Canada 150 Women_Conversations with Leaders, Champions, and Luminaries

by Paulina Cameron

  What is the best investment you’ve made?

  That’s easy: my family and my friends. They bring me joy and sustain me.

  Judy John

  “For me, success is being a better human than the year before.”

  Birthplace Montreal

  What age do you feel Mentally 32, physically 62

  Occupation CEO Canada, and Chief Creative Officer North America, at Leo Burnett

  Book you gift most It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be by Paul Arden

  Favourite drink Coconut water

  Favourite place in Canada My bed

  If you could have dinner with any woman, alive or dead, who would it be and why?

  My two grandmothers, who I never had the chance to meet.

  How has your view of feminism changed over your lifetime?

  When I was younger, I never thought about feminism. I didn’t think it applied to me. I didn’t think being a girl or a woman limited me in any way. Even though I grew up in a traditional, immigrant family where there were different rules for the girls, I saw my opportunities out in the world as unlimited.

  Today, I’m a champion of women. Actually, I’m a champion of everyone, women and men. I’m gender blind when it comes to hard work and talent. Does that make me a feminist?

  Knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently when you were first starting out?

  I didn’t recognize early on that I am a brand. We all are. Like all brands, we have a say in how we are perceived. I would have taken more responsibility and behaved accordingly.

  If you had the gift of a year off, in a paused world, what would you work on?

  I have a deep relationship with food. Both my parents didn’t have access to much food for periods of time when they were young. If I had a year off, I would probably spend my time with food banks providing food for those in need locally and abroad. I hate knowing people are going hungry.

  What message would you put up on a billboard?

  “You’re only one idea away from changing the world.”

  What is your favourite campaign that you worked on?

  #LikeAGirl for Always, because of the impact it’s had on the brand, on girls, and on starting a conversation.

  If you were to write a book, what would its title be?

  The Accidental CEO: For People Who Don’t Know They Can Lead or Want to Lead.

  What does Canada need more and less of?

  More leading the world. To be less apologetic, and have less of an inferiority complex.

  If you were to get a tattoo of one word, what would it be?

  “Lucky.”

  Roxanne Joyal

  “Success is an empowered team. One that is motivated, and has a great deal of compassion and empathy for each other and others.”

  Birthplace Winnipeg, MB

  What age do you feel I have just celebrated my 40th birthday, I feel the freedom at this age where I have a real sense of myself

  Occupation CEO of ME to WE

  Book you gift most Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, by Marc Weissbluth

  Favourite drink Bubbles

  Favourite place in Canada Home

  What will it take to achieve gender parity?

  To reach that milestone, it’s going to be the aggregation of our collective work—chipping away at it slowly and bringing support to gender equality through our personal experiences and individual efforts. It’s about providing women with opportunities they would otherwise not have, and creating social structures where meaningful dialogue with the opposite gender can take place. A structure in which the opposite gender is ready to receive this information.

  What has been a defining moment in your personal or professional life?

  I had the opportunity to take a gap year and worked in Africa in 1997 for six months. I was working in Northern Kenya for Kuki Gallmann, a well-known conservationist, on a ranch that was generating revenue through tourism, and learned about the challenges and opportunities for women living in rural Africa. We started a small gift shop working with the women in the area, which became my introduction to women in the home as caregivers and as household heads. I learned how we could leverage their artisanal skills to provide better futures for them and their families. This was my first localized experience working with women in opportunity programs in Kenya, and the precursor to what I do now with ME to WE in Kenya, Ecuador, and India.

  What does being Canadian mean to you?

  I am so lucky to have the opportunity to be in Kenya, Ecuador, and India in the transformational service work we do. While there are so many aspects that I love while I am there, I always love coming home. As Canadians, we are lucky to embrace freedom and live in a society that strives to ensure there is a basic safety net for all people.

  How has your view of feminism changed over your lifetime?

  Feminism is about women being—and being allowed to be—their best selves. It’s the basic rights to which a woman should be entitled, and the right to be able to support her family. It is the basic threshold of rights that women need to feel good about themselves.

  If you were to get a tattoo of one word, what would it be?

  “Gratitude.”

  Victoria Kaspi

  “Canadians are not as polarized as some other countries. We have a diversity of opinions so we live together in a respectful way.”

  Birthplace Austin, Texas

  Occupation Professor of physics

  Favourite drink Half cranberry juice and half seltzer

  Favourite place in Canada Probably my home

  What message would you put on a billboard?

  “Complex Ideas Are Important. Go Read.”

  How has your view of feminism changed over your lifetime?

