Nancy Vonk and Janet Kestin made global news in 2005 for standing up to the infamous Neil French (the creative leader of their network at the time) who bluntly declared that female creatives aren’t cut out to be CDs at a Toronto event.
In this excerpt from Darling, You Can’t Do Both (Published by HarperCollins Canada. All rights reserved. ©2014), they share Sabrina Geremia’s story about how she returned from maternity leave poised to keep rising at Google. Today she is managing director, integrated solutions at Google Canada.
In this excerpt from Darling, You Can’t Do Both (Published by HarperCollins Canada. All rights reserved. ©2014), they share Sabrina Geremia’s story about how she returned from maternity leave poised to keep rising at Google.
Fears about how you’ll manage at work—and how your kids will fare without you—are common for women re-entering the workforce after mat leave. Google’s Sabrina Geremia was no different.
As the clock wound down on her eleven-month leave after the birth of her twins, she wrestled with questions like, “What’s going to happen?” “How am I going to handle it with these kids?” “How am I going to develop in my career after all these changes?” But rather than putting off facing her fears until the last moment, Sabrina tackled them while she was on maternity leave.
Three months before she was due back, she scheduled a meeting with her boss. The agenda? His goals. Specifically, Sabrina asked him what his top three business priorities were for the coming year. The hour-long meeting not only helped Sabrina get a handle on what had changed during her time away, it also gave her an opportunity to think proactively about how she fit into the new picture.
The following month—with about four weeks left on her leave—Sabrina scheduled another meeting with her boss. This time, they discussed how Sabrina would play a role in the evolving company.
As a result of that meeting, Sabrina and her boss mapped out two options. One, she could opt for her old job as head of agency relations—a “safe” role she knew and loved. Or, she could go for a newer, bigger job as sector lead, which was more demanding and ultimately, for Sabrina, more exciting.
While Sabrina acknowledges that a leap to a new role on the heels of a mat leave isn’t for everyone, she encourages women to be strategic about how they re-enter after maternity leave. “Having those conversations before you step back into the building is really, really important.”
