It’s just past six in the morning. I’m perched at the edge of my bed. My cheeks are wet, but whether it’s from tears or cold sweat, I’m not sure. My attention is on the brown paper bag pressed against my face. I heave a shaky breath into it. I gasp the same air back in.

Out. I didn’t sleep all night on the red-eye from Calgary to Toronto.

In. I’m opening the breakfast at nine, and I can’t miss it.

Out. Over 200 events in one year. I’m exhausted.

In. I can’t do this. I can’t go. I can’t.

Out. I hate WXN.

No one saw that breakdown in my Toronto apartment. I kept this moment—and others like it—to myself. To everyone else, I was a confident woman leading a successful company. But this was a stark revelation that something had to shift. I was going to save the company and myself with it.

Many women in leadership have experienced moments like this, regardless of title or industry. They know what it’s like to carry the weight of responsibility and change. To deliver the impossible under pressure. To wonder if they’re the only ones who’ve ever felt this way.

These moments and the women living them deserve to be seen nd remembered.

And in that spirit, I'm not holding it in like I did back then. I'm sharing my truth about change and what it really looks like from the inside out, why it has to be intentional, and how we’re living it right now as WXN shifts into its next chapter.

The Image

I bought WXN as an entrepreneur who was, by all external measures, successful. A 30-million-dollar business I built from the ground up. Locations across North America. Awards dubbing me a Top Entrepreneur and an Entrepreneur of the Year piling up on my mantle.

Two of those awards named me one of Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100. They came from an organization called the Women’s Executive Network. WXN for short.

Across hundreds of nominations, my name was selected in the entrepreneur category. I still remember standing in a line of winners from all across Canada, including women I considered far more notable and accomplished than little old me from Woodstock, Ontario. I stood on stage and shook the owner’s hand. My team cheered me on from the audience.

This was real. I made it.

So when I learned that WXN was available for purchase a few years later, I made my move. It was always my goal to acquire another business, to build bigger and better by expanding into new territory. And here was my chance to be of great service to other women. Their success would be my success.

From the outside, it checked all the boxes.

“Here’s what I couldn’t 
see: beneath the gloss, 
the company was stuck 
in its own past.”

A company with a credible track record stretching nearly 20 years. A stellar reputation built upon its many breakfasts and cocktail hours, summits, conferences, mentorships, and professional development programs.

A passionate following from winners, members, and brand partners. People at the top of their fields who cared deeply about the shared mission of helping professional women advance in leadership.

A strong market of companies in Canada, England, and Ireland that were putting significant and meaningful investment into strengthening their organizational goals by strengthening the women helping to achieve them.

And who could ignore the Top 100 Awards? It felt like the Oscars. I had never experienced anything like it before.

Here’s what I couldn’t see: beneath the gloss, the company was stuck in its own past. And the $12,000-a-month office on Avenue Road and Bloor, the intercontinental travel, the sheer number of employees and events weren’t going to move it forward.

The Reality

Birthing a company is one thing. You get to build it your way from the ground up.

Purchasing a company is entirely ifferent. It’s like playing in someone else’s sandbox. This is the culture you’ve inherited and all the baggage that goes along with it.

For a while, I played in that box.

I spent the first year learning what it meant to be the Owner and CEO of WXN. I had never run a women’s organization before, or a for-profit company that ran so much like a not-for-profit. My expertise was in the service industry, getting my hands dirty on the plant floor beside my clients, and I was about to get a crash course in navigating corporate sponsorship.

“Their stories have lived 
long enough behind 
closed doors. It’s time to break them out of the 
room.”

It quickly became clear the organization was used to adding new programming but not changing what already existed. Those 200-plus events I traveled to? That was just business as usual. They ran very much the same in 2015 as they did in 2005, just with greater frequency and in more cities.

But busy didn’t mean successful if none of the effort translated into profit.

When conversations with my CFO ended with her head in her hands, I knew my vision for what WXN could be had to wait. The company had to survive first.

There was immense pressure from the outside to keep things the way they were. Our partners, winners, and members adored the programming we were known to deliver. They had grown deeply attached to the status quo, how things seemed on the surface.

And from the inside, my team was scared of change. The same leadership style that had built my first business into a multi-million international was incongruent with the Type-A culture already in place. They weren’t sure how to respond to a leader who wanted to know them beyond their job titles. That kind of openness was new territory.

It was a tug of war, a load I carried myself partly because I blamed myself. I felt single-handedly responsible for righting a ship that was already pitched off balance without rocking it too badly.

But there’s a real cost to that burden.

Things started to crack when I showed up to events exhausted, nerves already frazzled the moment I opened my eyes in the morning. It nearly split when I checked into a Calgary hotel room so delirious with fever that the staff found me talking to the walls, yet still worried about the next morning’s event.

And it came crashing down that morning in Toronto with the paper bag.

