In May 2012 I participated as a community leader in the Minerva Foundation’s Learning to Lead weekend. Jen Schaeffers, executive director of the CKNW Orphans’ Fund was the Keynote speaker on Sunday morning. What struck me about this young, energetic, and at that time pregnant woman, was her willingness to talk openly about the challenges she was facing as a working mom, a particularly relevant message given that a third of the audience were Grade 11 girls.It is important to remember that this was before Sheryl Sandberg created a forum for this conversation with the release of her book ‘Lean In.’ My experience is that far too many women choose to stay silent with respect to how hard integrating family, life and leadership actually is. After hearing Mrs. Schaeffers, I knew she was someone I was interested in getting to know and at some point, featuring in this series.

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