Toni:

What happens when brilliant women opt out of emerging technology? Not because they can’t, but because they hesitate. In today’s episode, I’m joined by Kendra MacDonald, CEO of Canada’s Ocean Supercluster. This woman is working at the intersection of innovation, emerging technology, climate, and economic growth. And she thinks deeply about representation, the leadership pipeline, and the real world impact of AI. This is not just a conversation about women in leadership, it’s conversation about This is not just a conversation about women and leadership. It’s a conversation about who gets to shape the future. We’re going to be talking about why representation and leadership matters more than ever in emerging technology, how women’s hesitation to experiment with AI could be reinforcing bias, not preventing it, even when we’re coming at it from an ethics angle, and what it means to lead in male-dominated industries like tech and ocean innovation. We’ve also dig into Kendra’s own journey from a Deloitte partner to CEO, from stepping away from STEM early in life to deliberately returning to it. If you care about women and tech leadership, AI adoption, bias and emerging technology, or building a leadership pipeline that actually reflects the world we live in, this episode is for you. 

Welcome to the show Kendra. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Kendra:

It’s a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Toni:

Start by telling everybody, and me of course, about your journey so far. What are you doing today? How did you get there? I know for example that you returned to college to study STEM after a previous career. Tell us how you got to where you are today.

Kendra:

So today I am CEO of what’s called Canada’s Ocean Supercluster. So it’s a global innovation cluster program and it’s really focused on increasing industry investment and innovation and in my case, ocean innovation. So I actually started my career as a co-op student at Deloitte. So I was with Deloitte for, I say almost 25 years, I think it was 24 years and eight months. So very close to 25 years and I had an opportunity with them, so I’m an accountant by background, I had an opportunity with them to live and work in five cities in three countries. So got to explore the world and work with a number of different teams and cultures, which was really exciting. And then I moved out of audit, I got really interested in telecommunications. And so that was kind of my first journey into technology. And I think what I really liked about telecommunications was I could understand the purpose. So the purpose at end of the day is to get information from point A to point B. When I started my career, that information was mainly voice. So I could pick up the phone and I can call you and you’re going to pick up at the other end no matter where you are in the world. And then that has now increasingly become data. But I could understand no matter what technologies, whether it was a satellite or a cable or all the different, the voiceover IP, all of the purpose of it was getting from A to B. So I had the opportunity to work in telecom in Canada and then in Australia and in Hong Kong and then in Montreal. And then I was asked, so I became a partner at Deloitte. I was partner for about 12 years and I was asked to take on the leadership in Atlantic Canada of what was our risk practice. So that was interesting because it was less telecom and it was much broader. So think as you progress in your journey is less about your technical skills and it becomes more about your leadership skills. So this was a real leadership opportunity for me. As part of that, I got involved with Deloitte’s Innovation Council. So there was big study done back in 2015 that said Canada was, that started my journey, industry was under investing in technology companies. We’re not adopting, we have a very conservative I guess, company set that’s under investing in technology, which is affecting Canada’s innovation scorecards. So I got really interested in that. And then I also started working with, so there was an opportunity to build Can, Deloitte Global’s internal audit practice. So I was responsible for being the auditor of the auditors, I guess, in terms of an internal practice, but Deloitte was 275,000 people at the time. I was working with Deloitte Global, so working across London, Montreal, New York, as well as Tennessee in terms of that work. And so I got involved with that. And then this opportunity with the Ocean Supercluster came up. And so at the time, it felt like a natural and a very unnatural pivot to go from always working in sort of being a partner to working in public sector to go from 275,000 people to being the first employee of this organization. But the organization’s purpose was really digitalizing the ocean. So bringing technology into the ocean economy, encouraging industry to invest in technology, and those had become areas of high interest for me. So I made the pivot. was a big change to have been a co-op student. had never done a proper executive interview before. had always been, if Deloitte was being interviewed or I was selling myself on behalf of Deloitte. So that was a really big deal. And then you mentioned I went back to school. So I like to learn and when I feel uncomfortable with something, as much as it’s my leadership skills, I like also having technical skills. So I thought, why don’t I take a few courses to understand Ocean better? It was COVID, so I thought I had all this extra time. I’m not sure I really did. But I thought I did. Told myself I did. So went back to school and started taking courses. then that sort of tied into when I was in high school, had technology. I had taken a computer course. And I had been the only girl in the class. And I had failed in assignments. I think it was one of the only assignments I failed in high school. And as a result of that, I said, you know what?

