organizations, particularly the National Aboriginal Capital Corporations Association, has involved developing tailored programs for Indigenous women and youth entrepreneurs, including establishing a national micro-loan fund for Indigenous women. Magnolia also helped establish an Indigenous business hub in Ottawa and develop programs, including incubator programs, for Indigenous entrepreneurs.
Wisdom Council
Dorothy Christian, Cucw-la7, PhD
Dorothy Cucw-la7 Christian is Secwepemc and Syilx from the interior plateau regions of what is known as British Columbia. She is happy to be a good relative to her Coast Salish cousins while she lives, works, and plays on their lands. Her research centralizes land, story, cultural protocols and how Indigenous Knowledge informs and guides interrelationships with Canadian Settler society. Her curiosity in how cultural knowledge influences Indigenous production practice started when she was working for the national broadcaster Vision TV to bring Indigenous stories to the national screen. This prompted her to enroll in graduate school.
Another interest is how Indigenous peoples can have a peaceful coexistence with Settler Canadians who populate their ancestral homelands. This is more than an “interest” because Dorothy sees and experiences this quest as critical to the survival of the planet. Dorothy became passionate about exploring the possibilities of transforming the status quo after her involvements in Indigenous communications behind the scenes at the so-called 1990 OKA crisis on Haudenosaunee lands and the 1995 Gustafsen Lake standoff on Secwepemc territories. Her trajectory of study to finding ways to live together started long before equity, diversity, inclusion and intercultural became the latest buzz words in academia.
While she writes scholarly chapters and participates in community on many levels, Dorothy remains involved in the Indigenous visual storytelling culture in Canada. She serves as a Board member of the Indigenous Screen Office in Toronto and has curated programs for the 2018 and 2019 ImagineNative film festival, the largest Indigenous film festival in the world.
At Graduate Studies Dorothy Cucw-la7 strives towards making academic life less stressful for Indigenous MA and PhD students/candidates by collaborating with the Indigenous Student Services and other student-centered departments. She started her current role in July 2021 and is investigating the myriad of intersections within the university that can be decolonized or indigenized to enrich the graduate student experience. She was a part of other Indigenous centered projects such as Michelle Pidgeon’s RESPECT project, from its inception, which will impact the SFU experience for staff and faculty at SFU. Dorothy Cucw-la7 also served two terms on the SFU EDI Advisory.
Learn more about Dorothy from People of SFU.
Michael Arvaarluk Kusugak
Author/Storyteller
Michael Kusugak grew up in Repulse Bay, NWT (now Nunavut). During his childhood, his family traveled by dog sled, living a traditional Inuit lifestyle. He is the author of twelve children’s books, including The Littlest Sled Dog; The Curse of the Shaman; T is for Territories; Northern Lights: The Soccer Trails, winner of the Ruth Schwartz Award; Hide and Seek; My Arctic 1, 2, 3; and Baseball Bats for Christmas. He was also the co-writer of A Promise Is a Promise, with Robert Munsch. Michael Kusugak lives in Sooke, BC and spends most summers in his cabin in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut.
Pepeyla (Verna) Miller
Verna Miller is a member of the Nlakapamux First Nation of interior British Columbia. She is currently the president of the International Society of Ethnobiology and is also the Chair of the Nlakapamux Child and Family Services Society. Previously, Mrs. Miller worked as the Director of Tmixw Research, an Indigenous research group, as well as the Project Facilitator for the Nlakapamux Health and Healing Society, which provides spiritual and mental health counseling for victims of the residential schools. Mrs. Miller attended an Indian residential school from the age of 7 between 1954 and 1966. Verna has a Bachelor of Arts in Geography and Environmental Studies from the University of Victoria, as well as a Master of Education degree from Thompson Rivers University.
Supported by
