Leaders, Innovators and Big Ideas - the Rainforest podcast

This is the sixth episode in a series hosted by Brigitte Legault, which features women role models in Alberta Tech. Women hold 60% of STEM degrees, however only hold 25% of ICT roles and 57% of women in mid-level tech roles are leaving their positions. 

Through this series we will explore what unique challenges they are facing, what inspires many to stay, and we will highlight their innovations, initiatives, and contributions to women's equity in our sector. 

In this episode we follow the journey of Katie Mclean, founder and CEO of Tuskhub Inc. Katie shares her fascinating career path and how we can all support working parents in their careers.

Thank you for listening to the Leaders, Innovators and Big Ideas podcast, supported by Rainforest Alberta. The podcast that highlights those people who are contributing to and/or supporting the innovation ecosystem in Alberta.

Host: Brigitte Legault leads the Rainforest Alberta movement in Calgary as the Community Manager and also serves the startup community through strategy and growth consulting services. She is passionate about growing the tech sector upon a culture of trust, diversity, and collaboration and activates this work through strategic ecosystem initiatives, learning experiences, storytelling, and community engagement.

Guest: Katie McLean is the founder and CEO of Calgary based Growth Consultancy, TuskHub and the founder and Managing Director of the Angel Network, Women at the Cap Table (WATCT). Katie is a business visionary who sees possibilities in everything. She is a proven leader who not only knows how to build businesses, she knows how to build momentum too. Most comfortable leading organizations with innovative, ground-breaking and disruptive technologies, Katie has built high performing teams around North America by harnessing the power of good people and great ideas. Katie has an extensive network of enterprise relationships from her time working at holy grail brands like Google and working with founding teams of tech startups and scales ups. Her superpower is connecting the right people at the right time and working with purpose-built companies who want to attract the best customers, partners and employees. As a community catalyst Katie has raised over $1 million dollars for Cancer research in Alberta through a charity triathlon. She has served on the board of the Alberta Cancer Foundation for six years and on the advisory board for the Advisory Board member for Graduate Student Professional Development at the University of Alberta. She is a member of the Dean's Circle, Faculty of Science at the University of Calgary. On a personal note she has completed over twelve marathons and three Ironman triathlons and she is the proud mother of four beautiful children.

Please be sure to share this episode with everyone you know. If you are interested in being either a host, a guest, or a sponsor of the show, please reach out. We are published in Google Podcasts and the iTunes store for Apple Podcasts We would be grateful if you could give us a rating as it helps spread the word about the show.

Show Links:

• TuskHub Inc.
• Women at the Cap Table (WATCT)

Show Quotes:

"Those companies aren't built for people with families, you know they really aren't, and so how do we create software companies in the future where it's balanced?  It's about sustainable growth. It's about creating work environments where you can pick up your kid and you can go and work after dinner if you want but that the volume of work isn't so crazy that you can't really have a life. How can we find this balance where we get the best of people over a longer period of time instead of having higher cases of burnout and things like that. That's what we are trying to provide."

Credits...

This Episode Sponsored By: New Idea Machine

Episode Music: Tony Del Degan

Creator & Producer: Al Del Degan