Jennifer Dixon is the executive director at the Urban Development Institute, a non-profit membership-based association that supports the real estate development industry. 

Previously, she worked with the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce as the director of policy. 

She sat down with NowMedia to talk about women in real estate, making it as an entrepreneur and overcoming self-doubt.

Do you think there are enough women in leadership positions?

I think there are more and more, which is very positive. 

In some industries, women are more represented than others, but I think that in those industries that maybe women have traditionally not been as recognized in, it is improving. 

What do you think the future looks like for women in your industry?

I think it’s going in a positive direction, not just in this industry but in all industries. 

Women have a lot to offer and it’s just going to keep moving forward.

I would actually like to see the day where there doesn’t have to be any type of recognition or celebration of women in specific positions.

What kind of advice would you give to women out there who are struggling to progress in their career?

I think that it’s really important to build your confidence – and one thing that helps to build your confidence is to build your competence. 

There are a lot of ways to help build your confidence, and once you have that confidence, it really helps you to be able to take risks.

I don’t mean risks where the downside would be catastrophic if it didn’t pan out. What I mean by that is to be able to stretch yourself and to take on new things that you wouldn’t have done before, to be able to challenge yourself. 

If you’re not in a leadership role now and you want to be, that would have to involve something that will help you grow in a way you haven’t grown before. 

Can you think of a specific example of when you had to challenge yourself to move ahead?

In between working for the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce and the job that I have now, there was a bit of a gap. I became an entrepreneur and I started consulting. 

That was a big risk. I was a bit scared to do that. There was a little bit of self doubt. 

I was asking, ‘Can I do this? Is that going to work?’ 

It’s interesting since that role was actually part of what led me to come into this role. So if I hadn't taken that risk, if I hadn't gone out and done that, I don’t know if I would've had the role that I have now.

How did you overcome that voice of self-doubt?

It was basically by focusing on what I knew I could do well. That sort of comes back to your skills, your talents and your interests.

What I decided was, ‘Okay, I’m going to do a consulting business based on things that I know how to do so that I can actually provide value to people.’

You don’t really know until you go out and try. 

But I wound up getting clients and things started to roll and then one thing led to another and I wound up with a full-time job, which I was happy to have.