Barb Stegemann

Barb Stegemann is widely regarded as a serial social entrepreneur, businesswoman and leading motivational speaker. An inspirational individual with a unique entrepreneurial vision, Barb has worked her way to fame after appearing on the programme Dragon’s Den and has since revolutionised the industry with her cruelty-free, organic products. Ranked as one of the Top 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada, Barb is forging a reputation as a popular public speaker engaging corporate audiences with tales of turning dreams into reality, adaptation, success and social enterprise.

Barb’s entrepreneurial passion was first ignited when a friend of hers fighting in Afghanistan was severely injured. Inspired by the hostile and treacherous environments of the war-torn country, Barb founded The 7 Virtues. The 7 Virtues is a company distributing organic and fair-trade essential oils from a variety of countries that are war-stricken such as Afghanistan, Rwanda and Haiti. After her friend was injured, Barb realised that to ensure stability for its people was a key way to support the Afghanistan economy, and so the vision of her company was born.

After founding The 7 Virtues, Barb took her vision and start-up company to the stage of Dragon’s Den. Rising to fame after appearing on the show, Barb became the first woman from Canada to land a venture capital deal with the show and was coined Top Game Changer for her illustrious social enterprise. Since then The 7 Virtues has gone from strength to strength, now stocking a range of 7 Virtues Peace Perfumes in Sephora outlets across Canada and the United States.

Alongside her social enterprise mission, Barb has also written the book The 7 Virtues of a Philosopher Queen. Barb penned this book with the vision of inspiring and empowering people to launch their own companies and create the future generations of budding entrepreneurs, along with ending bullying. Her work has also been the subject of the film Perfume War, following the story of overcoming adversity to create an incredible social enterprise. This film has claimed countless awards, including the Vanguard Award for Cutting-Edge Ideas and the Best Humanitarian Film at the Sedona Film Festival.

Barb has also been fortunate to claim some awards of her own. She has been recognised in the Top 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada and Profit Guide Magazine’s Top 30 Cool and Fabulous Canadian Entrepreneurs list. She has also been the recipient of the APEC Women and the Economy Summit Award from the Us Department of State and the 2019 John C. Maxwell Transformational Leadership Award. Ernst & Young also awarded her Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the Emerging Entrepreneur category. Making history, Barb has also been honoured with being named the first female Honorary Colonel of the Canadian Air Force.

Highly sought as a public speaker, Barb shares her motivational story of social enterprise, spreading her passion to help people who are subject to unfortunate circumstances. A top motivational speaker, Barb covers topics such as stoic principles for business, doing well by doing good, return on love and turning dreams into a reality. Sitting at the helm of a thriving organic and cruelty-free beauty company, Barb has built an extensive knowledge of business management whilst experiencing customer wants and needs. A passionate and committed individual, Barb is the ideal speaker to engage corporate audiences to make a change in the world.