  When I was young and in university, I guess I was blissfully clueless about gender disparity. I really liked math. There are all these questions about why women don’t go into STEM. For me, it was just natural. I guess I was different from other kids in high school, but I didn’t think of it as a gender thing. When I was applying for my PhD in physics, I visited major universities that were trying to recruit me, and they set up meetings with the women graduate students. I remember thinking, “Why would I only want to meet with the women? I would like to meet with some, but I’d like to meet with everyone.” I thought it was strange, but now we do it all the time in our department.

  What will it take to achieve gender parity within your area of astrophysics?

  I feel there are still substantial societal biases that discourage women from going into the physical sciences. There are cultural pressures on kids and teenagers—I’m living it with my two teenage daughters— and the emphasis is on image and being sexy, instead of on your mind and what kind of person you are. I might sound like a fuddy-duddy, but there are tangible implications when you’re trying to gain the respect of work colleagues. Whenever I see some situation where I think women aren’t being treated with the respect they deserve, I point it out to my girls. I’ll say, “Look at this movie. Of course she has to be gorgeous, and of course she has to say she hates math.” You don’t notice it unless it’s pointed out. Sometimes they roll their eyes, but I still believe that it gets through a little bit, that I’m raising their consciousness. In the end they can do what they like in life, but they should recognize that the playing field is not 100 percent level.

  Do you have favourite stars?

  Yes, but their names are not going to make you happy. One is 1E2259+586. It’s a magnetar, an exotic type of star that exploded and was really important.

  If you were to get a tattoo of one word, what would it be?

  The word “tattoo.” I’m literal and I like things to make sense.

  What do you think it will take to get more girls into STEM and more women into positions of leadership?

  It will take a lot more consciousness-raising, some vigilance, patience, and certainty of purpose. We just have to keep at it and remind peo
ple that we still don’t have a cure for cancer. The person who finds the cure could be in elementary school right now, and if she’s pushed out, then it won’t get solved.

  If you could have dinner with any woman, alive or dead, who would it be?

  Marie Curie. She was a French (originally Polish) physicist who won two Nobel Prizes—one in chemistry and one in physics. I would love to talk to her about how she discovered radioactivity and what it was like to make such an important discovery. Did she appreciate what she was doing? What was it like to be female at a time when there were very, very few women physicists?

  The other woman who I admire tremendously is Golda Meir, the prime minister of Israel when I was five or six years old. I was born in the United States and I’m American, but I’m also Israeli and I lived in Israel during the time of the Yom Kippur wars. I would ask about her views on leading her country through a war as a woman.

  If you had the gift of a year off, in a paused world, what would you work on?

  Fast radio bursts—a new astrophysical and cosmic phenomenon. They consist of these really short bursts of radio waves—like little radio-burst explosions that are occurring all over the sky, sometimes 1,000 times per day. We don’t know what’s causing them and we’d really like to understand it. So we’re building a new radio telescope. It’s one of the areas of research in which Canada is really an inter-national leader. It’s all happening in Canada, led by Canadians, funded by the Canadian government, so I’m very proud of that.

  If you were to write a book, what would a title be?

  High-Energy Astrophysics.

  Knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently when you were first starting out in your career?

  I would have been less nervous and a lot less insecure about whether or not I should be doing this. I constantly asked myself, “Am I good enough to do physics? Do I belong?”

  What gives you courage?

  You want to make a difference and do something important with your life. You want to have helped the world in some way.

  Petra Kassun-Mutch

  “Feminism today is a far more mature, robust, inclusive, and innovative.”

  Birthplace Montreal, QC

  What age do you feel 55 and lovin’ it

  Occupation Serial entrepreneur, publisher, business owner

  Book you gift most Feminine Capital by Barbara Orser and Catherine Elliot

  Favourite drink Boring answer: red wine

  Favourite place in Canada Toronto

  What will it take to achieve gender parity?

  Simple answer: action. Not more gender-gap studies. Multisectoral, grassroots-led, systems-level change.

  Tell us about a time when you had to summon all of your courage.

  After a tough divorce, it took all my courage to fall in love again. Then one day, unexpectedly, halfway around the world while on a consulting trip, there was this sandal-wearing New Zealand version of Crocodile Dundee, who picked me up at the airport. There was this school-girl-like thunderclap and, I kid you not, I think even angels sang! I could have ignored the big feels—because by now I should know better and New Zealand is pretty far. How did it turn out? Well, let’s just say he has given me a lot to remember. Hurihia to aroara kit e ra tukuna to atarangi kia taka ki muri k a koe—a Maori proverb that, translated, says, “Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.”

  What does success mean to you?

