Haskayne alum embarks on cross-Canada tour to encourage more women to consider venture capital careers

“Most women quit the industry,” says Whitney Rockley, MBA’97, talking about her career in venture capital, one that she stumbled upon with some luck and advice from a tough and committed mentor. Lately, she has seen a few more women finding the industry, but some of these bright and promising individuals choose to leave. While at industry events, she looks for emerging themes to try to help reverse this trend.

Beyond a personal interest, Rockley is passionate about this issue to help enrich the industry overall. In the past, she has spoken of the female entrepreneurs she has connected with — and their difficulties in getting financial support from the predominantly male investment community. She sees diversifying the venture capital field as a way of not only advancing talented individuals within the industry, but also broadening the range of businesses that may be supported because of the new perspectives that will be brought to the table.

As the first female chair of the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (CVCA), Rockley is working on a 10-year goal to increase diversity within venture capital — to have the industry better reflect Canadian culture in terms of gender, sexual orientation and ethnicity.

“We are trying to create a culture of inclusion,” says Rockley. “Inclusion is what it is all about. Creating a sense of belonging, being sponsored and mentored.”

Rockley started a diversity task force within the CVCA and her Feb. 28 visit to the University of Calgary was part of her call to action. She asked senior partners who were members of the CVCA to talk to students — any students they had a connection to — to let them know what the venture capital sector does. You cannot aspire to a career that you know nothing about.

For her part, she decided to embark on a cross-country, Ask Me Anything tour, hitting a number of post-secondaries including UCalgary, where she met with Bachelor of Commerce and MBA finance students (a room split 80/20 per cent female to male) followed by an industry networking event and a recording of a Peer Review podcast (available March 15). 

“We decided to focus on one segment to get the curve going,” explains Rockley of her drive to reach out specifically to females, to encourage a grassroots movement to get women to enter venture capital and stick it through.

She is not a fan of a quota system for female representation on boards, though she sits on many boards herself including RtTech Software, mnubo and Decisive Farming. She wants to help create a culture of mentorship where senior professionals help guide newer entrants with gut-check advice and sponsorship where professionals speak up, advocate and connect up–and-comers with opportunities. She says it is through these practices that we will begin to have a strong enough base to fill board positions with seasoned female leaders.

“One of my first lessons in life was to always have options,” says Rockley, who came to UCalgary for her MBA after a self-described "failed" career in retail banking. With an entrepreneurial mindset as early as Grade 3, when she began modelling, she chose the MBA program at UCalgary for its innovative approach, selecting all the entrepreneurship courses she could.

She launched her post-MBA career in technology and progressed into venture capital, eventually co-founding McRock Capital, a venture capital firm that brings together her love of technology by focusing investments within the Internet of Things.

As she closed the podcast conversation, where she spoke in more detail about her hard journey to becoming one of only a handful of female venture capitalists in Canada and her secret weapon (a husband of 20-plus years who helps to keep the balance at home) she spoke of the recent federal budget with its drive to foster diversity and inclusion: “It makes me proud to be Canadian.”