Part of The Entrepreneurship Series presented by

Spotlight on Entrepreneurs Thinking Big

Published on May 13, 2019

Minister Mary Ng / Minister of Small Business and Export Promotion - Ministry of Small Business and Export Promotion

George Rossolatos / CEO - Canadian Business Growth Fund (CBGF)

Elspeth Murray / Director - Centre for Business Venturing, Smith School of Business, Queen’s University

Wayne Pommen / President & CEO - PayBright

SMEs are the Canadian economy’s backbone. And growing the most robust, well-managed, growth-oriented businesses we can is crucial for Canada to achieve the economic performance and job creation we need to succeed in the future economy. But what challenges do SMEs face? What solutions are out there? This Spotlight explores these key topics and more.

Key Takeaways & Calls to Action

While Canada’s SMEs are entrepreneurial and innovative, they still struggle to scale, in part due to access to capital, low exporting and a lack of skilled workers.
Supporting SME growth is crucial to the future of the Canadian economy. They drive more than half of our GDP, representing 99.7% of all registered businesses in Canada, and employing over 90% of our entire private sector labour force. Their expansion will lead to significant economic growth in Canada.
Key ingredients to scaling up are access to capital and talent pool. While Canada is getting better at providing scale-up capital, our talent pool is lacking. We need scale-up specialists who have the know-how to grow a company from $10 million to $1 billion.
Canadian management teams and investors need to develop the mindset of thinking big and about how to win outside Canada – not just in Canada.