JULY 7, 2023: Women's and Gender Studies is thrilled to welcome Dr. Kim Borden Penney as a new faculty member to the program!

Dr. Kim Borden Penney, PhD, is a descendant of Black Canadians and Indigenous (Mi’kmaq) in Nova Scotia (Scotians) whose roots reach back to the late 1600s. She received her doctorate from the University of Toronto.

Her study titled Banking on Equity: Bay Street and Black Women’s Leadership in Banks examined Black women’s leadership experiences in the Toronto banking sector and their perceptions about opportunities for mobility and advancement to executive management positions. Her study examined the factors and conditions that make Black women’s executive leadership in corporate Canada exceedingly rare. 

The connections between race, gender, and leadership are difficult to find in Canadian literature. This study was one of the first Canadian examinations of Black women’s leadership experience in the banking sector. It examined how race and gender are conceptualized and constituted through corporate culture, HR policies and practices, and employment equity policies. The study’s theoretical framework centred on Critical Race Theory, Canadian Black Feminist Thought, and Intersectionality, which critically examines the structures and policies that direct attention to narratives of Black people’s historical, political, employment, social, and cultural experiences in Canada.