Beginner Women Katharine Cornfield

For Paulette Senior, President and CEO of the Canadian Women's Foundation, her early experience moving from her grandmother's home in Jamaica to Toronto as an 11 year old girl has been formative. Even today, this very personal journey continues to meaningfully influence her professional work as a nationally respected advocate and thought leader dedicated to breaking down systemic barriers and building up diverse women and girls.

Leaving behind a successful career in marketing management with large multi-national service firms, Dr. Golnaz Golnaraghi shifted focus to enter academia and explore leadership theory through a feminist lens. Now leading her own independent consulting practice, Golnaz teaches and develops future leaders in a range of settings. Recently, her passion to advance representation and leadership of women led Golnaz to create Accelerate Her Future™, a career accelerator for self-identifying women of colour pursuing careers in business and STEM.

Currently Managing Director of the Chamber of Digital Commerce Canada, Tanya Woods' career has been a fascinating journey from law and policy to social entrepreneurship and advocacy at the intersection of technology. Leveraging her innate curiosity, persistence and a global view "from the get go", Tanya has become one of Canada's most prominent and vocal champions for Canada's digital innovation ecosystem, both at home and abroad.

Those of us who circle around girls and young women are guides and role models, and we play a critical role in supporting their career journey. By exposing young women in an open, non-pressured way to a variety of pathways and encouraging them to learn by experience, we can bolster their self-confidence, teach them to trust their instincts, and facilitate their best future, even as work evolves.

As the daughter of business-owner parents, Susan Richards was exposed to entrepreneurship early. Before the end of high school, she started a lemonade stand, a dance studio, and a car care business. Today, she is using lessons learned as the founder of gift delivery service Givopoly and financial management startup Numbercrunch, and as co-chair of economic development agency Invest Ottawa, to support women as they start, finance and scale companies.

Mentor relationships can have a powerful influence on a young woman’s life and career path. According to a 2016 Deloitte study, young people who work with mentors are not only exposed to more opportunities to advance their careers and become leaders but are more likely to stay at their workplace for more than five years and demonstrate loyalty to their organizations.