What would happen if people of all genders had equal access to financial knowledge?
The story of Movement51 (M51) begins with our sister company, The51: a Financial Feminist™ platform and venture capital firm where current and aspiring investors (particularly women and gender-diverse individuals), come together to democratize access to capital.
But the problem is aspiring investors and founders can’t come together to grow, fund, and champion the feminist businesses our world needs most… if they don’t know where to start. As is the case with so many issues rooted in economic and social inequality, the solution: it starts with education.
Founded in 2020, M51 is a non-profit educational platform created to eliminate gender disparity in financial knowledge.
Since our inception, M51 has addressed financial inequalities through innovative educational programs like the Financial Feminism Investing Lab, accessible community events, strategic partnerships with academic institutions like the University of Calgary, and like-minded non-profits, like the Canadian Women’s Foundation.
With programming that focuses on entrepreneurship and early-stage investing through a feminist lens, M51 is powering the full economic participation of women and gender-diverse people in Canada.
Learn more about our mission and how we create impact
Meet our team
they are just like you!
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Shelley Kuipers
Co-Founder, Board Director
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Arielle Land
Program Director
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Emily McBride
Program Manager
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Kelly Tidalgo
Content Marketing Manager
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Kristy Sadler
SVP Marketing
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Lisa Oldridge
Executive in Residence
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Danielle Gifford
Faculty Advisor
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George Damian
Expert in Residence
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Roxanne Leduc
Diversity and Inclusion Expert in Residence
Board Of Directors
Shelley Kuipers
Co-founder, Board Director
As an activist in business, entrepreneurship and investment, Shelley is hellbent on taking the status quo, and transforming to create more equitable, feminist, corporately sound and ecologically sustainable businesses.
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Previous to co-founding The51, Shelley founded crowdsourcing company Chaordix (acquired by Benevity) and software development and marketing firm, Stormworks (acquired by Solium). She is also the co-founder of people-powered brands company IOVIA, founded in London, UK, which provides a brand accelerator for plant-based food startups. Shelley also collaboratively runs her family office Adventure Capital, with her partner and two sons. Shelley has had the opportunity to live and work in Canada, US, Germany and the UK, as well as lead global commercialisation efforts across markets in UK/Europe, South East Asia/Australia and Africa.
Shelley has been early-stage investing for the better part of 20 years. Her investment experience started in oil and gas, but she quickly diversified her investments into the tech sector with a focus on innovation-driven companies across many sectors. Shelley’s investment highlights include: Stormworks, Solium, Medgate, Evoco, Rival, Sampler, Zayzoon, SmartBe Wealth, Strategic Asset Management and Provision Analytics. To date she has made +30 investments.
Shelley’s most notable investment was Solium, which was acquired by Morgan Stanley in 2019 for $1.1B. As an early-stage investor, board member and member of the management team, these roles powered Solium’s global brand awareness and commercialisation. Additionally, Adventure Capital’s participation as board member and management advisor contributed to Medgate’s acquisition by private equity firm, Norwest & Georgian, and Evoco’s acquisition by Accruent.
Shelley serves on the board of Rival, Virtual Gurus, ReUpp/The Upside, as well as the A100, and University of Calgary USeed, Social Impact Fund. Shelley is also a Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) Associate with CDL Atlanta - Commerce.
Anita Rossall
Board Chair
Anita is a life-long supporter of science and engineering, with over 25 years wide-ranging experience in the energy sector and consulting, and 50 years of experience in not-for-profit, both as a volunteer and a board executive.
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Throughout her career in the downstream petroleum industry and business consulting, she worked regularly to deliver on difficult goals, during challenging and inhospitable business environments. With experience in facilities design, sales, marketing, business process improvement, ERP system implementation, capital/strategic/tactical planning and operations she uses her diverse knowledge and experience to build teams and solve problems to deliver results. In addition, she brings her board experience to the areas of governance and sustainability.
Anita has consistently demonstrated her devotion to the promotion and understanding of STEAM and how science literacy leads to career and business opportunities, especially for women. For her contributions, the Alberta Women’s Science Network presented her with the 2010 Minerva Mentoring Award, the Alberta Science Network (ASN) honoured her in 2014 with the creation of the Anita Rossall Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Volunteer Contribution to ASN, University of Toronto presented her with an Arbor Award in 2014 and APEGA named her the recipient of their Summit Award - Community Service in 2015.
Through The51 she has invested in Fund1 (where she is an advisor on the LPAC) and the Food and Agtech Fund and made several co-investments along the way.
In her leisure time, Anita enjoys kayaking, hiking, cycling and cross-country skiing in places near and far.
Salima Shivji
Board Director
Salima Shivji is a citizen of the world: born in Edmonton, raised in Kenya, educated in the London and Toronto, and practiced law in Kenya, India and the U.K. before finding her home in Calgary, Alberta. She got married at a Seniors’ retirement home in Medicine Hat with the Senior Residents as the witnesses and bridal party!
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Prior to being appointed on the Movement51’s Board, Salima was the Executive Director at Movement51. Under Salima’s leadership the Movement51 team transformed what was then only a promising idea into a thriving, new knowledge ecosystem.
She also currently works at a Family Office, where her role includes building the office’s "Early Stage Venture" arm and inter-generational wealth strategy. In this role she has created systems and processes to evaluate new and existing deals based on the family’s vision and values, increased the network within the venture capital ecosystem in Alberta and Canada, supported number of entrepreneurs within the Calgary eco-system. She also is appointed as a Board Member of Silvera for Seniors, which provides safe and affordable housing to Calgary seniors.