The Decision

Every business has ebbs and flows, especially during times of change. But this was simply unsustainable on every level. I could no longer afford to let my business control me. I couldn’t scrap the box and build a new one. I had to find a way to make the box my own, to evolve it over time into what it needed to become. Deciding not to attend that breakfast in Toronto was a small but symbolic step, a signal that our past didn’t have to be our future. I claimed a little shelter for myself in the middle of a hurricane. It gave me the courage I needed to make more changes. I dug deep into every program we offered to weigh what was working and what wasn’t. I analyzed where my team and I spent our time. Some of it was impossible to justify. We had a presence in Ireland and England—yet we'd never once set foot in the United States. Our European footprint had to end.

“I could have given up,
but instead, I made the
brave call. It was also the
right call. We came out
stronger. And that’s what we’re building on as we become WXN Media.”

Changes to the Top 100 Gala—our flagship event, a history already 15 years strong—were more difficult to make.

Even one Top 100 event is a massive (and costly) undertaking. But back then, the main event in Toronto was just the beginning. Months later, we’d take recognition on the road with three smaller regional celebrations. They felt like an afterthought, especially for partners reserving repeat tables and winners who were asked to commit twice. It no longer made sense.

When COVID brought the world to a halt, we paused our legacy mentoring programs, our social events, our networking groups. For the first time in years, the noise stopped. It gave us time and space to breathe and regroup. We invested in national leadership programming that connected our members and partners virtually from coast to coast.

These were big risks to take, especially when so many people felt deeply connected to the WXN they knew. Those decisions were unpopular with some of my team. They were unpopular with some of our partners and members, too. People left because they were attached to what it looked like on the outside, just like I used to be.

It was a high price to pay. But the business wasn’t going to survive by staying the course. If things aren’t working, you have to adjust and reinvent. Because repeating what doesn’t work is the definition of insanity.

I could have given up, but instead, I made the brave call. It was also the right call. We came out stronger. And that’s what we’re building on as we become WXN Media.

The Rebuild

WXN has always been about storytelling. Until now, it’s just existed under the surface, through more than 1,800 Top 100 Alumna and hundreds of thousands of extraordinary leaders across our network of partners.

In the 18 months I’ve spent talking with these leaders, it’s clear: their stories have lived long enough behind closed doors. It’s time to break them out of the room in a way that time-bound leadership programming simply can’t.

Because the world has changed yet again, and women’s needs with it. Our own metrics agree.

There’s virtual fatigue across every sector. There’s a capacity issue, too. Women are being called back to work, often in hybrid arrangements

and increasingly for the full workweek. Commutes add to the complexity of childcare and aging parents. Space for reflection, connection, and growth has tightened significantly. Online programming simply doesn’t make the cut for their attention.

At the same time, organizations are moving leadership development and training programs for women in-house. HR teams face steep cuts, too. A team of five is now a team of two. Not enough hands to manage external partnerships.

Most of all, the women I met with want to be seen outside of their organizations on a platform that goes beyond recognition alone. They are hungry for something that builds their credibility, that makes the path real, that they can return to again and again.

That’s where we draw our line in the sand and enter our editorial and media era. Not on a whim, but on a need that’s waiting to be met.

Every quarter, right here in Be Bold Magazine, we chronicle how leadership, power, and change reverberate across work and life. These are stories about the true costs and rewards of leadership shared inside out by women who live the experience.

Between each issue, you’ll read even more stories on The Bold Edit, our ongoing flow of articles and videos featuring focused reflections and ideas about leadership as it is lived. This is boldness in motion, told through the moments that shape us with perspective, not performance.

The Top 100 remains our flagship event, bridging our legacy with our future as an enduring honor that recognizes leadership that shapes organizations, influences industries, and activates economic power. I look forward to celebrating our 2026 winners at our Awards Gala on November 26.

And we’re launching WXN Signature Experiences, private gatherings that bring together our Top 100 Award Alumna and our partners' most exceptional clientele for the kind of grounded and intentional conversations that only happen when the right people are in the room.

Every part of the epic journey, finally seen.

The New Era

The first time I shared my personal story in front of an audience, I felt unsure. Exposed. Like I was spilling some deep, dark secret. Like a woman hunched over a paper bag at six in the morning.

Instead, women thanked me. They expressed how much it meant to them. And then they opened up in return.

Some, like me, had never said it out loud in public before. Yet there they were, leaders speaking directly about the grief of losing a husband, the fear of losing a business, the trauma of escaping abuse, the inner triumph of finding themselves, the strength of moving forward rather than wallowing in the past.

Individually, stories like this invite us inside the moments, big and small, that shape the decisions we make and the lives we build. Together, they create a persistent record of what it means to lead through pressure, doubt, responsibility, and choice.

This is what I love. This is why WXN Media exists.