Media Release

The Thomas Yaccato Group forges New Partnership with World Bank Subsidiary

Opening Bank Doors to Women
Olivia Ward - Foreign Affairs Writer
April 27, 2007

Pioneering GTA entrepreneur Joanne Thomas Yaccato takes on advisory role for World Bank subsidiary in Africa

Joanne Thomas Yaccato, at her home in King City, is headed for Africa as a consultant to the International Finance Corporation.

In a recent survey, African businessmen were asked what they thought of women as entrepreneurs.

All very well and good, said one puzzled responder. "But how can property own property?"

That's the kind of prejudice Joanne Thomas Yaccato is locking horns with, as the pioneering GTA entrepreneur takes on a new role with the World Bank's private-sector arm to revolutionize the way African banks view business women.

As a consultant to the International Finance Corporation, which will distribute $40 million in international funds, her goal is to empower African women - providing the money and confidence they need to raise themselves, and the impoverished continent, from a life-and-death struggle to economic security.

Although new to Africa, Thomas Yaccato, 50, has spent decades dissolving the stereotypes that keep women beneath the "glass ceiling" of business success and prevent banks and other corporations from understanding how to satisfy them as clients.

The problems of African women were not new, just more acute than those of the West.

She quickly found that Africa's diligent but disadvantaged businesswomen had one thing in common.

"They were ignored by the banks. One Nigerian woman (Muni Shonibare) who owns a chain of furniture stores couldn't get a dime from bankers if her life depended on it. And until we went in there, the bankers hadn't a clue about the opportunity in the women's market."

Now Nigeria's Access Bank has loaned Shonibare an unprecedented $800,000 (U.S.) to expand her thriving business, thanks to a $15 million loan fund issued by IFC.

Thomas Yaccato's partner in the project is the Global Banking Alliance for Women, a group of banks noted as leaders in delivering financial services to women.

It was her grit and determination, as well as track record, that attracted the Washington-based IFC to her Toronto consulting company the Thomas Yaccato Group - known as "Canada's gender lens."

"I was nervous, because I thought I would he walking into a totally different world," she says. "But I was shocked to find that from the financial services point of view, it wasn't."

Making her first foray to Africa last month, Thomas Yaccato spent two weeks in West Africa, visiting Gambia as well as Nigeria, the first of many visits she is planning to the continent.

It was a crash course in how things work on the ground. Travelling with her aerospace engineer husband, Michael McNeill, and 11-year-old daughter Kathleen, she took buses "with optional doors," through ramshackle towns and villages, and met with women from stallkeepers to dentists and owners of upscale shops.

"I didn't go tourist," she said, smiling. "You never see a white face on these buses, but even if people were surprised they were always friendly and welcoming. I felt safer than I do in parts of Toronto."

In Nigeria, Thomas Yacento also met with officials of Access Bank. which was awarded the loan fund because it was "wide open" to change, and eager to embrace a new market of women clients.

"It virtually trnasformed the way the bank does business. One of the biggest stereotypes bankers have of women is that they like to keep their businesses small. That is categorically horse hockey."

And she adds with conviction: "If women had the same access to financing that men do, and partners who would do half the

child and home care, and the same opportunities as their male counterparts, that would immediately change."

In Africa.and other developing regions, women increasingly receive micro-credit loans for small farming and handiwork projects. But Thomas Yaccato hopes the new IFC program will raise the profile of women entrepreneurs in a more profound way, boosting businesses that will provide jobs and fuel flagging economies.

"I view my role as helping banks to create a (now) nonexistent middle class," she says. "World trends show that women's businesses grow quickly, and they employ more women. But in Africa there are real challenges. Many of those women can't own property, and they don't own a factory of widgets that can be used as collateral. Their collateral is between their ears".

Creating a new business environment for African women is vital, says Doug Hyatt, a professor of business economics at the University of Toronto.

"This is an exciting program." he says. "In countries where there's early marriage and a high fertility rate, women can be Iocked in forever andl kept dependent on men. This provides financing that gives than opportunities much better than the ones they have.

And he adds, "in this kind of program they also learn business skills that back-fill some of the gaps in their education."

Educating women - and corporations - about the potential of women has been Thomas Yaccato's lifelong passion. Born in Quebec, she took a psychology degree at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, and lived in most of Canada's major citics before settling in the Toronto area 25 years ago. She founded her own consulting firm in 1993 and has been nominated for numerous awards.

"I'm a citizen of the world." she said from the King City home she shares with her husband, daughter and Australian shepherd dog. "Most of my learning has been in the trenches."

Joanne’s daughter in The Gambia

In Africa, Thomas Yaccato faces her own tough selling job, working in an environment that is fuelled by women's labour but is often destructive to them. It has forced her to take a long view of progress.

"In Africa, I've learned to roll with it. What you expect won't happen. What you don't expect, will. It's a crucial life skill."

She adds, "this work in Africa is beyond rewarding. The problems are so huge they are practically insurmountable, but Africans have such spirit and humour, and ability to look for the beauty of absolutely everything. I have great hope for the ability of African people to transform themselves."