Jennie Coleman honoured with two female leadership awards

Jennie Coleman has been honoured with the prestigious RBC Momentum Award celebrating Canada’s most accomplished women entrepreneurs for her outstanding leadership as president of Equifruit, North America’s biggest importer of Fairtrade-certified bananas.

The Awards have been highlighting the achievements of women driving economic growth and social change for over three decades. Some 11,000 women entrepreneurs were nominated in 2023.

Under Coleman’s leadership, Equifruit said it has made remarkable progress towards its goal of “Global Fairtrade Banana Domination”. For the past two years, it has been recognised by The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business Magazine as one of Canada’s Top Growing Companies with growth of more than 200 per cent in the past three years.

In addition to the RBC Momentum Award, Coleman was also recognised last week with the OPMA’s Women’s Produce Network Award, celebrating her outstanding contributions to the voice of women in the still heavily male-dominated produce industry.

“As one of the few female business owners in produce, Jennie has emerged as a champion for women in the industry. With an impressive collection of women’s awards under her belt, we’ve introduced a dedicated ‘Lady Boss’ category on our website,” said Equifruit’s sales and marketing director, Kim Chackal.

Equifruit said it looked forward to continued success under Coleman’s leadership and remains dedicated to its Fairtrade mission and creating a sustainable impact that will fundamentally change our industry’s relationship with banana growers.