How Identity Has Influenced a CEO at IRR Investments' Career

As someone who identifies as a single mom, how has that impacted how you've navigated your career? I didn't start out as a single mom, but I think being a working mom is really challenging. I kind of grew up in that era from Sheryl Sandberg who said, "Lena, and you can do it all." I really subscribed to that theory until I realized you cannot do it all.

It's literally impossible. You have to pick and choose. From personal experience and experience with my friends, you just can't go all in on one thing and expect the other thing to also be operating at a hundred percent.

So for me, when I had my first daughter, I was working as a CFO at the time, and it was extremely demanding, with 14-hour days. After a few months back from maternity leave, I realized I couldn't do that anymore. That wasn't really how I wanted to raise my kids.

I took a step back, and it was hard. That was a really humbling experience; it was a big ego blow. I felt like I'd worked all these years to get to this level and now I'm giving it up. But I had to take a 50,000-foot view and realize this is just a small chapter in the grand scheme of my life, and that's okay.

I found a position that was more flexible, allowed for some hybrid work, and just wasn't as demanding. That was what I needed at that time. So, really know what you need at that time. Never take your eye off the ball, but what do you need at that time? It's going to serve you in the best possible way.

I then worked in a variety of roles that still had some flexibility. I also started to navigate more into medium and small businesses, because that was my goal and where I wanted to go. I was always very upfront about the fact that I was a working mom. It's the reality, and I don't think it's anything I need to hide.

Obviously, I am now a single mom, and that is challenging. But when I was asked about a typical day, I don't have one. For me, it's about finding efficiency and leveraging that as much as I possibly can because you can't get it all done.

What are those top three things you need to get done? Leave a little time for the fires you need to put out and the urgent items. Then I try to spend time with my kids. My kids are in the car a lot when I'm on calls. I'm muting and telling them to be quiet, but they actually absorb and learn a lot.

They are little sponges and will always emulate their parents. So I think it's actually an advantage when they can hear me talk, hear me say things, and hear responses from other people. They learn a lot from that.

As far as how it's navigated my career, if I didn't have kids, it would have probably been a straight shot to the top. But I had children, so I had to twist, turn, pivot, and move. I had to be okay with that and check myself. As a very young person who was super ambitious and eager to succeed, that's really hard to do while raising a family the way I wanted.

So I was okay with those twists and turns. Also, knowing that you can kind of do it all, it's just maybe not going to look the way you thought. And that's okay. I think that would probably be what has impacted my career the most.

But it has also opened up a lot of doors for me and helped me navigate my career. I've met people I wouldn't have met otherwise, and they've had significant impacts on my career. I always believe everything is going to work out and work out in your favor. As long as you believe that, you're going to be just fine.