My fearless friends I'm excited to introduce you to another remarkable person who is breaking barriers and soaring higher. 

Today’s guest is the unstoppable Brenda Allen. She is the Chief People Officer at De Havilland Aircraft of Canada Limited. Rugged. Reliable. Canadian. That’s De Havilland. The company has a passionate team of innovators based at their facilities in Canada and a global network of support via their seasoned experts, De Havilland proudly carries on its tradition as a leader in aviation since 1928. Brenda Allen has had a fascinating career in many different industries before her current role so she has a unique perspective and tons of practical wisdom. 

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For many of us, watching TV is an ideal escape from the everyday…especially kids;

The Zone is a beloved after-school TV program on the Canadian television channel YTV. It currently airs between 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm. I’m joined by Spencer Litzinger and Melony Manikavasagar two of the hosts of this fun tv show.  

Spencer is always trying to put a smile on your face with her larger-than-life funny personality! She’s from Toronto and completed her post-secondary education at Humber College. She’s been hosting The Zone for nearly five years! She’s also a proud dog mom to her puppy, Scruffy. A perfect day for Spencer is any day spent with her friends, laughing and dancing. Spencer can often be found posting her daily adventures on her Instagram stories and TikToks, that's one of her favourite hobbies!

From Brampton, Ont. Melony has over three years of experience in live broadcasting and on-air hosting. She’s currently working towards her Bachelor of Arts in Media Production at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University) specializing in radio broadcasting and film/television. While completing her studies, Melony has had the opportunity to engage her creative spirit by working as an on-air radio host and editor for CJRU 1280 AM. The multitalented all-star has also worked as a background actor, interviewer, editor and director. In her free time, Melony enjoys playing the piano, drawing, writing poems and treating herself to pizza. As a South Asian female, Melony is excited for the opportunity to continue representing people of colour on YTV and inspiring positive connections through TV and pop-culture content.

Listen until 11:30 to hear Spencer talk about facing her fears.  

“ I have to face my fears. I have to stay on top of taking care of myself, going to therapy, checking in with how I'm feeling, and it's really like realizing it's okay. Like it's okay to have a bad day. It was just those bad days back then were so intense and so long that there's this big fear around feeling sad again. So it's just like relearning to, face the fear. It's okay to feel sad some days. It's not the end of the world. Check in with yourself, take care of yourself, and also like be grateful that you can feel emotions.”

Check out the book! - Fearless: Girls with Dreams, Women with Vision

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I'm excited to introduce you to someone making the world a better place…this time through her creativity with pen and paper. Today, I’m joined by award-winning Canadian author Ashley Spires, who has just recently released a children's book called The Most Magnificent Idea. It's the sequel to The Most Magnificent Thing. It's also being adapted into a television series called Millie Magnificent. 

Listen until 01:58 to hear Ashley talk about the inspiration for her first book!

“ I tried to change the beginning, the middle of the end, the plot, all the bits and nothing was working, and I did the most dignified thing I could think of, which was laid down on the floor and cried and wanted to quit because I realized that's a very important part of the creative process. I also realized it's something that we all feel, we all feel like this, especially children.

So once I came out of that very undignified moment of falling apart and quitting, Figuring my career plateaued. I realized that that was the story. That was the story I needed to tell”

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Dr. Jasmine Mah is a physician and researcher who is passionate about healthcare for older adults. She holds an MD from the University of Ottawa, an MSc from the London School of Economics and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Dalhousie University.

Jasmine’s research on social vulnerability, frailty and aging has been nationally recognized as a recipient of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Scholarship, Killam Scholarship, and a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Award. Among her honours, she is the elected co-chair of the Canadian Resident Geriatrics Interest Group and winner of Dalhousie University’s Three Minute Thesis Competition. She is also the co-founder of Let Science Connect, a social enterprise bridging academia to society through effective science communication.

Check out the book! - Fearless: Girls with Dreams, Women with Vision

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Prativa is the co-founder of Let Science Connect, an initiative aimed to restore trust in the scientific process by bridging science communication gaps between academia and the rest of the world. She is also an epidemiologist, operating at the intersection of global health and policy, and a Ph.D. candidate at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, investigating methods in health systems strengthening, particularly in the context of crises.  

She has served as a global health consultant and expert advisory committee member for various international agencies including the UN, the WHO, the GPMB, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the World Bank, with a special focus on institutional design for global health governance, monitoring efforts to better understand drivers of risk of health emergencies, as well as health systems resilience & service delivery during periods of shocks. Previously, she advised the Government of Canada in designing and drafting the country's first comprehensive global health research strategic plan.

Her commitment to working with groups facing vulnerable conditions emerged through her work with the refugee resettlement program in Québec, where she acted as a point of contact between a wide range of Canadian ministries, local community partners, and refugee families across Québec.

