Kardeisha

During a four-day TKTC program in Toronto, Kardeisha got a deeper look into the business world and learned what skills young entrepreneurs, like herself, should equip themselves with to set themselves apart.

Going into the program, Kardeisha saw entrepreneurship and the corporate world as two very different things.

“I grew up not wanting to have a job in corporate because I wanted to be an entrepreneur, I wanted to own my own business,” said Kardeisha.

After the program, where she met with RBC, KPMG and Finastra staff, she said she felt like “that gap has been bridged” and learned how to approach the corporate space as an entrepreneur.

“There’s a lot of partnerships between entrepreneurs and people in the corporate world,” said Kardeisha. “Even employees – they’re essentially running their own division of the business.”

For Kardeisha, one of the most valuable activities during the week was the personal branding workshop at KPMG. Learning how to leverage their social media skills to enhance their professional profiles was extremely relevant for her and her peers, she said.

“We talked about LinkedIn and how to brand yourself on LinkedIn. We understand social media because we’re on it so much,” said Kardeisha. “The instructor was showing us how we can use our stories and our own personal brands to develop that online presence in a professional way that still stays true to who we are.”

“The pitch competition was really empowering for me because we were able to present to people who do this kind of work”

Kardeisha’s team won the pitch competition, where teams were tasked to develop an idea for a financial literacy tool for young people. She says that getting that real-world experience of collaborating with a team, refining ideas, coming up with marketing strategies and presenting to a room of financial professionals was an invaluable experience for her.

“The pitch competition was really empowering for me because we were able to present to people who do this kind of work,” said Kardeisha. She says that she and the other participants connected well with the theme of the pitch competition.

“We kind of understand the situation because we were those youth that didn’t have financial literacy and still don’t to some extent. We didn’t come from communities or backgrounds with parents that taught that to us,” said Kardeisha. “We connected with it on a personal level.”

The King’s Trust Canada worked with Youth Employment Services Toronto, Finastra, KPMG and RBC to host our inaugural Discover Finance and Technology program.