Where Strategy Actually Happens

BY IDALIN McKENZIE

We spend a lot of time talking about strategy. Who sets it. How it’s defined. Where it’s going.

But in my experience, strategy doesn’t succeed or fail at the executive table. It succeeds or fails on the frontline.

Where the Work Becomes Real

Frontline leaders are where the work actually happens.

They are the ones translating ideas into action. Taking something high-level and making it real, in the day-to-day decisions that shape how an organization operates.

They are the bridge between what’s intended and what’s experienced. And I’ve seen how much depends on that.

What People Stay For

One of the most immediate impacts of frontline leadership shows up in how people feel at work. Whether they stay. Whether they grow. And whether they feel connected to what they’re doing.

I’ve seen the difference it makes when people feel supported. When they know their voice matters and their contributions are recognized. When there’s a sense of trust within the team.

Those things aren’t abstract. They’re built or not built every day.

Seven Embryos Changed Everything. Just Not the Way I Planned.

BY SHERRI STEVENS
There was never a question in my mind.

I would get married. We would buy a house. And we would have children. Four of them, to be exact. Two girls and two boys. What my mother used to call a “millionaire’s family.”

I’d be close and connected with them, just as my mother and I were close and connected. A bond that passed from generation to generation.

And in many ways, life followed the plan. I walked down the aisle at 26. We got the keys to our first house together. We started trying to have a family.

But the part that felt the most certain… never happened.

I Was Ready to Walk Away

By VINNIE RECILE
There was a moment in my career when I was ready to hand in my resignation.

Not because I wasn’t capable. But because I wasn’t sure if I believed that I was.

I was working as a CFO, sitting at a table where I was the only woman, surrounded by strong, confident voices who seemed certain in every decision they made. And quietly, I was questioning my own.

Learning to Trust What I Knew

I’ve always been drawn to understanding what sits beneath the surface. Not just the numbers but the story they tell. That’s what pulled me into accounting in the first place. The problem-solving. The ability to interpret what’s really happening and help shape decisions from there.

But there’s a difference between knowing something and trusting that you know it. And at that point in my career, I wasn’t sure I did.

The Single Tee That Made Over a Thousand Confident Girls

BY JACKELYN GILL
Taylor Hui holds her pose as the flash washes over her. She knows just how to wear the clothes, part her lips, catch the light. She’s traveled across the world to be on this set.

But there’s one thing the camera doesn’t catch: she’s about to run out of money.

“In my second year of university, I was getting so burnt out. I was traveling overseas constantly. I was working and trying to balance school, trying to run BeaYOUtiful, but couldn’t keep up with the fundraising,” she says.

Taylor founded the BeaYOUtiful Foundation to help girls build self-esteem, mental wellness, and confidence. She kept it alive with bake sales, car washes, bottle drives, door-to-door canvassing, and the occasional partnership.

No matter what she poured in, it wasn’t enough.

The Courage to Remain Human

BY AYESHA SHAH
I have spent much of my life asking difficult questions about identity, freedom, meaning, love, and suffering.

What does it mean to live truthfully in a world that asks us to perform, prove, and become versions of ourselves we barely recognize?

For a long time, I thought the answers lived outside of me, in achievement, knowledge, usefulness, and certainty. But the deeper work was learning how to remain human.

Growing Up Between Contradictions

I was born in Pakistan and raised in Saudi Arabia. I am the only girl among four brothers, and from an early age, I learned that love and limitation could exist in the same room.

At home, my father encouraged me to think deeply. Outside the home, I saw freedoms available to others that were not available to me because I was female.