A Celebration of Women™
is elated to Celebrate the Life of this woman leader, one that has risen above extraordinary circumstance, divorce, and many challenges that all women face. A woman that took action and today devotes her life to bettering the lives of others through education and finance for the entrepreneur; with a special passionate about entrepreneurship; and children. She is considered to be one of Canada’s most powerful business leaders.
WOMAN of ACTION™
Arlene Dickinson
Arlene Dickinson (born October 8, 1956) in Germiston, South Africa and moved to Canada with her family at a young age. Her father was a teacher as well as an entrepreneur, and he instilled some of his most important values in Arlene, which continue to shape her decisions today.
According to Arlene, one of the most influential of these was that;
“You have to take care of yourself, because society does not owe you anything.”At the age of 3, when Arlene Dickinson emigrated with her parents from South Africa to Canada, she was scared, and to calm herself on the plane, she talked to an imaginary friend she called Bilah.
Despite all those hardships in the early years, Dickinson makes it clear that she loves her parents very much.
“They did the best they could do, but they ended up divorced when I was 13,” she continues. “Through dysfunction we always ended up as a family in some type of drama.”
From that dysfunction, Dickinson became a keen observer – the kid in the family that never wanted to cause any problems or add to the stress of an already tense situation. Taking this approach led to her being able to gauge what people were really trying to say as opposed to what they were saying. She became an accurate observer of human nature and by extension it made her look for the sub text of what was really happening. This observational detail is something that has served Dickinson well in her career as a marketer.
“Later on in life when I became a marketer, what I was really applying was the lessons I’d learned about watching and observing what people really wanted versus what they said they wanted.”
Dickinson’s father was very influential in her life. He was a teacher with a PhD in education who believed in life-long learning. At the age of 16, Dickinson had already graduated grade 12. She accelerated through school with an ability to pass without ever really applying herself. Her father wanted her to attend university but Dickinson decided that was not the route she wanted to take in life.
Angered, her father told her she would end up barefoot and pregnant and always dependent on a man for survival. But Dickinson said her main goal was to do just that – have kids and be married.
“My father was very progressive that way,” she says, regarding his thinking that women had the ability to be strong enough to stand up on their own. “But at 16, I thought I’d work and eventually get married, finding the love of my life and have children. The reason I didn’t want to go to university is because I didn’t think I could pass and didn’t want to put myself in that position. It was my own self-doubt and I convinced myself I wasn’t smart enough to pass in university.”
“My parents thought I was a little odd,” confesses the 54-year-old self-made millionaire, chief executive officer of Venture Communications, a star of CBC’s hit reality show Dragons’ Den and author of a new book, Persuasion, A New Approach to Changing Minds.
In reality, she was talking to a reflection of herself in the airplane window.
That habit – of checking in with herself and finding the resources to carry on – has served her well. She acknowledges that $80-million is her reported net worth – not bad for someone who, at 28, found herself divorced with four children under the age of 10 and only a high-school education.
Bilah is the name of one of her companies. (She has several investment vehicles, she says.) “It’s a company with imagination,” she explains, adding that it’s behind the launch of a line of chocolate, coffee, wine and beauty creams, all called Persuasion, tied to her new book.
Seated in her Toronto office of Venture, a full-service marketing company with annual gross sales of $45-million and blue-chip clients such as Toyota, Red Rose Tea and Unilever, Ms. Dickinson is the picture of demure confidence. This Dragon’s Den feels like a Mother’s Den of comfortable seating, pastel colours and soft lighting. On one wall, she has a “shrine” of sentimental memories from her TV show.
“I bought that from a young entrepreneur to remind me of the skill and craft that people put into their work,” she says, pointing to a framed chain-mail T-shirt one contestant made. There are carvings with the words “Dragon’s Den” from Canadian soldiers in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where she travelled a year ago to boost moral with Team Canada members.
In conversation, she moves breezily between confidence and vulnerability, as if both compete for dominance. Asked what she feels about being a TV star, she talks about the pressure she felt about her physical appearance. “When I first saw myself on TV, I was ‘Oh my God. I wish I was thinner and didn’t have those wrinkles.’
… They took a risk by not casting the younger, hot chick,” she says, perched at the edge of her chair, looking down at her feet. But then she straightens up, smiling, and says, “And I loved that they did that. … It says a lot about what they’re looking for on the show. And it allowed me to be myself.”