Toni:

don’t think any of us actually do, we told ourselves we do, it’s just different.

Kendra:

I’m not meant to do computer science, not meant to do engineering, I’m not going to be able to do it. So I went into business and so this felt like an opportunity to actually kind of course correct. And so I completed my master’s in technology management and I just graduated in May. So that was a really exciting, everyone said like, bother? But for me, it was such a thing to kind of write this wrong as I studied all these reasons why girls opt out of technology and I try to be a voice for women in technology. I wanted to do that to feel more credible, I guess, and say if I can do it, you can do it.

Toni:

Yeah, I think that I just want to point out to listeners something there, which I think so many of us have a story of something was hard in our science background at school that meant we thought, I can’t do this. And we see this in girls. It’s been studied extensively, right? Boys are taught to fail. They’re taught to pick themselves back up and crack on. Girls are taught to be perfectionists. And science STEM is just hard. It just is And I mean, even though I’m a physicist, I think the first thing I ever failed other than my driving test, I failed my driving test a couple of times, which was shocking to me, like failing something. The first thing I ever failed was a physics exam at university. And it was shocking because I’m like, I’m good at physics. I know I am, but it was so shocking because I didn’t know how to deal with failure. And I think it really derails so many of us early on in our lives. If you could talk to young Kendra.What would you tell her? What lesson do you wish you’d been taught that would prepare you for that failure in that moment?

Kendra:

Yeah, I mean, I think the first lesson would be it’s not the end of the world. I do think that is part of the challenge that we have is we treat it like it’s the end of the world. so pick yourself back up, try again. If it’s something that you’re really passionate about. I one of the things I have a 16 year old daughter, so I feel I’m not talking to my younger version of myself because she’s so very different from me, but at the same time really trying to encourage her that there are many paths, are many ways, and a failure does not define you, right? It does not define your path from here, and so you just have to shake it off and move on and either try that thing again or try something a different way. But if we get too caught up, life is long, I guess would be my last comment. I remember my father saying to me, you know what, this feels like the end of the world, but 10 years from now, it’s not going to matter. And I thought, well, 10 years from now is just so, so far away when you’re 16, 17 years old. But you know what, 10 years, he was right. Not that I ever told him, because I never would have admitted it. But he was absolutely right. so how do you, know, life is long, experimentation is learning. And so failure is how you know that you’re stretching yourself and you’re experimenting and you’re learning. So.

Toni:

I do think I like that, you know, shake it off. do feel like some of us, and I include myself in this, we need maybe a little bit of Taylor Swift in our lives, is that a soundtrack? Shake it off. Because failure is still hard, right? On which note, let’s talk about, again, I’m going to just like poke at something you said a few moments ago, because you said you’d never done a proper executive interview before, but you’d highlighted that you’d kind of done the role before as in a consultant through Deloitte. So tell me a little bit, obviously I prepare people for interviews, it’s my jam, but tell me like what surprised you? Was it just fear? Like what was going on when you were approaching those executive interviews that kind of felt, gosh, I don’t know what I’m doing here.

Kendra:

So the first thing I had to do was put a CV together. So again, I had applied for some boards. I had some versions of CV. But to actually sell myself into my first CEO position felt like a big lift. And so it was very interesting in pulling that together that if I looked at my career, I had consistently built teams. So I started in Ottawa and then I went to Australia to help them build their telecom team. And then I went to Hong Kong and helped them build their telecom team. And I went to Atlanta, Canada and I was building the risk services team. And so I actually realized, which was very interesting about myself, that that was the thing that I enjoyed doing. I enjoyed figuring out the model to deliver the thing. And once I was three or four years in, I moved on. And so that actually helped me reposition my thinking for this role because this was building a new team to do a new thing and all of a sudden it didn’t feel like as big a gap maybe as when I first had started looking at it. So that was really important. And then I think the other key lesson I had and to the shock of the recruiter and she’s heard this story before is, you had to the second interview was a presentation. So you had to pretend that you were presenting to the board. And so when I was first preparing, had all these slides and all of these different things. And it was a 20 minute presentation. And a colleague of mine said, if you only had one slide, what would you say? And so I spent a lot more time as you learn, it is a lot harder to deliver 20 minutes on one slide than it is to deliver 20 minutes with 60 slides, right?

