“For me, being a communications professional, I love working with people. I love helping them tell their stories,”Angela Poundmaker shares. She is an interdisciplinary artist and an entrepreneur who works as a Communications Consultant, working on strategic communications in indigenous engagement. She helps companies by providing feedback or audits on their Indigenous initiatives, helping them work holistically with Indigenous communities. 

Before she took on this work, she had a completely different career. Poundmaker worked as a hairdresser for six years, having attended the AVEDA Institute. She then went to school for Business Administration but was bored and went back to hairdressing. She realized she was always dancing and thought she should go into acting since she lived on the West Coast. She went to the Victoria Academy of Dramatic Arts and got her Advanced Diploma in Acting for Film and Television. She moved to Vancouver and when the pandemic hit, she went back to school to get a Bachelor of Arts in Professional Communications from Royal Roads University. “I fell in love with professional communications,” she beams. She also fell in love with her cohort of students. From there, she formed Sweetgrass Public Relations and took training in green marketing.

Over the years she’s learned the importance of self-advocacy, of articulating one's values and communicating with other audiences. “I think it's really important to always be mindful and critical and reflective in your work and in your behavior, and that way you can be accountable and feel good about working with others because you do the work yourself,” she reflects. 

When it comes to barriers she’s faced, she says, “I think there's still a lot of diversity and equity to go in corporate workspaces for Indigenous peoples. A lot of us are usually the only Indigenous person in corporate spaces. I'm really passionate about Indigenous women succeeding in spaces. I really feel their perspective is valuable, and I think it's important to know that they have ambition and they have talent. When we talk about diversity, equity, inclusion, it's not just over as a check mark… it's really important to see them in the vision of your company ... .Because Indigenous peoples are very talented. They're very intelligent…. If you look at all the academia that is out there, all the businesses that are out there, I think I really genuinely believe Indigenous peoples are gifted. It's important for you as a company and as a CEO and as HR in mainly non Indigenous corporate spaces, to really take that into consideration.”

As far as overcoming those barriers, Poundmaker shares, “I think it's really important to have a really good, strong network, and I think that only takes about five people.” She has a strong partner and that’s something she considers important, explaining, “I think it's really important that you come home to people that believe in you, and you're really in a partnership and you're really supporting each other's dreams.” She believes in surrounding oneself with movers and activators, reflecting on how much rejection goes into acting. “It's all about just enjoying the journey and understanding that all the work is part of it. It's not just the wins, it's it's how you take care of yourself, it's your mindset, and your mindset is really affected by the people around you, so really surround yourself with healthy people that are into personal development, into growing their careers and into having really healthy relationships in their life,”she explains.

As someone who has hosted soundbaths, Poundmaker speaks about how she relates to nervous system regulation, offering, “I'm really passionate about creating capacity to sit in the discomfort, because I feel that the next innovation, the next thought, the next growth in your potential, is always on the other side of discomfort.” As someone who struggled with meditation, soundbaths made more sense for her. The practice connects to polyvagal theory and getting out of fight or flight. For Poundmaker, she was someone who always busied herself to avoid feeling emotions. Another training Poundmaker took was Trauma of Money, addressing historical impacts of money and rewiring attachments to it. 

If she could give a message to her younger self it would be, “it’s really important to go to things when you don’t want to, because depression will try to keep you small and keep you safe and conserve energy to survive.” Further thinking of leaving home to go to university, she recommends to plan out what systems and communities are available to connect with over the summer and connect with them, like friendship centres, and participate in their programming. She recommends doing so even during busy times in the school year. “It's really important to feed yourself the vitamins of community,” she advises. 

Working with people and helping them tell their stories, Angela Poundmaker makes a living and a life as a communications professional. Facilitating soundbath healing, she also helps people move out of fight or flight and into a better space. Moving from hairdressing to acting to communicating, she’s found a path that has helped her help people in a way that brings her joy.

Thanks to Alison Tedford Seaweed for authoring this article.