BY: KRISTINA RAMCHARRAN
As a female entrepreneur and single mother of five children, Farrah Hodgson’s transition to becoming an entrepreneur did not come easy. However, she took the brave steps she needed to in order to make the Lady Boss awards into something big.
“How it started is, I took a leap of faith, I was working and doing administration at Nissan and one of my sisters in Christ told me that I should think of becoming an entrepreneur and fulfill my purpose that god gave me,” says Hodgson on her first decision to move forward as an entrepreneur.
After starting her entrepreneurship, she was surprised to see that she wasn’t alone as a woman in the business world. “The background I was coming from, I never knew there were so many young women in business,” says Hodgson.
She started the Lady Boss Awards so that there was a way to give back to women in business who have helped better the community. She adds that despite having to face many struggles, women in business like herself give back so that they can help others facing struggles. “They wanted to help because they know how hard it is to get through everything the Caribbean culture goes through, they just want to give back,” says Farrah.
Her first step in kicking off the Lady Boss Awards was to find vendors and sponsors willing to help with the event. She started looking for vendors via Facebook and was surprised with the great response she received. She put forward a list of women nominated for the awards and she received an even greater response.
As the event has been running for two years now, Farrah plans on making it even better this year. With three guest speakers consisting of women from a wide range of professions, Farrah wants to make sure women have an enriched experience at this year’s Lady Boss Awards. “There’s going to be a marketplace,” says Farrah, adding this will help the women involved in the awards ceremony and says, “there’s never too much marketing.”
The Lady Boss Awards are just the beginning of the series of ventures and events Farrah has planned for this year. With plans for producing a stage play and creating a recipe book, Farrah also has a book launch for her newest book release. “I have my book release in April, it’s called Sweet Success Sisters and that book is women in business talking about where they’re coming from,” says Hodgson. Another point she mentions the book will touch upon is “how do we balance being an entrepreneur and everything in life,” adds Farrah. In total, Farrah currently has four published books, each focusing on a different topic.
Farrah’s advice to women aspiring to be an entrepreneur or get in involved in business is an inspiring scripture she follows. “I definitely want to say that they can overcome any situation. There’s a scripture that says ‘Greater is in you than it is in the world’,” says Farrah. “And as well as revelation 12, verse 11 it says ‘and they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony’, so those two scriptures are what I go by.”
In the future, Farrah plans on having a talk show, but for now, she plans on furthering her Lady Boss empire. She finds great importance in highlighting the achievements of women in the Greater Toronto Area communities.
For this year’s awards, Farrah has a total of twelve women nominated in four categories: Business Woman of the Year, Woman Entrepreneur of the Year, Woman Sponsor of the Year and Woman Community Activist of the Year. The 2017 Lady Boss Awards will be held at the Gospel Café in Mississauga on February 23, 2017. You can find highlights of the award show on social media using the hashtag #LadyBoss.