She is a proud working mother of two young children. To find balance she works on her hobbies, some of which are ideal for a Calgarian (skiing, mountain climbing, Banff Forum membership), and some of which are not (scuba diving).
Kelsey Armstrong
Acting Secretary
Kelsey is a partner at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP in Calgary, where she has practiced since her admission to the bar by the Law Society of Alberta in 2011. Her practice focuses on corporate finance and securities, mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance and general corporate matters.
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Kelsey completed her J.D. (with Distinction) at the University of Alberta where she was awarded the Horace Harvey Gold Medal for highest standing in her graduating class. Prior to attending law school, Kelsey obtained her B.Comm. (with Distinction) in Finance from the University of Calgary. On completion of her studies, she was awarded the Haskayne School of Business Gold Medal as well as the Governor General’s Silver Medal.
Michelle De Souza
Board Director
Michelle De Souza is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) with 17 years in the Oil and Gas industry, where she successfully managed a planning team at Cenovus Energy inc. (when Cenovus generated revenues of $21B, and had a capital annual budget of $1.5B).
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She supported executive leadership, helping translate the corporate strategy into operational targets, action plans and value creation opportunities. This included having a major role in the annual corporate strategy development, long range planning, detailed three-year planning, quarterly press releases, and Board material.
In 2020, Michelle entered into the small and medium-sized ecosystem, helping tech entrepreneurs and startups with business planning, cash management, forecasting and venture capital strategies.
Michelle values all efforts in Equity, Diversity and Inclusion work. She chaired a group of women in the energy sector that included 13 major producers and midstream companies. Their mission was to influence corporate culture and business policies to be more supportive of women in energy, that would ultimately result in a robust pipeline of female talent for senior leadership.
During her time at the National Research Council, Michelle and team built a national collaboration group to support female-led Canadian startups to successfully raise capital.
Currently, Michelle sits on a not-for-profit Board for Movement51, which is an organization that drives change in the areas of financial acumen, education, entrepreneurship, and investing through a gendered lens.
Leaning on her finance and accounting experience, Michelle currently works for RBC Dominion Securities, Canada’s leading full-service wealth management firm. She works with an experienced team - the Andrukow Wealth Management Group (AWMG) - who support 175 families, with over $600 million of client assets.
Alison Pidskalny
Board Director
Alison is a trusted ally to founders, CEOs and Boards. As a strategic consultant she builds community-informed strategic plans that (re)invigorate and focus clients on bold directions.
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As a born/raised Albertan, Alison leverages her vast network, angel investments and philanthropy as a Financial Feminist and an avid campaigner for community infrastructure that promotes connectedness and inclusion. In addition to Movement51, Alison sits on the Board of the Indigenous Gathering Place Society of Calgary and is a member of the Dean's Advisory Circle for the Faculty of Science at the University of Calgary. She is a mom of two, an avid traveller, downhill skier, and member of Unicef Canada's "Women Unlimited", which has taken her to remote parts of Ghana, Rwanda and Mongolia.
Susan Snider
Board Director
Vice President, Strategy Innovation and Impact at Equality Fund.
Aymie Rondeau
Treasurer
Aymie Rondeau is a CPA, CA with over 20 years of experience in progressive leadership roles that have taken her to interesting places from Albania to Australia. She is the Senior Manager of Procurement Governance for Nutrien, along with a Sessional Instructor with the SAIT School of Business and University of Lethbridge. Aymie loves to use her Chartered Accountant designation in unconventional ways, and most enjoys projects that are focused on strategy development and risk mitigation.
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In 2019, Aymie entered the exciting world of entrepreneurship, founding The Curvy Shop after finding it was frustrating to find high-quality, modern fashion to meet her plus-sized style needs. The Curvy Shop is a virtual size-inclusive fashion boutique, offering curated collections of nothing but the best in women’s plus-size fashion. Aymie launched the business after entering the inaugural ATB Financial Build Her Business crowdfunding competition, where The Curvy Shop nearly doubled its crowdfunding goal and was crowned the winner of the competition. The company has been steadily growing ever since!
Outside of work, Aymie has many years of volunteer experience in the non-profit sector and was recognized with a Distinguished Service Award by CPA Alberta in 2018 for her contributions. She is a Board Member for the Women + Wealth Gala, and actively volunteers in her neighbourhood in Calgary. When Aymie isn’t hunting down the latest fashion trends (or volunteering!), she can be found taking her Chocolate Lab, Bentley on many adventures, in her vegetable garden, or traveling and eating her way around the world.
Who is M51 for?
The statistics around women’s and gender-diverse people’s participation in entrepreneurship and investing are appallingly low. M51 was created to even the playing field — to afford people of underrepresented genders opportunities to learn about and activate their investing and entrepreneurship potential. To that end, M51 specifically targets our education opportunities to women and gender-diverse people. (For more information and definitions, see our footer!)
However, we also understand and appreciate that within gender categories there are multiple other identity factors that contribute to a person’s experience and opportunities. As a proudly intersectional organisation, we emphasize the support, and amplify the voices of women and gender-diverse people who are Black, Indigenous, people of colour, LGBTQ2+, newcomers to Canada, members of the disability community and/or belong to any other systematically marginalised or underrepresented groups.
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