Coby Royal

Mrs. Coby Royal

BA, MBA
Pronouns: She/Her

Affiliations

DBA Student

Haskayne School of Business, Doctor of Business Administration [DBA]

Contact information

Web presence

Background

Educational Background

MBA Master of Business , Simon Fraser University , 2025

BA Native American Studies, University of Lethbridge, 2008

CV

Biography

Coby Royal, Ksiskaniikakatosaki (First to See the Morning Star Woman), is a proud Blackfoot woman from Kainai First Nation. She is a leader, entrepreneur, facilitator, and Indigenous engagement professional with expertise in governance, strategic planning, economic development, program management, and community-based research. Coby is the founder of Sahmii Knowledge Solutions and co-owner of Royal Ranch. Her career spans Indigenous organizations, government, post-secondary education, and consulting. She holds an MBA from Simon Fraser University and is pursuing a Doctor of Business Administration at the University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business. She is committed to advancing Indigenous entrepreneurship and community well-being.

Projects

Building Indigenous Prosperity: The Role and Impact of Indigenous Business Corporation

More than a decade ago, Indian Business Corporation, now Indigenous Business Corporation Ltd., published a Report on Social and Economic Outcomes. It was among the first attempts by an Indigenous Financial Institution in Canada to measure not just loan performance but what developmental lending changed in borrowers' lives: household income, physical and mental health, life satisfaction, family stability, community confidence, known as the social determinants of health. The findings were striking. Client household incomes roughly doubled after financing. Eighty-five percent of clients reported household income above $50,000, against 27.5% of Alberta First Nations households at the time. Eighty-three percent reported excellent or very good mental health. The report treated access to capital as a determinant of health, and produced evidence to match. IBC proposes a second edition built entirely on IBC's own data. IBC is the only lender in the country positioned to re-ask a decade-old set of questions of the same client base and report what changed. That is a genuinely rare longitudinal asset. Scope is deliberately contained: IBC's client survey, IBC's loan portfolio records, IBC's case study families revisited ten years on.