IN REVIEW: TORONTO’S LEADERSHIP SUMMIT As I sat attentively in the A/V booth at this year’s Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Leadership Summit, watching for precise execution of showflow, I had no idea how greatly I was about to benefit from being in the room that afternoon. Anticipating only participating as a staff member of WXN and no more, I find myself now looking at four pages of detailed notes from brilliant, eloquent and fascinating women: it is quite obvious that I took away much more than I had expected. WXN boasts the Leadership Summit to be “the perfect opportunity for professional development”, and it is exactly that. It is filled with insight from Top 100 Award Winners who know a thing or two about paving their way to the top of their fields - through gender barriers, no less. The lessons I learned from attending the Summit are ones I took to heart, and continue to share with my friends and family - and now with you. The afternoon began with a keynote from Sue Paish, CEO of LifeLabs, who reminded us that “our someday is now”. She shared how her husband stayed at home so that she was able to work, contributing to the theme of the day’s discussion on evolving gender stereotypes. She joked about how the few men in the room now knew how women have felt all these years, being the only women in the company of men. Through her humour and breadth of knowledge, Sue made a sizable impact on the audience, emphasizing that “if we know our values, decision making is easy”. Referring to life as a labyrinth (a phrase coined by her daughter, who considered ‘the glass ceiling’ to be “too oldschool”), Sue reminded us that we must remember to navigate through our labyrinth with our values in mind, and we will come out successful. Also keeping in mind that it’s not necessarily a ‘glass ceiling’ but rather, a “thick layer of men”, she joked, that we must push through in order to get where we want to be.
The second keynote was given by neurologist and clinical ophthalmologist from Calgary, Dr. Fiona Costello. Her speech, entitled “crazy”, was exactly that. A brilliant tribute to the successes of those before us who were considered ‘crazy’ by those who did not understand their intellect, Fiona told the audience she has always been honoured by those who call her ‘crazy’; it means she’s deviating from being normal (boring). Articulating perfectly how important it is to ignore those who try and put you down, she said “they told me I couldn’t have a successful academic career, a job, and then also have a family. I have four kids.” Not to mention she’s a wildly intelligent doctor at the Hotchkiss Brain Institute, and a Top 100 Award Winner to boot.
If we know our values, decision making is easy. She emphasized the importance of having strong female role models, and that ignoring our self doubt is crucial in success. She joked about having to google ‘glass ceiling’, because even though she works in a male-dominated field, she has never experienced gender discrimination. She told us to treat the ‘glass ceiling’ as a mirror; to take it as an opportunity to look within ourselves in order to become who we want to be. Fiona’s bottom line: embrace crazy, and allow it to let you thrive. Next, we heard from the President and CEO of FedEx Express Canada, Lisa Lisson, who opened with a beautiful quote from her mother, “life is not about what happens to you, it's about what you choose to do with what happens.” No stranger to overcoming adversity, Lisa told us through her first-hand experiences that we must not ask “why?” during moments of tragedy, but rather to take a look at the
good and bad in order to learn from these moments. She gave her “10 tips” on how to overcome the fear of being a single mother and having a successful career, all of which were quite hard hitting. My favourite two tips were #2, to focus on the things you can control, and let go of the things you can’t, and #10, to surround yourself with people, places and things that inspire you. Lisa told us that she wakes up every day, puts two feet on the ground and declares “today will be a good day!” It is through this visualization and attitude that she is able to focus on her destination, not the path, and live every day to the fullest. Following the keynotes, we participated in a Flash Panel, which was comprised of four Top 100 Award Winners (the participants were top secret until they appeared on stage, so this was a particularly exciting moment), CTV News’ Sandie Rinaldo, Canadian Armed Forces Major Eleanor Taylor, Unilever Canada’s VP Marketing Sharon MacLeod, and 2009 Hall of Fame Inductee (President of MasterCard Canada) Betty DeVita. An ongoing theme during their panel discussion was the notion of balance, posing the question “can we really balance work, family and it all?” to the audience. Major Taylor joked that everything in life had prepared her for combat, but nothing had prepared her for having a child. The panel’s response was: the secret to work/life balance is a helpful second half. For those of us in the audience who don’t have that luxury, the panel reassured us there is comfort to be found in friends and family; work/life balance can be achieved as long as you surround yourself with a strong support system. The women told us to step outside of our comfort zones and get involved in things that might not be second nature to us – keep yourself challenged in order to remain current and resilient. During the Q & A period, 2013 Top 100 Award Winner Kelly Lovell (in the TELUS Future Leaders 4