We’re a collective of Coaches, Experts and Mothers walking the walk to bring all working women into a new experience of motherhood.
For years, we’ve worked side-by-side in coaching and corporate roles, both at home in Calgary and abroad in Paris, but it wasn’t until we became mothers that we both felt the problem and recognized our ability to solve it together.
When we became working mothers, we felt a greater divide between the personal and the professional aspects of our lives, while also going through such unique individual experiences.
Erin grieved the freedom of her “old life” and the pre-baby identity that felt farther and farther away after her first son was born. She came home from work overwhelmed, burnt out and torn from missing little milestones and moments at home while at work, “But is it worth the trade?”
Saphina stepped out of a high-level senior role to become a mother and, upon return, was met with maternal bias and the challenge of reclaiming her role in leadership. Finding her way to seeing herself as a successful career woman and mother also weighed on her, wondering “Will they still think I’m capable?”
The lack of awareness and assistance through the pregnancy and new baby seasons was leaving us and every other mother we knew burnt out, exhausted and alone while companies struggled to develop women leaders, missed EDI targets and left money on the table.
It was a perfect lose-lose someone had to turn into a win-win.
We’re leveraging our holistic coaching styles, expertise as Executive Coaches and EDI leaders, and our collective approach to address all of who you are so that our future doesn’t simply accommodate or include mothers, but champions them.
A first-generation Canadian, Saphina studied Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Cornell University and earned an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is a Certified Master Coach and a Canadian Certified Inclusion Professional focused on transformational change, with extensive global experience. Saphina has worked across cultures as a creative and thoughtful problem solver, advising the senior leaders, boards, and CEOs of some of the world’s largest publicly traded companies in the energy, healthcare, and financial services sectors. She has also been a guest lecturer at ISCOM (Institut Supérieure de Communication et de Publicité), in Paris, France. She believes in the power of mindset and inclusion to create high-performing, diverse teams.
Erin Smith has built her career on creating environments where employees and organizations thrive. She is an ICF Certified Executive Coach through the University of Toronto Rotman School of Management focused on enhancing both individual and organizational potential. Erin draws on her background in corporate communications, where she has worked internationally at a large publicly traded company, spearheading its Diversity Group. She has worked with C-Suite executives to develop innovative communications strategies across many sectors, including hyper-growth fintech start-ups, consulting, and design. She is passionate about people, teaching yoga, culture, and unlocking our collective potential through mindset work.
When a child is born, so is a mother. Two births have happened, yet our culture’s eye is trained to only acknowledge and see one as the big event. This leaves women to navigate and palm their way through not only a rapidly shifting physical self, but an entirely new psychological, mental, emotional and spiritual state. She has changed into a new human to adapt to her new role, but with little to no support.
Our focus on The Motherhood Identity Shift™ offers every mother the acknowledgement, support and guidance needed to not only understand these significant shifts, but thrive through them.
Mothers often think we can do it all on our own, but the second we tend to one thing, the rest seems to slip. It can become this perpetual shame spiral where irritability reigns and a long, deep inhale is hard to come by. We need a collective mentality to not only raise healthy children, but healthy families and healthy mothers.
There’s just not two ways about it. Mothers need community, so they can find the space and time to step back into themselves and be refreshed, restored and recharged before continuing to give their best in every area of their life.