And so I remember going into that second interview with my one page and the look on the recruiter’s face was like, I told you to be prepared. told you. And apparently other people had walked in with like all kinds of materials and I went in with my one page and I delivered my 20 minutes. And so I think the less is more being super crisp on, I had a clear vision of what it was that I would accomplish in this role. And I was able to articulate it simply so that people could understand and here I am.

Toni:

I would definitely say less is 100 % more in every aspect of being an executive. It drives me nuts when people turn up for a presentation with like, they need to get through their slides at like one every 20 seconds or something. I’m like, no, no, it takes at least five minutes to go through a slide. Otherwise you might as well just send them a slide deck because all your words are there. just, I’m making you believe that. But then I think there are some examples of bad public speaking. Okay, let’s change shift gears a little bit because I really want to dig into what you do at the Ocean Supercluster. This is something I never heard of before when we first met and it blows my mind. us a little bit more about it. What is it about? What does it do? What is… Why are you… Why are you interested in the oceans? This is not something I’d heard of it. Now I’m like, wow.

Kendra:

Yeah, so when the role first came up, hadn’t heard of, I never really paid, I guess, a lot of attention to the ocean economy. So as much as my mother’s from Nova Scotia, my husband’s a Newfoundlander, I now live in Newfoundland surrounded by water. But I think I’ve always thought about it in the, I love cruising, so I’ve always thought it in the context of sort of visiting or being on vacation or getting on a cruise ship. And so was really interesting to dig into First, the OECD has projected that the ocean economy will double by 2030, and so that’s three trillion US dollars. So that’s massive on a global scale. so then, and Canada has actually the longest coastline in the world, and we have the fourth largest ocean territory, and we touched three oceans. And so we are sort of strategically, natural resource wise, positioned to have a strong ocean economy. And when you look at some of the key challenges of the world, whether that’s food security and we’ve got this growing population, they need food. So aquaculture is the fastest growing source of animal-based protein. Again, in the ocean, transportation, I never really think about where my Amazon goods come from, but 90 % of the supply chain is actually ocean-based. So it’s coming by ship.

And then energy as we move to offshore energy and cleaner energy, we’re seeing that being offshore wind and less tidal and waves. So there’s all of these pieces of the importance of the ocean and it covers 70 % of the planet and it gives us 50 % of what we breathe. So this massive opportunity and Canada actually is undersized in terms of what it contributes. So all that to say ocean was really, really interesting. The opportunity for growth really interesting. And so this role was really to get the Canadian ocean economy to work together differently and to focus on growth and building all these companies across scale. And for me, it was bringing technology into the ocean economy. And so all of these opportunities to bring ocean tech companies, all of these, and it’s also a traditional industry is ocean as well as tech. So how do we get a more inclusive ocean economy? How do we make it more digital?

And then also how do we make sure that it’s more sustainable in terms of the pressure the ocean is under, because it also contributes to climate. Anyway, I could go online, but so at its core was how do we get companies to invest in technology? But then for me, how do we grow the ocean economy for Canada? So it’s been really exciting. And now we have a portfolio of over 150 projects, about $500 million in project value. So it’s been exciting to see all those projects come together.

Toni:

I mean, it’s not something that I would have immediately thought is an obvious technology area. But, you know, as soon as you mentioned things like wind turbines, OK, fine, yeah, that’s technology. Like I’ve I’ve been even involved in like modeling where like what is the optimal placement of wind turbines to reduce turbulence and optimize how how much energy they can generate from the same wind. So there is quite a lot of technology that goes into that. But then what else? mean, one of the things that you mentioned to me before is data collection shipping routes, even identifying and dealing with unexploded ordnance. Tell us a little bit about what most surprised you about how technical the investment is into the ocean system.