Arlene’s path to success was far from conventional, and some consider it a miracle that she has been so successful. At the age of 19 Arlene got married, and over the next 8 years would go on to have 4 children. During this time, she also worked to pay to send her husband to university to earn a teaching degree.
Unfortunately, her marriage started deteriorating, and by the age of 31 she was divorced. Not only did the divorce result in Arlene being kicked out of her Mormon church, but it also resulted in the loss of custody of her children.
In family court, the judge ruled that due to the fact that Arlene did not have sufficient resources to take care of her kids, she would not be granted custody. Despite this major setback, Arlene was on a mission to succeed.
Throughout her 20′s and 30′s, Arlene was far from being the successful businesswoman that we know today. During this time she worked as a debt collector, which was ironic due to the fact that she was also struggling to pay her bills. While she would call delinquent borrowers during the day, similar debt collectors would be leaving messages on her answering machine.
After a string of dead end jobs, Arlene got a position at the marketing company Venture Communications, where she quickly rose to the top and eventually took over in 1998. Since then, she has been recognized as one of Canada’s most successful female entrepreneurs and a the woman at the forefront of Canadian marketing. She has provided marketing services to countless companies including Toyota , Subway, Travel Alberta, LCBO and many others.
Dressed in a blue blouse and harem pants, her feet in sparkly ballet flats, Ms. Dickinson looks as though she is ready to curl up on a sofa with a cup of tea.
Only her Chanel jewellery, designer watch and coiffed hair, with its signature grey streak, suggest the high level of her professional success. Even in demeanor, she is cozy, often ending declarative statements with the one-word question “right?” as though the approval of others is important.
That’s part of her message – that success in business comes from listening to others, from emotional connection and reciprocity. And it’s her style on Dragons’ Den: She is the sensitive counterpoint to Kevin O’Leary’s barbed responses. “No one has talked about [persuasion] in a way to say you can do it in a principled way, you can persuade people and still win. You don’t have to be this sly kind of manipulative person,” she says.
The first thing I wanted to talk to you about is storytelling. And not even so much about what you wrote in your recent book, Persuasion, but the stories that we tell ourselves. –Because those stories define where we end up in life. Can you tell me if there was a significant catalyst in your life that prompted you to tell a different story?
At 30, Arlene Dickinson was divorced, had a high school diploma, no savings, and no idea how to feed four young children. She is now the CEO of Venture Communications, a co-star of the CBC TV hit Dragons’ Den, and one of the country’s most sought-after female entrepreneurs.
The secret of her journey from poverty to the corner office? The art of persuasion, as she explains with wit and unusual candour in this, her first book. Blending her own frank and highly entertaining stories with compelling social science, Dickinson explains how to master the art of persuasion, without an M.B.A., to achieve maximum success in business—and in life.
On Sale Now from Harper Collins. Learn More.
Click here to see a list of upcoming book signings. (DEC 5 – OTTAWA)
Nice gals can finish first.
One of three sisters, she grew up in a Mormon household in Calgary wanting little more than to have a family, and when circumstances forced her to take charge of her professional life, Ms. Dickinson discovered a knack for marketing and brought her interest in nurturing to a relationship with clients. “When did emotion become a dirty word in business? You don’t do anything for anyone unless you’re emotionally connected to them.”
Ten years after joining Venture in 1988, a fledging company in Calgary, she became sole owner, building its reach across the country and winning several business awards as well as honorary degrees.
Her children, now ranging in age from 27 to 33, paid a price for her need to work as much as she did, she says.
She could never afford a nanny.
“There was a combination of latch key and babysitters,” she explains about her child-care arrangements. “My kids, I’m sure, would have wanted to see me at some of those soccer games or concerts. But do I regret that? No. Because then I wouldn’t be able to help them as I can.”
For Ms. Dickinson, the balance issue for working mothers is always individual. “If someone feels happy and content working 70 per cent of the time and that makes her a better mom, why not?”
And neither should women feel the need to juggle home and work personae. “When you force yourself and say, ‘I can’t be the mother type’ at work and you are the mother type, then you’re trying to be something you aren’t, and you will never be really happy. … I am the same person in this office as I am on Dragons’ Den as I am with my kids.”
Still, for the all the confusion she endured – she suffered from feelings of inadequacy as a young woman, she says – she always knew she could rely only on herself. “My parents taught me that happiness was a choice,” she says.
