About

ABM is an Indigenous company from, and headquartered in, Tla’amin on the coast of what is now known as British Columbia, Canada.

In 2012, the business was formed under the name “Aboriginal Business Match”. Its initial mission was to connect First Nations with mainstream business opportunities to support economic empowerment leading to self-determination.

Over the years, ABM has evolved into a forum for purpose-driven SMEs and communities where business is done by all with all. We rebranded to “Advanced Business Match” as we learned that the most powerful relationships emerge when diverse people, motivations, and businesses come together in the same value-aligned stream.

Leadership

Brenda Baptiste is Okanagan and a member of the Osoyoos Indian Band.

Internationally recognized, and a recipient of the Order of British Columbia, Brenda has been a leader in Indigenous economic development in Canada for over 20 years. Among other roles, she serves as the long-time Chair of Indigenous Tourism BC (ITBC) where she created a blueprint strategy that enabled the organization to grow into an economic force.

Ms. Baptiste has been involved in ABM in an advisory capacity since its inception in 2010 and joined as a Partner in July 2022. Her unflinching commitment to enforcing the economic power of Indigenous communities, paired with her ability to build productive relationships, accelerates the growth of ABM, boosting the wealth of business opportunities available to our members.

Katrin Harry (Jeh’Jeh’Ganak) is originally from Germany, immigrated to Canada in 1992 and has been working in the Indigenous business space since 1997.

Decades of project and event management experience led Katrin to the creation of ABM as a matchmaking service for Indigenous business. Katrin sees the creativity and innovation of small businesses as the key to social change and is therefore focused on offering ABM as a powerful forum to make matches that result in ethical business relationships and practices that do not threaten the right of Indigenous people to exist.

It is the Partners’ firm position that the integration of Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and relationship-building into mainstream business practices is imperative to having even the faintest chance of addressing climate change, the global slide into totalitarianism, and increasing economic inequality.

Evil comes from a failure to think. We believe that the intelligent thought and combined strength of the ABM business community will move the dial toward decolonization and equality.