■ Indigenous-owned tech company Animikii uses the Anishinaabe Seven Grandfather Teachings as a guide when it

Company uses Indigenous values to guide decisions

One word you don’t expect to hear at the boardroom table is “love.”

But at Indigenous-owned tech company Animikii, you can find it everywhere — including in company decisions about hiring, remote work and flexibility.

The company says centring love in its decisions — from accepting clients to partnering with investors to supporting employees during a global pandemic — is key to its success, now and for generations to come.

Animikii uses as a guide the Anishinaabe Seven Grandfather Teachings, which include love, truth and respect. These values help inform the company’s day-today decisions but also its longerterm goals, like bringing more Indigenous people into the technology sector, and using technology to support Indigenous economic development.

“Some people call it decolonizing. Others may call it centring Indigenous wisdom and values,” said Animikii CEO Jeff Ward, who is Ojibwe and Métis and lives in Victoria on Lekwungen territory. “We know that if we focus on those teachings … that’s our best bet to have a successful outcome or a positive impact over those generations.”

Animikii, which Ward founded 20 years ago, provides technology and services including software and website design for its clients, most of which are Indigenous companies or organizations.

Animikii, which now has about 30 employees, made its first full-time hire in 2015. Around the same time, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was coming to a close. Ward, who was a statement-gatherer for the commission, says he started to feel there was an opportunity for Animikii and its social impact to grow.

But he wanted his employees to get the flexibility he’d had as a solo entrepreneur working from home.

Among Animikii’s remote workers is chief impact and communications officer Ian Capstick, who calls himself a white settler and lives in Montreal.

Allowing and supporting remote work isn’t just a perk to employees, Capstick said: “It really brings a diversity of opinions and places.”

Animikii’s policies include personal days, company-wide paid days off, unpaid cultural leave, alternative statutory holidays, paid pet leave, bereavement leave for chosen family and compressed work weeks. They have changed and expanded over time, especially in light of the pandemic, said chief operating officer David Pereira — the balance “is still a work in progress.”

Working within these values also means saying no to some clients. Ward says he’s had to turn down a lot of projects over the years that would have boosted Animikii’s bank account, which was especially difficult in the company’s early days.

Animikii mandates that at least half the members of its board of directors be Indigenous and half be women or non-binary, which also limits potential investors looking for a seat, Ward said.