This course was created by women in business for women in business.
Participants will share and learn from their collective experiences in today’s evolving business landscape. They will engage with peers from across a range of industries and gain insights from business experts and The Globe and Mail leaders in candid interactive sessions that build both competence and confidence in leadership.
Learn and apply concrete strategies, practical approaches, and proven frameworks for developing effective leadership skills and advancing your career ambitions.
Get expert advice on analyzing your organizational context and leadership style to work more effectively with different leadership styles.
Leverage emotional intelligence to get the most out of your teams and create an inspiring and inclusive culture of learning and innovation.
● Be a high-performing executive leader, exploring unique insights, various leadership styles, and strategies on developing emotional intelligence
● Explore key pillars of effective leadership and assess their skills and challenges against proven leadership frameworks
● Demonstrate confidence in themselves, expressing ideas, and leading others
● Collaborate across silos to cultivate strategic relationships and alliances that support organizational goals
● Manage conflict and create opportunities for constructive conversations and innovative solutions
● Leverage advanced coaching methodologies to guide personal and team development, and create a culture of learning
● Utilize action plans to translate strategic discussions into practice to achieve organizational goals
● Articulate a clear vision to support career aspirations based on proven career advancement frameworks
This session cultivates executive presence and effective communication. Participants will explore the key pillars of effective leadership and assess their skills and challenges against proven leadership frameworks.
BUSINESS EXPERTS: Jennie Coleman, President, Equifruit
Session 2: Building bridges through allyship, alliances, mentorship, and sponsorship to drive results
This session is designed to foster meaningful connections, break barriers, and drive impactful results. Participants will learn to build authentic alliances, cultivate mentorship relationships, and secure sponsorships to maximize and accelerate business results.
BUSINESS EXPERTS: Jennifer Quinn, Incoming CEO, Nieuport Aviation and Lori Bieda, Chief Data and Analytics Officer, North American Personal and Business Bank, BMO
This session is crafted to empower individuals in cultivating self-awareness, resilience, purposeful decision-making, and coaching skills. Participants will explore strategies for effective goal setting, priority management, and delegation. They will also build adaptability and resilience to lead high performing teams.
BUSINESS EXPERTS: Jill de Chavez, CEO and Owner, Briteweb
This session will focus on the art of leading teams through conflict and change. Participants will learn to inspire and motivate diverse individuals, fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation.
BUSINESS EXPERTS: Sharon Geraghty, Executive VP and General Counsel, Canada Life and Marnie Rabinovitch Consky, CEO and Founder, The Thigh Society
We are committed to supporting individuals from traditionally underrepresented groups within Canadian organizations and leadership teams, including but not limited to indigenous peoples, racialized groups, people with disabilities, and people from the 2SLGBTQI+ community.
For every course participant that enrolls from your organization or network, we will provide full sponsorship to another individual from an underrepresented group, either from your organization or another one of your choosing.
Email ndurie@globeandmail.com to book a one-on-one meeting or join a webinar to learn more.
Explore the fundamentals of leadership theory and practice, tailored to the experiences of women. Learn fundamental leadership concepts, practical approaches and proven frameworks for developing effective leadership skills and the confidence to advance in leadership roles.
Leaning into Leadership is designed by women, for women to center the goals, voices and particular experiences of women in today’s leadership landscape. This course focuses on gender-specific challenges and opportunities for women in leadership and provides space for the diverse experiences of women with intersectional identities.
Participants will engage with peers from across a range of industries, learn from expert facilitators, hear stories and gain insights from women leaders and Globe and Mail Journalists, in activity filled sessions designed to build both competence and confidence in leadership.
Michel Shah is the Founder and President of UpSkill. She is an experienced inclusive, entrepreneurial leader, master facilitator and coach with a Canadian and international track record of leadership and community development. in government, non-profit, for profit enterprises and at every level of education.
Through Upskill, Shah has worked with a number of corporate, government and non-profit enterprises such as the Toronto International Film Festival and the Government of Manitoba.
She is currently pursuing the Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership with a focus on Organizational Improvement through inclusive leadership at Western University.
Shah is the Program Director of the Masters Certificate in Leadership at Schulich ExecEd, York University, Professor at George Brown College and member of the board of directors of the Canadian Accredited Independent Schools.
Jennifer Quinn is the Chief Strategy & Development Officer at Nieuport Aviation. As an accomplished Executive, she brings public and private sector experience in strategy, commercial structuring and negotiations, infrastructure and real estate development, and risk advisory. Prior to joining Nieuport, Jennifer was a Partner and Government & Public Services Industry leader with Deloitte and also spent nearly 7 years in Senior roles at Infrastructure Ontario.
In 2024, she was awarded the Report on Business magazine Best Executive Award from the Globe and Mail in recognition of her impact to Nieuport’s business—notably, leading the operations team through the resumption of service following the pandemic and driving forward efforts in partnership with PortsToronto to deliver a U.S. Preclearance facility at the airport (expected late 2025). She was also named one of Canada’s 100 Most Powerful Women of 2024 by the Women's Executive Network. She is passionate about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and in 2017 was the recipient of Start Proud’s Leaders to be Proud of – Professional Leadership award, recognizing excellence in the LGBTQ community.
Jennifer has an Honours Bachelor of Accounting from Brock University, a Master’s Certificate in Public Management from York University and is a Chartered Professional Accountant.