Kendra:

Yeah, so I think we’re in a moment where we’re really, I would say, instrumenting the ocean. There’s this great video that I saw, I think it was from the 60s or 70s, and it said, it’s so exciting, technology has advanced so much, we can go farther and deeper than ever before. And every decade that has become even more true. And now we are in a moment of autonomous systems, right? So we only have a high fidelity mapping of the ocean, about 27 % of the ocean. So we have is that I shouldn’t do math online, but about 73 % to go. So there’s a huge amount of data to come. And now we have these autonomous platforms, which is these ships that don’t have people on them. They can be much smaller and much more cost effective and also safer because now you’re not trying to take people into these places. You can have these autonomous platforms with lots of sensors. So we’re in this moment and actually Europe is working on what they call a digital twin of the ocean. So how do we create this? whole virtual replica and we use satellites to do that, we use drones to do that, we use these autonomous vessels to do that, sensors, and then what does that tell us? And that can tell us everything from the optimal routes for shipping because that affects your diesel usage. even moving that by a little bit can affect how much you’re using. It also affects when you’re berthing, so coming into a port to make sure that that is optimized. you can use that information to be able to monitor biodiversity movements. So one of the things that’s happening with climate is the fish are not where they used to be, the lobsters aren’t where they used to be. And so now we can not only understand that movement, but we can predict that movement with all kinds of data. So the biggest challenge right now is first generating the data. So there’s still a lot of work. Like I said, there’s a lot of gaps in the data sets but then also actually being able to figure out what are the questions that we’re asking and how does this data actually help us ask those questions. So OffshoreWinds, a great example of that is how do we use AI to help us with the surveying capability? How do we use the autonomous vehicles to make sure that we’re not in a place where we’re putting a turbine into an unexploded ordinance because obviously that wouldn’t end very well. So yes, there’s just, I think we’re just starting to see Aquaculture, same thing. We can use these little autonomous vessels to be able to look at nets. We can improve our environmental monitoring because again, we’re seeing warming waters and so that affects aquaculture pens. And now we’re getting into carbon dioxide removal. How do we use the ocean to pull carbon dioxide out? But we need to be able to measure that and monitor that and understand so that we’re not doing more harm than good. We’re solving one problem, but we’re creating another.

It’s just really exciting because of the breadth of the applications. And I think we’re just, like I said, we’re just getting started, is really exciting.

Toni:

Yeah. Well, let’s just circle back in and talk about a little bit more on the diversity angle. You said that you care deeply about this. We didn’t go any further because we were talking about your career at that point. The ocean industry is traditionally quite male dominated, let’s just say that. You put that together with tech and it’s probably a bit like where I started supercomputing in that it’s more male dominated than the average tech industry.

First of all, why does it matter to you personally to have more representation, particularly at the leadership level, which I know is something you care deeply about? Why does this matter to you? And why, what are you doing in the ocean space in order to focus on that?

Kendra:

Yes, so as a woman and as an accountant, I spent a lot and working in technology, I spent a lot of my career, certainly as a handful of women at the table, or in some cases, I was the only woman at the table. And I think we have lots of proven reasons why having more women at the table matters, having more diversity of voices at the table. And it’s been interesting coming into this role where I have, I would say I had a much more homogeneous team with where I was working before. And now I have a very diverse team, diverse in terms of age, diverse in terms of skill set, diverse in terms of geography because we’re a remote team. And so that comes with its challenges. is harder. It is definitely harder to work with more diverse teams because you have to work harder to understand other perspectives when people don’t think the way you look, sorry, they don’t think the way that you think but at the same time the richness of the solutions because they are also bringing perspectives that you would never think of on your own. So in this moment in time, it was a presentation where they said we’re at this moment of the climate challenges and the technical challenges and the geopolitical challenges, we’re facing all these things at the same time. We need the diversity of perspective to be able to address. At the same time, I have a daughter who’s adopted from Kazakhstan.

And she is 16 and I was at, we were on a cruise, I I liked cruising. So we’re on a cruise and we’re going around Japan and the majority of the people on the ship were Japanese. And my daughter turned to me and she said, you know, this is the first time we’ve ever been anywhere where there are more people that look like me than look like you. And so, you you hear something theoretically and then you, variance it viscerally really when she said that. And so here you think, maybe it doesn’t matter that much or maybe she’s not noticing or, but she absolutely was. And so that was a really important reminder. And so one of the things with the superclusters, we had a program where you had, found mentors that represented all different genders and ethnicities to talk about their journey and what they faced. so again, how do we create and amplify role models? to be able to show that the paths exist for others. And I think the last thing that’s really interesting with the ocean economy right now is because of this autonomy, you don’t have to sign up to be a master mariner or be at sea for months at a time to be part of the ocean economy. So that creates so much more opportunity for, you you can set at home with that there’s accessibility issues or gender or more varieties of lifestyle that can bring these technologies into the ocean economy, but not necessarily they’re seasick or they don’t want to be on the ocean, they can still play a big part. So I think that’s really exciting.

