Last year's Business Sisters Conference
Editor’s note: The Seeker is a sponsor of this event.
When was the last time you spent an entire day working on your business instead of in it?
Between customers, deadlines, bookkeeping and everything else on your plate, it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture.
On Monday, November 9, the Business Sisters Annual Conference offers a chance to change that. From 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., 120 women in business will gather at Cornwall’s Best Western Parkway Inn & Conference Centre to learn, exchange ideas and make connections that could change how they do business.
You don’t need to be a member. You don’t even need to have employees. Just bring yourself, your questions and an open mind. Allies are welcome too.
A conference with rural roots
Founded by Doreen Ashton Wagner in Alexandria, Business Sisters | Consoeurs En Affaires is a bilingual social enterprise connecting women entrepreneurs across rural Eastern Ontario.
The conference began in 2018 at the Glengarry Sports Palace. After two years in Rockland, its fifth edition returns to Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry. Organizers are calling it a homecoming.
Big ideas, practical advice and real conversations
Forget sitting through a day of motivational speeches. This conference is built around conversations and practical learning.
The morning opens with a panel exploring new ways to finance, own and grow a business, featuring Bea Tarbell of JT Business Services, Caroline St-Mleux of IMPACT ON and Layla Saligane, strategic advisor in entrepreneurship.
Then come three rounds of workshops, with sessions in English and French covering the challenges business owners face every day:
- The Bigger Picture (10:30 a.m.): Money psychology, buying or selling a business, lessons from starting out and an Ask Me Anything with Doreen Ashton Wagner.
- Marketing (12:45 p.m.): SEO and AI search, effective social media, human content creation in the age of AI, a French-language workshop and another Ask Me Anything.
- Taking Care of the Owner (2:15 p.m.): Redefining success, protecting your identity and well-being through the ups & downs of business, navigating entrepreneurial transitions and using art to de-stress and think creatively.
Breakfast, a buffet lunch and a closing cocktail reception are included. The full program and speakers are available on the conference website.
Four Trailblazers. Four very different businesses.
At 3:45 p.m., the spotlight turns to four women chosen from more than 20 nominees across Prescott-Russell and SDG.
- Chantal Lavergne, founder of Oh Color Me in Casselman, has put her pocket-sized colouring books into more than 300 stores across Canada and the U.S. in under two years.
- Jennifer Glenn, founder of Pick, Plant and Prune Inc., a landscaping company that also grows fresh produce for local food banks and families through The Abundance Garden.
- Sylviane Dutrisac runs Café Butte & Bine Farm in Williamstown with her husband Émeric, combining a bakery café, farmstay and organic market garden.
- Tara MacWhirter transformed a soap-making hobby into Garden Path Homemade Soap, a Vankleek Hill business that also offers ecological programming about Monarch butterflies.
Their closing fireside chat, presented by the Scotiabank Women Initiative, promises something more useful than polished success stories: an opportunity to hear how these women built their businesses, navigated challenges and found their own paths forward.
A business conference that lets you breathe?
Yes, really.
In a recent blog post, Ashton Wagner acknowledged something many women business owners are feeling: they’re tired.
So this year’s conference makes room for more than learning. Longer breaks, opportunities to meet new people and Ask Me Anything sessions give participants time to connect and work through real business challenges.
There’s even a Relaxation Lounge, featuring guided virtual reality meditations with Cornwall’s Kelly Bergeron of Poptronic, plus yoga chairs and infrared light equipment courtesy of Lyane Pennell of HIRA Wellness Centre in Russell.
Permission to step away and recharge, right in the middle of a business conference. Imagine that.
The real magic happens between sessions
At last year’s conference, Vicki Saunders, founder of Coralus (formerly SheEO), introduced an exercise called Ask & Give.
Women asked for help with everything from YouTube strategy to finding a contact at DreamWorks. Again and again, someone in the room had an answer, an introduction or an offer to help.
That’s radical generosity in action. And it’s what Business Sisters is all about.
As Ashton Wagner puts it: “You don’t have to figure out every damn thing by yourself.”
The workshops may bring you through the door. But the people you meet could be the most valuable part of your day.
Here’s what you need to know
- When: Monday, November 9, 2026, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
- Where: Best Western Parkway Inn & Conference Centre, 1515 Vincent Massey Drive, Cornwall
- Tickets: $299 + HST (Text me personally and I might even have a discount code for you.)
- Capacity: Limited to 120 participants.
- Register by November 1 for bonuses, including an invitation to a pre-conference dinner with speakers on November 8 ($65 + HST, sold separately).
- Refunds: Available until 8 a.m. on November 2, less a $10 fee. Tickets are transferable.
- Questions: [email protected]
Your business will survive without you for one Monday. The bigger question is what you might bring back to it.
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