Sophie Gregoire Trudeau to open exchange
It’s not every day that the spouse of the prime minister opens the trading day at the Toronto Stock Exchange.
But that’s the scene that will play out Tuesday morning, when Sophie Gregoire Trudeau joins Farah Mohamed, the founder and chief executive at G(irls)20 — an organization that aims to cultivate a new generation of female leadership through targeted investments in education, social entrepreneurship and global experiences — to get the day’s proceedings underway.
Tuesday is the International Day of the Girl; two other organizations, FitSpirit/Fillactive and Plan International Canada will be part of the ceremony.
Mohamed and Gregoire Trudeau are doing more than just ringing the bell on Tuesday. Mohamed will also be there to announce an investing platform, the first time that the organization has reached beyond its two normal ways of fundraising: sponsorship dollars or fundraising efforts.
“It’s a very calculated change. We are very purposeful in the language we are using in terms of seeing girls and women as a resource that you need to invest in,” said Mohamed, who launched the organization in 2009, initially with the help of the Belinda Stronach Foundation. Two years later G(irls)20 became an independent organization.
The platform will raise charitable donations that will be invested in the G(irls)20 stock.
While the stock won’t trade, the proceeds will be invested by Mohamed and the board “to generate intellectual capital in girls and women through training, coaching and real life opportunities.”
The returns from the G(irls)20 stock investment represent additional resources available to the organization.
Mohamed describes the stock as “a perfect investment vehicle for individuals and corporations,” because it will help train thousands of girls around the world.” G(irls)20 operates four main programs: global summits; bootcamp for brains; girl on boards, and fathers empowering daughters.
“Every program we run has a specific goal, which is to close the gap between education and training and opportunity,” said Mohamed, who came to Canada as a refugee from Uganda when she was two years old. “I am a scholarship kid. Along the way people made investments in me. I believe very much in pay it forward.”