Toni:

Yeah, I mean, it’s one of the topics I’m very passionate about right now because, we’re in an era where it’s suddenly become not acceptable to have DEI initiatives. We’re seeing DEI funding abolished around the world, roles being cut. And yet you’re still doing this. I just I want to call that out. Obviously, you’re not in the US, which is where the center of this is happening. But there are repercussions everywhere in the world. Have you seen that impacting some of the work you’re doing at all? Is there any pushback? Is it the climate change in Canada around this?

Kendra:

So I think the conversation has changed in terms of, I would say it was probably more front and center before. I think now it is still happening, but maybe not in the same way. I think the reality is the business case is real. And so I think that’s what I stay focused on.

I think it’s the same with the climate conversation, like the business case is real in terms of the impacts that it’s going to have. And so I think it’s really important to stay focused on that. And for us from an ocean economy perspective, we can’t achieve the growth for Canada is looking at a five times growth in the ocean economy. And to do that, we need a million workers and we’re at about 400,000. So there’s no chance unless we can figure out how to have an inclusive workforce and get other parts of the workforce into the ocean economy that we will achieve that growth. So Again, there’s a business imperative for why it’s so important to make sure that we have Indigenous workers that are part of that conversation, that we have gender, that we have ethnicity, that everyone sees themselves in an ocean economy because we are technical people, because we need everyone to achieve those growth objectives.

Toni:

Let me just pivot a little bit to another topic that you and I are both passionate about and it fits on the gender narrative, which is adoption of AI. And I know that you’re passionate about the adoption of AI yourself, but you and I had a conversation about how we’re seeing women experimenting less than men. And this is, well, in our minds, it’s a problem. Talk us through what you’ve seen so far and why do you believe this is a problem?

Kendra:

Yes, so I I’ve seen it myself. I think there’s also many studies that bear it out that there is this gap between women experimenting and men. And I think some of the reasons around that is one, we talked about it, we tend to be more cautious. I think we are more preoccupied with some of the ethical considerations. And so we’re just, we’re experimenting differently.

But why it is so incredibly important is that there’s such a revolution in terms of AI coming into every part of the economy. I used to say this even with technology. So you take something like medicine where now you’ve got so many more women in medicine, but as technology pervasively enters the operating room, as technology pervasively is helping with diagnoses, if all those tools are being built by men, then that is going to change that balance back. And we’ve seen, I think healthcare is a great example of where I think we are just, I experienced unexplained infertility when I went through and did adoption, or now I have the joy of being surrounded by my colleagues that are now going through menopause and we are just starting to see that come in as a conversation and that as a research area. So we have taken research on men and we have tried to extrapolate that to women. And we will do that again if we do not have women sitting at the table, building these solutions, thinking about the biases, thinking about the historical data, what perspectives are missing. And that’s just one lens. There are many lens to that, but that is what I worry about is in this moment, you don’t need to be a technical expert to experiment with AI. I ask AI everything from, you know, what can I cook based on what’s in my fridge to what would four days in Italy look like to what should I focus on when I’m talking about this? And so it’s just building that because I also think as parents, as parents, as leaders, if we are experimenting, it incurs experimentation in our organization. It’s been amazing to see now in my organization, people are teaching me, we’re all learning. And also for my daughter, right? How do I encourage her? Because this will always be the least amount of technology that she will have access to. So how does she learn, how do we engage with it? So yes, we really need, we need our all of our leaders to lean in, certainly women, we need to close that gap and close it quickly.

Toni:

100%. If you had to give the women listening one piece of advice that you wish you’d had, you’ve learned along the way, what would it be?

Kendra:

don’t hesitate to lean in. So, I mean, there is a book on leaning in, but I think one thing I have learned, so I talked about adopting my daughter. did that as, I’m married now, but I did that as a single mother. My dad died young, so we dealt with his health issues when I was early in my career. My mother has dementia, so we’re dealing with her health issues as I’m further along in my career.

I think as women we tend to look at what’s the right time. It’s not a good time right now, my children are young. It’s not a good time because I’m dealing with a parent. And reality is that life is always happening. And so take the opportunities, figure out what is the right frame for you, where you have your boundaries, what you’re willing to do, what you’re not willing to do, but we need you. We need in this messy, complicated world that we’re in.

