Former managers finding new careers in consulting.

An increasing number of women are reconsidering their career options leaving management positions, and many find the benefits of starting their own business outweigh the challenges.

Audrey Gilbeau, owner of Mitig Consulting, uses her skills as a labour and policy facilitator to enhance economic growth within Aboriginal communities. Her passion for policy and labour equity for First Nations has gained her a solid reputation as a consultant.

"Truth be told, I love policy," she admits. "It's like it's our manual for doing things."

In working on behalf of an employer, Gilbeau will "look at what makes an organization work, what elements they should have, and clarify gaps and responsibilities and how things from an efficiency perspective could have maximum benefits.

After quitting her job at Thunder Bay Indian Friendship Centre and Beendigen Inc., formerly known as Beendigen Native Women's Crisis Home, to take a job as a cook for NM Paterson & Sons and Canada Steamship Lines' bulk carriers, Gilbeau realized she wanted to go back to school to study business. She saved enough money to take a human resources management program at Confederation College and upon graduating obtained a job at a labour consulting firm Mamo-Wichi-Hetiwin Employment and Training. Later in her career she accepted a position as executive director of Ontario Native Women's Association, but found it was taking too much away from family life.

Within the first week of being off, Gilbeau obtained her first contract to represent an employer in a unionized negotiation. The first client took her business card and it was not long after she received a call from the Canadian Aboriginal Aids Network. She had to decline a contract with them since she had other business commitments during the time they required her services.

She enjoys facilitating and admits she is good at it. Gilbeau has never had to advertise her expertise. Clients engage her without a contract.

"I think that is a very positive thing, but really that reflects by virtue my reputation."

She knows the importance of networking and keeping up with the current issues of the day as they pertain to her clients. New aspects of accountability, legislation and privacy legislation have a great deal of impact on smaller organizations and owners need to consider the outcome of events such as the sponsorship scandal, Gilbeau adds.

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However, staying on top of present issues is at times challenging, especially when she is in the remote regions of Northern Ontario on contract.

Occasionally, she finds herself being hired on as staff at an organization and uses the time to get a pulse on what is happening in the trenches and to enhance her professional development opportunities.

Gilbeau is contemplating a partnership with Alice Sabourin-Nowegejick to share professional strengths. Sabourin-Nowegejick has her masters in social work, and, after feeling unvalued at a solvent abuse centre at the old psychiatric hospital in Thunder Bay, she too quit and has since branched out on her own.

Changes that are taking place at the federal level have created excitement for Sabourin-Nowegejick, owner of Beedaubin Consulting. As a treatment manager at the facility, she constructed the policy writings for treatments, and now with a shift in federal government thinking, she foresees playing an active role in program evaluation and planning, facilitating and public speaking.

By KELLY LOUSEIZE

Northern Ontario Business