The winners of the 21st Quebec Women in Business Awards (QWBA) were announced on Tuesday, November 9, during an evening organized in the presence of nearly 600 people, in virtual and in person. 15 winners were awarded out of 45 finalists.
The Quebec Businesswomen’s Award competition aims to promote the excellence, dynamism and audacity of Quebec’s women entrepreneurs and businesswomen, by recognizing their know-how, their achievements and their impact in all spheres of the Quebec economy. This year’s winners, it is explained, have distinguished themselves in 15 categories.
Leattytia Badibanga, 32, won the “Prix Coup de coeur, Le Journal de Montréal, Le Journal de Québec” while Indira Moudi won the “Entrepreneur of Impact – Women in Motion Desjardins” award.
Entrepreneur of impact
Indira Moudi is the owner and CEO of the slaughterhouse “Viandes Lafrance”, a Quebec family business that she bought in 2012, and which is the largest meat producer (sheep and cattle) under Quebec law. “Viandes Lafrance” is also the largest slaughterhouse under the jurisdiction of the Quebec Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
Born in Algeria to a father from Niger and a mother from Guyana, Indira Moudi, before acquiring and developing Viandes LaFrance, spent two decades at the highest levels of the global energy industry. A graduate in industrial engineering from the École de Polytechnique de Montréal (better known as Polytechnique Montréal), an engineering college affiliated with the University of Montreal, Indira Moudi also received leadership training from Harvard University in the United States. Immediately after her studies in Montreal, she joined Schlumberger, a global oil and gas company with 100,000 employees. At her interview in London, the day after graduation, the group gave her the choice to go work anywhere in the world she wanted. Indira Moudi chose Nigeria, an oil powerhouse and a neighboring country to her father’s home country of Niger.
Subsequently, Indira Moudi worked in several African countries as a platform manager. In 2004, she was transferred to France and promoted to head of all Schlumberger recruitment for Europe and Russia. At the same time, in 2004, Indira Moudi founded African Supplier, a company that assisted African companies in obtaining their international certification. Later, Indira Moudi was sent to Houston, USA, where she was appointed Global Training Manager for Schlumberger, before spending a year in India overseeing the opening of the first factory. Indira Moudi left Schlumberger in 2008 to join the French group Areva, now Orano, as Vice President, Environment and Social Responsibility, based in Niger for four years, before becoming President of Baker Hughes (a Houston-based U.S. oil and gas company) for Central Africa in Congo. In this position, she grew the business fivefold, developing the fastest growing market for the company worldwide. The Central Africa geo-market includes Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
She was then promoted to President of Baker Hughes Continental Europe, based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. In this position, Indira Moudi oversaw 27 countries and increased profit margins by a record 8%. Highlights of her tenure include successfully completing due diligence on General Electric’s acquisition of Baker Hughes and closing hazardous chemical plants while ensuring compliance with health, safety and environmental guidelines.
Indira Moudi is a certified Global Leader by the Harvard Business School.
Favourite Award
Originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Leattytia Badibanga is the founder and president of “Green Paws”, an innovative new line of dietary supplements for all dogs based on Moringa, produced in the form of green kibbles shaped like a dog’s paw. The use of Moringa for this dietary supplement is a first in the North American dog food market.
Green Paws, the company explains, was born out of Leattytia Badibanga’s great passion and boundless dedication to animals. She wanted to raise the standards of the pet food industry and create a product that lived up to her expectations. Thus, her passion for animals combined with her marketing studies, her knowledge of dog food and her entrepreneurial leadership motivated her to market this value-added dog food product. The goal: to offer a healthy, plant-based alternative that meets the nutritional needs of dogs. Green Paws products are sold online and range in price from $15 to $49 per can. The green kibble in the shape of a dog’s paw is prepared with moringa seeds and leaves, which are imported into Quebec in powder form. “We’re doing a circular economy, our seed supplier focuses on oil production. After the press, to make moringa oil, the seed was rejected. We recover the seed that still contains between 10% and 20% of oil and we put it in the base of our cookie” ,explained Leattytia Badibanga to lapresse.ca. Before arriving at a final version, she explained that she concocted dozens and dozens of recipes to find the perfect formula.
Leattytia Badibanga, who volunteered for the Société protectrice des animaux (SPA) in Quebec, learned about moringa in 2017 during a mission to Romania as part of the Conférence des femmes de la francophonie. “A colleague from our delegation was setting up a project for a moringa plantation in Haiti. And during the whole flight, 4-5 hours, she told me about the benefits of moringa. It piqued my curiosity and I decided to create a product” ,she explained to lapresse.ca. Mentored by the Mycélium, an incubator for new entrepreneurs in the food industry located at the Grand Marché in Quebec City, explains the site, she had access to several resources and was able to work with different laboratories. “I didn’t just have a product anymore. I really had a business project.”
Since 2017, Leattytia Badibanga has also been the founder of the nonprofit organization Les Pattes Jaunes, a French-language digital platform for adopting abandoned animals from Quebec’s ethical shelters, which has resulted in the adoption of 20,000 dogs and cats in Quebec to date.