Baycrest

2 • BrainMatters • Fall/Winter 2024 Most Canadians know entrepreneur Arlene Dickinson as an astute, fun-loving and not-so- fearsome dragon on the long-running television show Dragons' Den, where she has starred for over 16 seasons. She's also founder and general partner of District Ventures Capital, which invests in innovative Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) businesses in the food and health space. "My number one favourite thing is just listening to entrepreneurs who are pitching their ideas," Dickinson says of her role on Dragons' Den. "When they have purpose and passion, it's really inspiring." The television gig dovetails nicely with her career in marketing. "While the show is about listening to people's dreams and passion and purpose, marketing is about helping those dreams, passion and purpose come to fruition by helping people express what their business and brand is all about," she explains, adding that she loves strategy and being able to articulate what people are trying to do in a way that the market will understand. In recent years, Dickinson has also talked openly about life changes in her own family that impacted her deeply. One of those was the aging and cognitive decline of her mother, Stella, before she died last year. In 2021, she tweeted: "The hardest thing has been seeing my mother deteriorate both mentally and physically. It's such a helpless, overwhelmingly sad feeling." Dickinson and her mother were not super close when she was younger but that turned around when she was an adult and learned more about the sacrifices her mother had made. The family moved from South Africa to Canada when Dickinson was a child and eventually settled in Calgary. "I started being more understanding and empathetic, and also decided that I could blame her, or I could learn from her and understand and realize that she had a challenging life, and she did the best she could," Dickinson says. After that conscious choice, they shared a loving and supportive relationship. ' LISTENING IS IMPORTANT' ARLENE DICKINSON REFLECTS ON LIFE AS A DRAGON, MARKETING STRATEGY, AND HER MOM'S COGNITIVE DECLINE: The hardest thing has been seeing my mother deteriorate both mentally and physically. It's such a helpless, over whelmingly sad feeling. Arlene Dickinson

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