Title: Principle, Owner

Company: Accessibil-IT Inc.

Location: Toronto, Ont.

By setting goals, a tenacious ambition, and insatiable drive, Wendy Lockyer continues in her sixth year as principal owner at Accessibil-IT Inc. As a document accessibility provider, Accessibil-IT Inc. relies on her leadership and technology expertise to provide a conversion of documents for the visually disabled. Throughout her work-week, she oversees all operations of the business, handles employee and client relations, manages new business development, and conducts strategic planning and marketing. In five years, Ms. Lockyer hopes to be a part of the growth, expansion and continued development of products and services that will further help clients gain full accessibility to needed documents and files. Ms. Lockyer attributes her success to the fact that she follows strong business protocols, understands the needs of this specific market, and forms alliances with advocacy groups for the visually impaired. She became involved in her profession when, after spending quite a number of years in the corporate world, Ms. Lockyer decided to get involved in an industry that helps visually impaired individuals ‘hear’ documents and PDF files. She also maintains her work status through hard work, persistence, and having very inspirational women who influenced her as a young woman.

Ms. Lockyer was a senior vice president in finance and risk management for a large global bank and has now led the successful startup of a company that provides accessibility services for people with visual and mental challenges. Accessibil-IT fundamentally believes that documents are only truly accessible when the content can be navigated by everyone the way the authors intended. The company partners with its customers to ensure that it achieves accessibility goals in the most cost-effective manner, while sustaining the look and feel of content design. Accessibil-IT consults regularly with end users to ensure that it continuously understands their needs.