Ms. Dickinson married her best friend’s older brother when she was 19, feeling lucky that someone wanted her to be his wife, she writes. That the family in which she grew up had little money didn’t deter her from throwing herself into staying home, baking bread, canning vegetables and having babies.
She married a second time at 41, when she was successful. That marriage lasted seven years.
True to her entrepreneurial ability to tolerate risk, she is about to marry again. Her fiancé, David Downer, is a sales entrepreneur, almost 10 years her junior, whom she met in 2009 at a launch party for Dragons’ Den.
“It is an emotional risk,” she acknowledges. But the key, in business and in personal matters, is to remain open to possibility, she advises. “Twists and turns in life aren’t dead ends. When things don’t go well, like divorce, it’s really up to you to say, ‘Let’s turn that corner and see what’s around it.’ ”
Today, Arlene continues to manage Venture Communications, while juggling a huge array of side projects, ranging from her own wine, to her roles on two television shows (Dragon’s Den and The Big Decision). She is also the author of her best selling book “Persuasion.” In addition to managing her business affairs, Arlene makes time for her four children, as well as her three grandchildren, whom she says are the most important people in her life. In addition, after years of being single, Arlene is once again married.
What does the future hold for Arlene Dickinson? It’s hard to say, but if the trend continues, things are only going to get better!
She was selected to perform on the series after she won numerous awards including Calgary Business Owner of the Year, PROFIT magazine’s Top 100 Women Business Owners, Pinnacle Award for Entrepreneurial Excellence and Canada’s Most Powerful Women Top 100 and is a Canadian author, entrepreneur, television personality, and venture capitalist. She is CEO of Venture Communications and is represented by CBC Television as a self-made multi-millionaire. Dickinson joined the cast of the CBC business reality show Dragons’ Den during its second season in 2007.
She is also an entrepreneur on another CBC business reality show, The Big Decision.
Dickinson has been recognized with several honours and awards including: Global Television Woman of Vision, the Calgary Business Owner of the Year Award, PROFIT and Chatelaine magazine’s TOP 100 Women Business Owners, the Pinnacle Award for Entrepreneurial Excellence and has been inducted into Canada’s Most Powerful Women Top 100 Hall of Fame. In 2011 she received the WIFTS (Women in Film and Television Showcase) Lifetime Achievement Award. She is an honorary degree recipient from Mount Saint Vincent University and the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. She is also an Honorary Captain of the Royal Canadian Navy. Her company Venture Communications was noted as one of the 2001 winners on the list of Canada’s Best Managed Companies sponsored by Deloitte, CIBC, National Post, Queen’s School of Business and MacKay CEO Forums.
Dickinson joined Venture Communications in 1988, taking sole ownership in 1998. During her tenure, she has taken the company from a local firm into one of Canada’s largest independent marketing and communications firms, with offices in Calgary and Toronto.
In October 2012, she launched Arlene Dickinson Enterprises (ADE) to fund and target Canada’s entrepreneurs. Businesses she has invested in include Urban Cultivator, The Carbon Farmers and Balzac’s Coffee Roasters.
YouInc.com is an online community for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs to connect, collaborate and celebrate the entrepreneurial lifestyle. Supported by Arlene Dickinson.
Under the ADE umbrella, she also launched YouInc.com, a social website designed to celebrate the “entrepreneurial lifestyle.” Future plans for the multiplatform entity include an upcoming magazine, radio shows, apps and television formats.
Over the years, she has served on boards including Ad Rodeo, National Board for Kids’ Help Phone, and Calgary Municipal Lands Corporation. She sits on the Advisory Committee of the Stratford Institute at the University of Waterloo, the Leadership Council of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics as well as the Editorial Advisory Board of Marketing Magazine.
She published her first book, Persuasion, in 2011. On the bestseller list for many weeks, the book is now available in paperback. She is currently writing her second book.
Dickinson is also an accomplished public speaker represented by several speakers bureaus.
She’s the CEO and owner of Venture Communications, one of Canada’s top independent marketing communications firms. She joined Venture in 1988 and became the sole owner in 1998. Since she took over, Venture has been recognized by the National Post as one of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies three times. (That’s really good.)
You may also know Arlene as an entrepreneur who’s really good at picking companies on the rise. This is how she became one of the “Dragons” on the award-winning CBC series Dragons’ Den.
