Eight years ago, when Mary Testani landed an IT job at Deeley Harley-Davidson Canada, friends were concerned. Ms. Testani came from a white-collar environment and knew nothing about motorcycles. But she’d heard great things about working at Deeley’s – and the place looked like fun.
“People said, ‘Oh, you’re going to be a biker chick,’” recalls Ms. Testani, 47, senior manager of business systems at the company’s location in Concord, Ont. “But that’s not the atmosphere. I realized very quickly that they’re regular business people. We work very nicely in the sandbox. The cowboy attitude is not well respected here.”
For the third consecutive year, Deeley’s has been named as one of Canada’s Top 100 Employers. Any lingering stereotypes about a testosterone-driven culture are further squashed by the company’s human resources director, Michael Harwood. Women make up about 40 per cent of Deeley’s 149 employees in the company’s offices and distribution facilities in Concord and Richmond, B.C.
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