We need whatever you can bring to the table. And I think there’s a lot more models that allow us to get the best from everyone. So take the opportunity and bring your best self to the table.

Toni:

absolutely bring yourself to the table. What a good phrase to end the main part of the interview on. So, on that note, let’s move to the quick fly run and I start with my favorite question, which is kind of the opposite of what you’ve just talked about. What is the worst piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Kendra:

Try not to dress like a woman so you’re not distracting.

Toni:

Oh wow, okay that’s got to be one of the most uh, it’s not the worst I’ve had but it’s the most sexist maybe, maybe not the most sexist but wow. Okay, I find this, you know sometimes women we’re our own worst enemies to each other like we mean it with good intentions but my goodness me yeah. Oh my goodness, okay what is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Kendra:

And from a woman, it was from a woman, right? It was zero. So I got it in university and it was, and I’ve said it more than once, but it’s make sure when you look back on your career, you’ve had 25 years of experience and not one year of experience 25 times. And so I’ve really used that. I’ve talked about learning and liking to learn. sort of always, right around this time of year, think, what am I going to do differently next year than this year? It might be a personal thing that I’m going to learn or a professional thing that I’m going to learn. But so that I can always look back and say, okay, I’ve added to that. I didn’t just repeat know, 2026 did not repeat 2025. So it’s really guided a lot of my thinking.

Toni:

I love that, you know, it’s still 2026 with like, new experience. What a great thing to be doing right now. mean, listeners are going to be listening to this in early 2026. We’re recording right at the end of 2025, but whether it’s early 2026 or end of 2025 is a great moment to just reset and go, what have I learned? How am going to move on from here rather than just repeating? Don’t repeat, ladies, don’t repeat.

This has been a wonderful conversation, so how can people connect with you, find out more about what you do, where can we find you online?

Kendra:

So one of my experiences for experiments with 2025 was a personal website. So you can find me at kendermcdonald.com. So that’s one place. I’m easy to find on LinkedIn, Kendra McDonald. And I’ve also been experiencing with substacks. So you can look up saltwater signals. I talk a little bit about why it’s important to invest in the ocean economy. So any of those paths should lead to the others. I’m pretty easy to find.

Toni:

I will be following you on Substack. I did not realize you were on Substack. Thank you. And we will make sure that all those links are in the show notes. So if you’re interested in following Kendra, don’t forget to like and subscribe and leave her a view if you feel so inclined, but also head over to the show notes and grab those links and go follow her wherever is convenient for you. Kendra, this has been wonderful. So thank you. But leave us with your final thoughts. Why do you want to leave us all today?

Kendra:

I think if there was one thing, we are in this interesting moment where we need courageous leaders and we need leaders that build trust. I think women are particularly good at those things. And so I would really encourage you, no matter what you are feeling, know, imposter, all the things that we go through, but have that courage. What is it you want to accomplish? How are you going to accomplish it?

Don’t shy away from it as you’re thinking about that plan for 2026. And get out there in terms of building that trust circle around you. None of us lead alone. And so making sure that you are trusting in yourself, I think is step one, and that you are building a circle of trust around you, people that support you on your leadership journey. But we need your courage, we need your perspective, we need everyone in this moment. And so I hope that you step up and take.

a leadership role in whatever that looks like for you.

Toni:

That is such a beautiful way to end this conversation. So thank you Kendra from the bottom of my heart for this. I think just leaving you all with this, trust, trust yourself, trust those around you. Don’t leave alone. I loved Kendra’s beginning of this episode when she talked about she didn’t feel that she’d ever interviewed at the executive level. She wasn’t necessarily feeling ready for that. But I think one of the things that came through to me during this interview is how much she’s trusted herself.

I’m sure she’s had moments where her self-belief has dipped. I think we all do. But when you trust in yourself, you trust yourself not just, I can do this, but you trust yourself that if it doesn’t work, I will pick myself back up. When you trust that, hey, it doesn’t matter how I dress, I’m just going to show up in the best version of myself rather than dressing like a man. Trust yourself. If you do one thing different in 2026, let’s lean into trusting yourself in whatever version that looks like.

And I’m looking forward to cheering each and every one of you on your way to being that executive leader that the world desperately needs because you start with trusting yourself. Thank you and I will see you all next time.