In 2018, she was selected to be a Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum, and in 2021, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Prativa is a graduate of McGill University’s Faculty of Science and has received a Master’s in Public Health in Infectious Disease Epidemiology from Columbia University as a Merit Scholar Recipient. She is also a Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholar (2021) as well as a recipient of the Canadian Institutes for Health Research’s Doctoral Foreign Study Award among other distinctions. Most recently, she served as the Canadian head delegate for the G7 Youth summit in Berlin, Germany (2022), and the sole Canadian representative as part of the Global Shapers delegation of young community leaders to the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos (2023).  

Fluent in French, English and Nepali, Prativa is a former nationally-ranked chess player. She also regularly appears on CBC and CTV News and other media outlets providing Canadians with practical suggestions and advice regarding COVID-19.

Listen until 06:59 to hear Dr. Baral talk about her experience at Davos and being proud of who you are.

 ”Leadership is something that's been kind of advertised by corporate America, right? And you gotta wear that navy blue suit and speak a certain way and not show compassion or empathy or whatnot. And I think, I hope that our global definition of leadership is changing. And so if I go back next time to Davos, I think I would wear a lot more colours than I did.

So I did wear, you know, a red dress at a certain point and a red blazer at a certain point. But Davos, let me see that you want to stand out. I can't hide the fact that I'm a woman. I can't hide the fact that I'm brown. And so instead of trying to fit the mould and wearing a navy blue suit, which, you know, there's nothing wrong with wearing one, but I would wear something brighter and bolder.

Why would you want to hide your identity or the pieces of you that make you, you just wear the bright colours if that's what you want to wear, and just be because there's no one else like you. Right?”

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A big shout out to our listeners from all around the globe including the USA, UK, Canada, Zimbabwe, Mongolia, Japan, Australia and so many more countries…hello!

Love love love having you join us. I’m thinking about you and hope you’re doing alright out there.

My fearless friends, with so much uncertainty in the world, it’s helpful to hear true, inspiring stories from people who have overcome so much.  

Am excited to welcome my guest today. Maryam Monsef has a fascinating story and so much wisdom to share.  

Let me tell you a little about her from her long and impressive bio.

Maryam Monsef is a globally recognized feminist, leader, and changemaker. And the Founder and CEO of ONWARD - a company supporting leadership development for emerging and existing leaders - with a special focus on women.  

An Afghan-Canadian activist who comes from a long line of strong and resilient women and who, against all odds, escaped war and survived poverty and displacement.  

She rose from refugee to community organizer, to Cabinet Minister where she drove social and economic justice files for the Government of Canada at home and abroad.  

Listen until 29:02 to hear Maryam talk about being shaped by events in her childhood.  

“Throughout my childhood, you know, I have this image of in the evenings everybody huddled around the radio. Waiting for news that the war was over, that it was safe to go home, or it was safe to go outside, and that people who were missing family members who had disappeared were waiting to hear their names on the radio.

So being 10 years old, me feisty, you know, opinionated, encouraged to do big things and to lead was also shaped by and trying to process. This big political stuff that was having real impacts in our lives. So it's a testament to the love and the nurturing that we received from my family and my extended family that we turned out okay.

Because looking back I was like, oh, that must have been a really hard time to be 10.”

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Dr. Vardit Ravitsky is a Professor of Bioethics at the University of Montreal and at Harvard Medical School. She is Immediate Past-President and currently Vice-President of the International Association of Bioethics. She is the Director of Ethics and Health at the Center for Research on Ethics and holds a Research-Creation Chair on the Re-appropriation of Maternity. She is a 2020 Fellow of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and chaired the Foundation’s COVID-19 Impact Committee. She is also a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and of the Hastings Center. 

Listen until 27:27 to hear Vardit talk about growing up and her early curiosity.  

“I grew up in Jerusalem in a very homogeneous orthodox Jewish community. I didn't speak English or French. I could only speak Hebrew. The first time I left the country I was 13, so I had very little exposure to otherness, and I think already at that early age, I was tremendously curious about diversity. How do people live in other countries, other culture, what is it like to speak another language?

What are other people's norms and values and how are they different? I was drawn to diversity before I even knew what it was, or before I could put any content into it.”

Check out the book! - Fearless: Girls with Dreams, Women with Vision

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Well, My fearless listeners, these remain challenging times and our resilience continues to be tested … and tested. Sometimes, It can feel like we’re swimming in an ocean of uncertainty. The future is uncertain but what if I told you you can turn that uncertainty into a competitive advantage? 

My next guest, Ursula Eysin has answers on how to do this. She’s a creative strategist who helps, entrepreneurs, start-ups, and governments do precisely that. To turn uncertainty into an advantage using the scenario thinking method. She’s the CEO and founder of Red Swan Vienna and will help us imagine and create our future. I love the sound of that.