TORONTO STAR: “When Arlene Dickinson first heard about Twitter two years ago she decided to give it a pass.
“My first reaction was that it was for people who didn’t care about content,” says the 53-year-old entrepreneur, motivational speaker and marketing maven. But, hanging out with her four adult children in her Calgary home, Dickinson noticed they had their eyes glued to their computer screens and smart phones, not the television. When she peeked over their shoulders, she saw they were on Facebook and Twitter.
Gradually it dawned on her: “Wait a minute, this is how they have a conversation.”
You might also know that Arlene was added to Canada’s Most Powerful Women Top 100 Hall of Fame and PROFIT and Chatelaine Magazine’s TOP 100 Business Owners. She was awarded the Pinnacle Award for Entrepreneurial Excellence, Ad Rodeo’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and McGill University’s Management Achievement Award. And she was even recognized as Global Television’s Woman of Vision, today with a net worth of $80 million.
… but most importantly, Arlene is a mother of four and grandmother of three. And she’s the best at that.
Arlene Dickinson is the national spokesperson for Breakfast Clubs of Canada to help raise awareness of the importance of children having a nutritious start to the day.
In 2013, Arlene joined on as a champion of the Give a Day campaign, in support of Dignitas International and the Stephen Lewis Foundation. She’s good at that.
As a mom, Arlene believes every breakfast counts towards our childrens’ and our country’s future. That’s why in 2010, after meeting Breakfast Clubs of Canada and Quebec Breakfast Clubs President-Founder Daniel Germain, she was honoured to become the organization’s national spokesperson and raise awareness of the importance of children having a nutritious start to the day. When children go to school hungry or poorly nourished, their energy levels, memory, problem-solving skills, creativity, concentration and behaviour are all negatively impacted. As a result of being hungry at school, these children may not reach their full developmental potential. To learn more about the Breakfast Clubs of Canada or to give a donation, visit www.breakfastclubscanada.org.
Please visit us on Twitter also: www.twitter.com/BreakfastCanada.
It is Breakfast Clubs of Canada’s dream that all children will have an equal chance to start their school day with a nutritious breakfast in an environment that promotes self-esteem. Our Canadian charity number is 866073133RR0001.
Breakfast Clubs of Canada supports community-based school breakfast programs across the country. Each dollar raised by Breakfast Clubs of Canada helps thousands of school children start their school day on the right foot.
We do this with the help of individuals like you and corporate partners, all committed to the cause of feeding our children’s future one breakfast at a time because EVERY BREAKFAST COUNTS.
As part of the new-age digital technology and how it ties in with marketing, she has some very poignant thoughts on how we go about doing business in this era. Dickinson encourages a business approach that blends life skills with business skills, and most importantly, relies on genuine face-to-face (or voice-to-voice) communications that allow you to tell your story.
“The art of storytelling is getting lost because we’re short-handing and texting our way through life,” Dickinson opines. “We aren’t communicating, we’re directing. Email is great for content, but not intent; it’s too open to interpretation by the person who’s reading it. So what happens? We put an email out there and then we’re surprised when somebody reacts to it the way they do because we certainly didn’t mean it the way they took it. Or we’re so busy worrying about how they’ll feel it takes us five hours to write the email to get them to do what we could have done if we’d just walked down the hall and told them directly.”
The overall message is that you stand up for who you are and that it’s okay to be who you are, asking in a good way how to get what you need without harming anyone in the process. Be the best you can be and you’ll be surprised at what can be achieved.
“I’ve crossed things off my list,” Dickinson gestures. “I won’t ever be a supermodel or a brain surgeon and there are lots of things I won’t ever be able to do because of my physical limitations, my age and my stage. Take that list away and the list of things that I can do is huge and that’s the same for everybody.”
In going from poverty to where she is today, Dickinson wasn’t ever afraid to fail – she was always afraid of regret. Never did she want to regret not having tried her best to succeed. It’s a lesson and motto for everyone to live by.
FIND ARLENE HERE:
Read More – Arlene Dickinson [PDF]
Arlene Dickinson | Facebook
Arlene Dickinson (@ArleneDickinson) on Twitter
Arlene Dickinson – Dragons’ Den – CBC
A Celebration of Women™
welcomes this woman leader into our global alumni with open arms, embracing collaboration in bettering the lives and health of family women and single mothers everywhere, especially in the important world of entrepreneurship.
Brava Arlene!
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