Stories from the Field: When Feminism and Flourishing Collide

Flourishing Business Community
Speakers Series: Stories from the Field #12

When Feminism and Flourishing Collide (We Get Sparks!): the Canvas via a Feminist Lens with PK Mutch

Date: Tuesday April 9

Time: 15h00 UTC – 08h00 PST, 11h00 EST, 16h00 BST, 17h00 CEST, 00h00 JST (+1 day).  To convert UTC to your timezone click here

Duration: 1 hour

Registration: Required via Eventbrite at

For our twelfth monthly flourishing business community speaker series: stories from the field, the community is delighted to welcome PK Mutch from the HighWire Collective.

PK mutch is an award-winning sustainability/social entrepreneur and former C-suite publishing executive, journalist, writer and educator who is deeply committed to creating an inclusive, just post-growth economy by transforming entrepreneurship narratives, ecosystems, policy and education.  (See below for full biography).

PK convened HighWire in 2013 as a collective of radical entrepreneurs working to create future fit entrepreneurship training, programming and education with social justice and post-growth economy values.

PK uses the Flourishing Business Canvas (FBC) in courses she teaches and programs she designs as an alternative to the Silicon Valley “Lean Start Up” template.  While the FBC is necessarily more complex, it draws out different thinking about how to design a venture that is well-positioned to succeed and do it in a way that does not harm the planet or people. The Lean Canvas is product and competition-centered.  The FBC is systems and connection centered.

PK’s talk is aimed at entrepreneurs, coaches, people designing startup programs and educators of any gender expression interested in applying a social justice, post capitalist,  intersectional feminist lens to flourishing business modeling.  In her talk she will:

• Compare/contrast three most commonly used business model canvases via feminist/post growth enterprise lens. 
• Provide insight regarding how to align  your business coaching practice with entrepreneurs interested in creating feminist values-led/post growth economics centered ventures  by using the Flourishing Business Canvas
• Identify the additional questions feminists grapple with, and what a completed post growth, feminist-informed version of the FBC looks like
• Share why approaching the FBC with a feminist/post growth lens matters

At the end of her talk PK will take questions from members of the community.

After the event a video of the talk plus slides will be shared in the “Speaker Series” space of the Flourishing Business Community. Please join other flourishing business leaders and become a full member to access.

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About PK Mutch

PK Mutch is a serial award-winning social entrepreneur, publishing professional, entrepreneurship curriculum consultant, experienced board director/chair, and adjunct faculty at the Gordon S. Lang School of Management and Economics at the University of Guelph.

Formerly the President of McGraw-Hill Ryerson Higher Education for seven years, Mutch later founded award-winning Fifth Town Artisan Cheese (2004) then known then as the world’s greenest artisan dairy. In 2013, Mutch became the founder/managing member of the HighWire Collective (formerly Eve-Volution Inc.) and founder / Publisher/Managing Editor for LiisBeth Media, a niche non-profit, indie digital publishing venture that serves as a platform and voice for over 30 000 diverse women in entrepreneurial spaces who believe business can be a powerful ally in our collective quest to challenge current and imagine new systems. 

She has worked with indigenous entrepreneurs, and supported the development of the first women’s incubator program in Aman, Jordan. Mutch co-founded and currently serves as the Entrepreneur in Residence at The Fifth Wave (Canadian Film Centre/Media Lab), Canada’s first and at present only feminist-identified accelerator program for women entrepreneurs in digital media, film and gaming. Mutch also serves as a consultant and course designer/ facilitator for Rise Asset Development, Elizabeth Fry Society and Up with Women. 

She holds a B.A. Honours in Mass Communications/Journalism from Carleton University, plus an EMBA from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. Additional select education includes a diploma in International Development (Loyalist), diploma in magazine writing and design (MTU), and certifications including Trauma of Money, Feminist Business Model Canvas, Flourishing Startups, Post-Growth Institute Offers and Needs Markets, and trauma-informed facilitation. 

She has been recognized as one of Canada’s Inspiring 50 women in April 2018 and as a top community collaboration by the Immigrant Women in Business association in 2019. Mutch also brings 20 years of non-profit and public sector board experience including The Canadian Women’s Chamber of Commerce (present), Equitable Now, a grassroots social justice organization (present), Marigold Capital Advisory Board (present), and formerly, The Greenbelt Foundation Advisory Board, the Dean’s Advisory Board at the Rotman School of Management (2007-2014); Queen’s University Centre for Responsible Leadership; University of Guelph College of Management and Economics, the Canadian Nature Conservancy (National Board), ZooShare.ca, and Vice-Chair of the Board at the Ontario College of Art and Design University (OCADU)