Women Making a Difference in the Charitable Sector

Transcript

Today, in celebration of our charitable campaign, our theme is the experiences of women of influence in the non-profit sector.

What professional experience has most influenced your career?

There would frequently be these coordination meetings held in Khartoum in the capital of Sudan on a regular basis to share information, figuring out where the gaps were in services and figuring out how we could fix them. And the head of UNICEF stood up and started to speak about the conditions at this camp. And I realized that he was quoting word for word a report that I had sent out the night before. It shocked me because I realized he was working off of my information and so really the person who knew the most in that room of very qualified people was me. And it, it gave me a lot of confidence to not undersell myself.

At the end of the 90s, the SPCA director was sick, so she was often absent. And then, we were still short-staffed, so, sometimes, there were situations that required media intervention. For me, facing this challenge for the SPCA, stepping up to defend the SPCA, was incredibly… well, I found it very, very gratifying. Afterwards, I was very proud of myself as well, obviously.

I love being a president and CEO because I get to make the rules.

(laughter)

So let me tell you a little bit about how I make the rules. I make the rules that I observed over twenty five years of not being a CEO that I wish we could live by. And so I’d say that what’s shaped me the most in my professional experience is observing, observing great leadership, observing consequences of poor leadership. When someone is a poor leader how does that make me feel? What were my frustration? What rules did I, did I reject and question? Bringing this to being a female president and CEO and there are still relatively few of us I think comparatively, uh what I really like is creating a organization that I’d want to work for and working with my colleagues to do so. And that means we have a very progressive, positive work environment where we think of families.

Mentorship can be a key to developing your career. Where did you find your mentors?

I think I found a mentor in just about everyone that I’ve worked for and with.

I found that it’s really important to have allies in terms of your colleagues. And so when I first moved back to Canada to work here instead of overseas, I felt very alone in terms of NGO security because there are so few who are prioritizing it right now. So we said okay, so we could meet once a month over coffee and complain about the absolute absence of a support group and community or we could create one. And so that’s what we did.

I’ve looked to different individuals for different types of mentorship so I don’t have one particular mentor. But I’d say that mostly my mentors if you think of a hierarchy, they haven’t come from on top, they’ve come from um, peers or, or, or people who are just you know, that, that I, that I work with in general.

I’ve always tried to surround myself with um, people that I could learn from. And when you listen you learn.

What do you do personally to, to maintain your own wellbeing?

Every day, I need to keep in mind that work is work, and family is family—I’d say this is a challenge every day. There’s no secret recipe. No two days are ever alike; and they certainly never get off to the same start, especially with five children. The first four can wake up in good spirits, but sure enough, the last one will wake up on the wrong side of the bed.

The one thing you can’t delegate is your own health. So to be the best mom I can and the best leader I can and personally just a, a good human being, I need to exercise.

It’s being able to see those positive things in the work that we do in challenging situations that leads to wellbeing in my job side of my life. But then I, I also try to learn new things all the time in terms of developing new hobbies.

I’d love to have the opportunity to sit down and hear more from you. And I really want to thank you for coming here.

Thank you for sharing your experiences with us today, and thank you all for being here today. Thank you very much.