The Space I Needed Didn’t Exist. So I Built It.

By TRACY BARRY
When I think about my journey, I don’t think about titles or milestones. I think about moments of uncertainty. Arriving in Canada was one of them.

I remember the feeling of starting over in a new environment. Learning how systems worked. Observing expectations that were never clearly explained. Trying to understand how opportunity was accessed and how credibility was established.

It wasn’t just about finding work. It was about finding direction.

What I Couldn’t Find

What stood out to me most during that time wasn’t just the challenge. It was the gap.

Beyond the Bumpenya:
The Real Work of Being Princess Sarah Culberson

By Jackelyn Gill
It was a childhood proverb in her adopted West Virginia family: “If part of our world is off balance, Sarah, it affects all of us.”

And things around Princess Sarah Culberson were off-balance in the Bumpe Chiefdom of Sierra Leone.

At 28, she learned she was the Mahaloi through her biological lineage. The granddaughter of the Paramount Chief. The Bumpenya, Lady of Bumpe.

A long night of joyful celebration followed her arrival in the village. It was “mind-boggling and overwhelming and shocking and beautiful.” And then her birth father, Joseph Konia Kposowa, Chief of the Mende Tribe, showed her the rest.

We All Have the Power to Be Our Authentic Selves

By Tanya Mushynski

When I was named one of WXN’s Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100, I felt an immediate sense of gratitude. I was honored to be part of a community of women who are not only advancing in their careers but lifting others as they do. I also paused to reflect on what brought me to this moment including the people who supported me along the way.

That reflection stayed with me as I joined the WXN Leadership Summit and Awards Gala. I remembered what Sherri Stevens said to all of us: Pause. Take this in. Reflect on what brought you here.

Rising Boldly Into a New Era

By Sonia Edmonds
A Quiet Realization

I didn’t expect the moment that changed me to be so quiet.

I was sitting in a conference audience when someone beside me leaned over and whispered, “There are no women leaders on this stage.”

It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t confrontational. It was simply true.

And in that instant, something shifted.

Living Your Truth, Day by Day

By Jackelyn Gill
“Live your truth” sounds simple.

Until you try to do it.

Because it’s not one decision. It’s a series of them. Small moments where you choose what matters, what you believe, and how you show up, even when it’s uncomfortable.

When we asked our Top 100 winners what living their truth looks like in practice, their answers weren’t abstract.

They were grounded. Personal. Sometimes hard-earned.

Here’s what they shared.

Purpose Isn’t a Statement. It’s a Practice.

By DESIRÉE BOMBENON
For ten years, I ran my company with a focus on something that, at the time, wasn’t always easy to define. I wanted the business to be a force for doing good. Not just in what we produced or delivered, but in how people experienced the work itself.

Be Bold: Finding My Voice Around the Table

BY KRISTI PESHAL HONEY
The first time I sat at a boardroom table, I did not say a word.

The conversation moved quickly. Seasoned executives traded acronyms like currency, referencing strategies and frameworks I only half understood. I nodded when others nodded. I had worked hard to earn that seat, but in that moment, I felt small. I told myself I was learning. In truth, I was hiding.

What I did not know then was that boldness is not always loud. Sometimes it begins in silence. In the gathering of courage. In the pause before the leap. Be Bold is not a single act. It is a practice you return to, especially when it would be easier not to.

A few years later, I found myself at another table. Again, I was the only woman. The only public sector voice. The youngest person in the room. The discussion centered on a major project that had started to drift. The slides were polished. The numbers looked reassuring. But something did not sit right.

No one was asking the hard questions.
Where was the risk register?
What were the mitigation plans?
Why was the burn rate not being discussed?

I hesitated. That familiar voice crept in. Do not push too hard. You are the only one asking.

But this time, boldness spoke louder.

I leaned forward and asked anyway.

Build the Table, Then Rise
What Rising Boldly Really Looks Like in Healthcare

BY DR. NARDINE NAKHLA
In healthcare, bold ideas are not the problem.

We talk constantly about innovation, access, scope of practice, and transformation. The science is there. The training is there. The urgency is obvious. And yet, progress often stalls somewhere between policy and practice.

Rising boldly in healthcare isn’t about vision alone. It’s about execution. About building the systems that allow good intentions to actually show up in patient care.

Over the past eighteen years, my work has lived in that gap. Here’s what I’ve learned about what bold leadership really requires when lives, trust, and outcomes are on the line.

The $100,000 Painting Starts With Believing You’re Worth It

BY JACKELYN GILL
It takes only a second to lose yourself when you walk into Patricia Gagic’s studio.

One work calls to you. Something abstract, contemporary. You’re drawn to the collision of color, shape, and texture. Light and dark. You stand there just long enough to tease out layers of meaning before you notice the piece beside it. And the one beside that. On and on until you’ve lost track of time and your place in the room.

This is the work of a Gold Medal winner at the Salon National des Beaux-Arts at the Carrousel du Louvre. Of a Dame of the Order of St. George. An artist whose own master has named her “Maestro.”

“And if I didn’t have my husband’s income, I’d be penniless,” she says.

What It Actually Means to Live Like a Legend

By Jackelyn Gill
We don’t usually think of ourselves as legends.

That word feels reserved, for history books, for names we learned long before we ever imagined what our own path might look like.

But when we asked Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Award Winners what it means to live “Like a Legend,” their answers didn’t sound distant or unattainable.

They sounded lived.

Grounded in decisions, in setbacks, in the quiet moments where you choose who you’re going to be, again and again.

Here’s what they shared.

I Went to School in a Rowboat

BY DR. KATHERINE CHUBBS
I went to school in a rowboat.

That’s where my story begins.

I grew up in a remote community in Labrador, about 50 people. My father was a fisherman, and my mother owned the only business in town. We had a summer home and a winter home, and twice a year we would travel inland and then back to the ocean.

I remember when we didn’t have bathrooms. I remember when we didn’t have hot water or television. We were, in many ways, about 50 years behind other parts of the country.

And when you’re 14 or 15 years old, if you want to continue your education, you have to leave.

So I did. I moved away from home to live with strangers. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

The Feeling I Couldn’t Shake – Part 1

BY CYBELE NEGRIS
When I was named one of Canada’s Most Powerful Women, I didn’t feel powerful. I felt exposed.

I remember the moment clearly. Being recognized for work I had poured years into, leading a successful, award-winning tech company in a male-dominated industry.

I should have felt proud. And I did… partially. I felt honored. Grateful. Humbled.

But underneath all of that, there was something else. A quiet, persistent feeling that I didn’t belong there.

20 Years of Bold Banana Badassery

BY JENNY COLEMAN
When I got the email telling me I’d been named one of Canada’s Most Powerful Women, my first reaction wasn’t pride. It was disbelief.

Me? Powerful? Really?

That morning had started the same way most mornings do. Changing a poopy diaper. Getting our eldest daughter, who is profoundly disabled, dressed, fed, and onto the school bus. Stripping her bed. Starting a load of laundry. Not exactly the image that comes to mind when you hear “high-powered businesswoman.”