Accelerating Action: How The Forum’s Championing Women Entrepreneurs Through The Odlum Brown Forum Pitch
This International Women's Day, as we embrace 2025’s theme of "Accelerate Action," The Forum continues its mission to unlock access to wisdom, financial, and social capital for women entrepreneurs across Canada.
The Call to Accelerate Action
"At the current rate of progress, it will take until 2158—roughly five generations from now—to reach full gender equality," according to data from the World Economic Forum. This sobering statistic underscores why this year's International Women's Day theme of "Accelerate Action" is so crucial.
The theme emphasizes taking swift and decisive steps to achieve gender equality by addressing systemic barriers and biases that women face in both personal and professional spheres. For The Forum, this means continuing to break down barriers for women entrepreneurs, especially when it comes to accessing capital—an area where significant disparities remain.
Today, only 4% of venture capital in Canada goes to women entrepreneurs. The Forum is working to change this through programs like The Odlum Brown Forum Pitch, which provides founders with education, mentorship, and connections to an engaged cross-Canada community of supporters.
The Odlum Brown Forum Pitch 2024/2025 Finalists
Hundreds of women entrepreneurs with visions for innovative solutions applied to The Odlum Brown Forum Pitch this year, and we’re endlessly inspired and excited by the drive, creativity, and resilience they share.
Three Finalists have been selected following The Odlum Brown Forum Pitch Semi-Final Events in Toronto and Vancouver.
Say hello to the entrepreneurs who will share their pitches on April 25 and each receive prize packages valued at $30,000 in financial, community, and wisdom capital:
CATTLytics Inc.
Led by Shari van de Pol, CATTLytics is an agricultural technology firm focused on making animal agriculture sustainable, efficient, and profitable. They offer highly customizable, data-driven dairy management tools, including a cloud-based platform that helps farmers streamline operations.
How The Forum community can help Accelerate Action:
“First, for women ag-tech entrepreneurs, we thrive when you share our success. When you're spreading the word about innovation and talking about Canada's strong agriculture industry, you're helping advocate for advancements in Canadian dairy farming. Secondly, build community by making connections. And thirdly, be an early adopter—try our products and share your feedback!”
- Shari van de Pol
CELLECT Laboratories Inc.
Co-founded by Ibukun Elebute and CT Murphy, CELLECT Laboratories is revolutionizing women's health diagnostics by developing a non-invasive, accessible, and cost-effective solution for early detection of reproductive health issues. Using patented nanotechnology, CELLECT's innovative collection device is embedded in menstrual products, capturing and stabilizing cervical cells and DNA directly from menstrual blood. This approach eliminates the need for invasive procedures like Pap smears.
How The Forum community can help Accelerate Action:
"This community can truly move the needle by opening doors to capital, mentorship, and visibility for women entrepreneurs like myself. Funding is still one of the biggest roadblocks for women-led startups."
- Ibukun Elebute
ImaginAble Solutions
Founded by Lianna Genovese, ImaginAble Solutions is a social impact company dedicated to improving the quality of life for individuals with disabilities. Their flagship product, Guided Hands®, is an assistive device that enables people with limited hand mobility to perform tasks such as writing, painting, drawing, and using touchscreens.
How The Forum community can help Accelerate Action:
"It's all about opening up those connections. Being able to connect a woman-led company to a sales channel, mentor, or investor could be a huge game-changer for their growth."
- Lianna Genovese
To learn more about these incredible entrepreneurs and how we're accelerating action through The Odlum Brown Forum Pitch, watch this!
The Impact of The Odlum Brown Forum Pitch
The Odlum Brown Forum Pitch has a long history of helping Canada’s most promising entrepreneurs accelerate action and scale.
This includes alumna Tara Bosch of SmartSweets, who secured vital funding and support through the program at a critical time for her business. This helped her scale to $125 million in annual sales and achieve a $360 million exit after just four years.
"[The Odlum Brown Forum Pitch] is how I connected with Judy Brooks, who became a board member with Smart Sweets and is now a mentor and my 'guardian angel'—she's the most incredible human ever," shares Bosch.
The Odlum Brown Forum Pitch addresses barriers to capital by offering education, 1:1 mentorship, coaching, national exposure, and access to specialized resources and networks.
Driving Canadian Innovation By Removing Barriers
Supporting equal opportunities for women in business could add $150 billion to Canada's GDP by 2026.
We know that removing barriers creates ripple effects throughout the economy and society, which enables all of us to benefit from the contributions and impact of women entrepreneurs.
As Kirsten Koppang Telford, CEO of The Forum, puts it: "The women entrepreneurs we support are truly innovating and making change in our communities. To get there takes all of us. We can all become the innovators that help to make that change."
Join Us in Accelerating Action
On April 25, The Forum’s cross-Canada community will gather for The Odlum Brown Forum Pitch Finale—a celebration and fundraiser that directly supports Canada's growing network of self-identifying women, non-binary, and trans-femme entrepreneurs.
While the in-person event is now sold out, you can support women entrepreneurs by participating in the Online Auction launching this April. Every bid placed goes toward expanding programming and resources that directly support Canadian women entrepreneurs.
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