Lori is an analytics, technology and marketing executive with 30 years experience driving profitable business growth through the strategic use of data and analytics. Having worked around the globe, she’s helped Fortune 500 companies across financial services, telecom, technology, government, health care, retail and manufacturing advance their business through the strategic use of data and insights. Starting in the marketing service provider sector at top tier agencies like Ogilvy1, Rapp Collins and KnowledgeBase Marketing, she developed and executed marketing and analytics initiatives for B-to-C and B-to-B markets, for clients like IBM, Dell, Bell, and Bombardier. She later held progressively senior positions within top tier Canadian banks. At CIBC, she oversaw credit card acquisition, retention, revenue/risk/ price optimization and partnerships. She became CIBC’s Vice President of Client Insights and Database Marketing responsible for enterprise analytics, research, strategy and direct marketing where she drove bank strategy leveraging insights to proactively identify business trends and opportunities. At TD Bank, she helped reimagine the customer journey and customer contact optimization from a data-driven approach as Vice President of Analytics and Market Research.At SAS - the leading analytics software firm worldwide - Lori was the Executive Lead of Customer Intelligence across the Americas where she led a business strategy, sales and software consulting practice. She advised firms on the strategic use of customer intelligence, and integrated approaches to customer management. She established analytics technology, processes and structures empowering firms to compete and transform into customer-centric enterprises. Today, as Chief Data and Analytics Officer for the North American Retail and Business Bank and Head of Enterprise CRM, Lori oversees data and analytics including: customer, product, channel and salesforce analytics, revenue/risk/price trade-off management, customer contact optimization, sales and service optimization, database cloud migration, business intelligence reporting, advanced sciences AI and Machine learning, and enterprise CRM. Lori is a frequent industry speaker, published writer, and analytics thought leader. She is Chair of the Queens Analytics Business School board, and been recognized by Forbes and MIT as an influential thought leader and Woman in STEM, and by the Globe and Mail for the Best Executive Award. A passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion, she is the creator of ElleExcel Women’s Circle, a forum designed to help women excel in all aspects of life with thousands of members around the globe.
Jennie Coleman is the President and owner of Equifruit and a passionate entrepreneur driven by a desire to use business as a mechanism for poverty alleviation and community development. She is focused on growth as a means to increase impact on fruit growers and plantation workers. Since acquiring Equifruit in 2013, volumes — and thus impact — have grown 10 times.
She is a multilingual (EN, FR, DE, SP, dormant CH) communicator with extensive international experience, who is able to adapt to new cultures, industries, organizations and changing environments. She is comfortable managing risk and dealing with ambiguity. She leads her team with the vision of achieving “Global Fairtrade Banana Domination.” She works collaboratively with Equifruit’s Director, Sales & Marketing, and sets commercial strategy across geographic markets and products. She builds relationships with Fairtrade banana growers and leads the operations team to deliver quality fruit on time to customers.
Jill de Chavez is the CEO and Owner of Briteweb, a B Corp certified, Living Wage certified creative agency offering web and brand services to organizations committed to social good. With over a decade of digital agency experience, she provides strategic and operational leadership to organizations dedicated to positive social impact. Her trajectory at Briteweb began in project management in 2019, where she quickly advanced through roles including Director of Delivery, Director of Operations, and Deputy Managing Director before assuming the position of Managing Director in 2022 and subsequently becoming the company's CEO and owner in 2024.
She has had the privilege of working with clients such as David Suzuki Foundation, BC Cancer Foundation, Start Early, Trust Her, Restore Justice, and Educare Learning Network, to name a few. De Chavez's leadership philosophy centers on collaborative vision-setting and empowering teams to actively participate in charting their course. She combines strategic acumen with a deep commitment to mission-driven work, consistently pushing boundaries in digital innovation while maintaining focus on social impact. Her approach has established Briteweb as a leading agency in the purpose-driven digital space, while fostering a workplace culture that prioritizes putting people-first, innovation, and inclusive growth.
Sharon Geraghty joined Great-West Lifeco January 2018 as Executive Vice-President and General Counsel. Sharon oversees Lifeco’s global legal, corporate secretary’s office, regulatory affairs, and compliance functions.
Prior to joining Lifeco, Sharon was a Partner with a major Canadian law firm specializing in mergers and acquisitions, governance, and securities law. She has led domestic and cross-border acquisitions, take-over bids and reorganizations in both the public and private markets. She advised many financial services, insurance and wealth management companies in Canada and globally. She has been named twice as one of Canada’s Top 25 Women of Influence and in 2017 was named one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women.
Sharon has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Toronto and a law degree from the University of British Columbia. Sharon is a Fellow of the American College of Governance Counsel and Former Chair of the Trinity College (University of Toronto) Board of Trustees. She also served for many years on the United Way of Greater Toronto, Major Gifts Cabinet.
Marnie Rabinovitch Consky founded Thigh Society (www.thighsociety.ca) in 2009 to solve a common but often unspoken problem: thigh chafing. Frustrated by ineffective solutions like shapewear, men’s boxers, and messy creams, she designed a size-inclusive lineup of lightweight, sweat-wicking slip short underwear. Bootstrapped and strictly direct-to-consumer, Thigh Society has sold nearly 2M pairs worldwide and is recognized as the category creator and leader, offering solutions to chafing, sweating, and modesty. The brand has earned praise from The Today Show, Oprah Daily, and NY Times Wirecutter, while Marnie has been featured in Forbes, Nasdaq, and Business Insider for her commitment to comfort, inclusivity and destigmatizing sweat.
