About Great Women Productions

Great Women Productions, based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, was founded in 2018, by Jo Napier, after she realized she had no 'Great Women' stories to tell her young daughter.

'When my daughter was little, and I was reading her bedtime stories, I wanted to tell her about the Great Women of Nova Scotia.  As she grew older, and took an interest in math, I wanted to tell her about Great Women of Engineering... about female pioneers in STEM fields and what they had accomplished...

'In both instances, no great stories bubbled up and, that uncomfortable realization - that half our history, the female half - was missing from my consciousness, was the spark that created my Great Women Productions portrait business.'

A woman-led, sole proprietorship based in Halifax Nova Scotia, Great Women Productions (GWP) takes an ‘everyday approach' to  helping clients design spaces that feel more inclusive; collaborating with companies, medical and engineering schools, government and corporate clients, to create portraits and boardroom collections that reflect the female face of innovation. "My work shows what 'women's work' really means. When girls know their STEM history, and the powerful paths women have changed in traditionally male-dominated domains, they'll feel a sense of ownership and pride - and be more willing to see these themselves in these arenas."

After Jo Napier, a former technology journalist (The Ottawa Citizen) and national newspaper columnist (The Globe and Mail), became a mom, she started painting... and discovered that the history she was aware of failed to include women's stories and accomplishments.  

As a former newspaper business/technology journalist, documentary associate producer and author, Jo had interviewed the Internet’s seminal thinkers and pioneers for a PBS series, two PBS documentaries, and a book, Technology With Curves (Harper Collins).  "I kept wondering: where are the women's stories? How is our increasingly digital world being influenced by women, too?"

Her research - and a growing sense of responsibility to show her daughter the faces and stories of Great Women - led to her first collection of large-scale, contemporary portraits. The collection was acquired by The Royal Bank for their national art collection. 

Today, Napier creates Great Women portraits for private and public sector clients that primarily reflect pioneers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

In January 2023, she launched The Great Women Portrait Project, which encourages female leaders in diverse industries to use portrait art to advocate for women, educate this generation and inspire the next. 

"I want to create a constellation of collaborators, who reveal the female face of innovation."