  Success is a bit like the story of Wonder Woman. In the latest movie version of the 1950s superhero story, Wonder Woman, trained to be an unconquerable “have it all” woman in a beautiful supportive island home, finds out that outside her comfortable bubble of a life, the world is a mess. Believing that her own home will be in peril unless she does something, she ventures out to try to save it. Out in the real world, she gets tested, and tested, and with each test grows stronger until she finally discovers her full powers and true destiny, and overthrows the evil forces. Feminists have a complicated relationship with the character. But to me there is a kind of universality to the story. It articulates the definition of success: living your life in such a way, risks and all, that it lights you up to maximum, high-quality power and leads you to the opportunity to live out your true destiny, whatever that may be for you. What does it feel like? Like a really good night’s sleep.

  If you were to write a book, what would its title be?

  A Different Drum: The Transformative Power of Feminist Entrepreneurship, and I would want to collaborate to write it.

  If you were to get a tattoo of one word, what would it be?

  “#perennial.”

  Kathy Kinloch

  “Success means alignment in the key dimensions that are important in my life: family, community, and career.”

  Birthplace Edmonton, AB

  What age do you feel When I wake up in the morning, I feel 16; after a long day, 116

  Occupation President, BCIT

  Book you gift most The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

  Favourite drink Ranges from coffee to fine wine!

  How has your view of feminism changed over your lifetime?

  I was raised in a family where there was no question that women were equal to men. I was encouraged to become or accomplish anything I wanted. Perhaps because of this foundation, I’ve always tended to work with strong women role models. When I entered the workforce, however, it was apparent that not all women shared my experience, so I’ve intentionally tried to support female colleagues throughout my career. Over time, it’s become easier to “dismiss” feminism, as there are so many pressing issues in the workplace. Despite how far we’ve come, there remain pressing issues that must be addressed.

  What gives you courage?

  My courage has been best framed by one of my favourite leadership theorists, the late Edwin Friedman, who wrote a book called A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix. He urges leaders to “find the nerve to venture out of the calm eye of good feelings and togetherness and to the storm of protest that invariably surrounds a leader’s self-definition.”

  Knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently when you were first starting out?

  I would be less concerned about the immediacy of achieving a goal, either personal or work-related, and recognize that life is a journey, and there are learnings all along the way.

  What has been a defining moment in your personal or professional life?

  When I was eight years old, my father was very ill and hospitalized for some time. I was inspired by his healthcare team and all they did for our family. It made me want to “make a difference” in whatever I did. To this day, I enjoy learning from leaders from different sectors and walks of life. I’ve found this to be the best way for me to continue to grow, and—no surprise—people have been remarkably generous. In turn, I’ve made a commitment to do the same for others.

  What does being Canadian mean to you?

  For me, being Canadian is about making connections, and challenging borders, barriers, or divisions that might otherwise make connecting difficult. Particularly during this 150th year of Canada’s Confederation, the future strength and resilience of our Canadian society depends on the health and safety of our fellow citizens who are at greatest risk: from the newest immigrants to those whose ancestors have lived here for many thousands of years. I have promised myself that I will personally contribute, in some way, each year, to help strengthen those bonds within my circles. I invite others to join me in strengthening this collective connection.

  If you were to get a tattoo of one word, what would it be?

  “Hadlea,” our granddaughter’s name.

  Josée Kurtz

  “I recognize feminism for what it is: a vehicle for societal evolution where equality is the objective”

  Birthplace Joliette, QC

  Occupation Officer in the Royal Canadian Navy

  Book you gift most No Higher Purpose: The Official Operational History of
the Royal Canadian Navy in the Second World War

  Favourite drink Coffee, black

  Favourite place in Canada Home, wherever that is

  If you could have dinner with any woman, alive or dead, who would it be?

  Captain Kathryn Janeway, the captain of the USS Voyager in the television series Star Trek: Voyager. As one of the first women to serve in an operational capacity in Regular Force major warships in the Royal Canadian Navy, one of the first navies worldwide to integrate women in the late 1980s, I did not have many women role models to look up to, though there were great male leaders. I had not been much of a Trekkie previously, but when Voyager started in 1995, I was seized with the fact that the new captain’s character was a woman, and I followed the series religiously to its end.

  How has your view of feminism changed over your lifetime?

  While as a young girl I was frustrated by the limited opportunities open to women, I used to view feminism as an anti-men, anti-family movement and I did not want to associate myself with this type of activism. I am now quite comfortable advocating for women equality—and all individuals for that matter—because that is the right thing to do.

  Tell us about a time when you had to summon all of your courage.