Listen till 11:44 to hear Ursula talk about why people don’t like uncertainty and where that feeling comes from.

“No one likes uncertainty. People hate uncertainty. But actually, we have this basic human uncertainty, which already starts with do other people like me. And that sounds very trivial, but actually, our psychology did not really change in the last thousands of years. So when we were not liked by the group, by the others, in a tribe or in the caves, there was actually a question of life and death.

So we still do have this reaction. So this is our basic uncertainty and it's actually quite frightening. So I would not try to tell people just, uh, give up on certainty because I know we need, in some places, we need some kind of certainty. We need to feel safe.”

Check out the book! - Fearless: Girls with Dreams, Women with Vision

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We need inspiration now more than ever… and I’m excited to introduce you to my next guest. Global citizen and inspiring leader, she has a fascinating story to tell of her life so far.

Welcome to the show, Renée McGowan!  

Let me tell you a little more from Renée’s very impressive bio.

Based in Dubai, Renée is Mercer’s President, Asia Middle East & Africa (AMEA), leading Mercer’s business across 18 markets in this fast-growing, dynamic region. She is also Chairperson of Mercer in Japan, Executive Director on Mercer boards in China and Hong Kong, and Marsh McLennan’s Country Corporate Officer for Hong Kong.

She has helmed businesses in Hong Kong, London, Melbourne, New York, Singapore and Sydney. She is also a regular speaker at major international forums and a contributor to international media, including WEF, The New York Times, The South China Morning Post and CNBC. And won tons of awards including the Humanitarian Overseas Service Medal by the Australian Government for delivering humanitarian services overseas.

Listen till 9:02 to hear Renée talk about one of the hardest but most impactful times in her life when she was an exchange student.  

“You know you’re a teenager you think you’re invisible. But I think it still takes an element of being fearless to make that decision as a teenager to throw yourself into a local town. In central Java, not knowing a word of Indonesian, living with a local family and attending a local school for twelve months. And noting that it was the early nineties, so it was pre-internet. Snail mail took weeks or months, phone calls didn’t work just because of the nature of infrastructure there. So it was probably the hardest period of my life but looking back on it now, probably the most impactful thing I did in my life as well.”

Check out the book! - Fearless: Girls with Dreams, Women with Vision

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Sponsors:

BDC

Lockheed Martin

Export Development Canada

Cynthia Williams is President of Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming at Hasbro. In this role, Cynthia leads the strategy for two of the biggest names in gaming, MAGIC: THE GATHERING and DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, while driving continued global growth for the division and leading new fan and story-led tabletop and digital experiences. She is focused on building and expanding on the outstanding foundation laid by Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks, under whose leadership Wizards of the Coast doubled its revenue from 2018 to 2021.

Cynthia has a deep understanding of technology and e-commerce, along with cloud and console-based gaming, with expertise in scaling businesses to drive profitable growth. She previously served as General Manager and Vice President, Gaming Ecosystem Commercial Team at Microsoft, notably driving the expansion of Xbox Gaming and the acceleration of game-creator growth. Prior to joining Microsoft, Cynthia spent more than a decade at Amazon, where she led the global growth of their e-commerce direct-to-consumer business, Fulfillment by Amazon.

She serves as an advisor to Mana Up Hawaii, a product incubator focused on empowering Hawaiian entrepreneurs to scale globally. Cynthia graduated from Western Carolina University with a B.S. in Business Administration, Summa Cum Laude and received her MBA with Distinction from Wake Forest University.

Listen till 14:39 to hear Cynthia talk about the importance of play and why women should give gaming a try!

“I would encourage women to give gaming a try if they haven’t in the past. Perhaps you thought, when I was growing up my first experience with DUNGEONS & DRAGONS was with a group of guys I knew and they were playing and I asked if I could play and they were like no this isn’t for girls. Well now more than fifty percent of the people who play DUNGEONS & DRAGONS are women and so I would encourage women who maybe thought they weren’t invited to the party to give it a try because it is a terrific way to connect with people, to relieve some stress and to have fun. Play is a human need, it’s not just for children and so I would encourage the women listening to your podcast to spend more time in their life playing.”  

Check out the book! - Fearless: Girls with Dreams, Women with Vision

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Sponsors:

BDC

Lockheed Martin

Export Development Canada

Adrienne Rivera is a Spiritual Business Coach who specializes in teaching healers and coaches how to grow their businesses online. She started her coaching journey as an online fitness + mindset coach, grew it to a 6 figure business, and discovered her passion and talent for business coaching. Adrienne focuses on helping her clients find alignment with their business on a soul level with breathwork. She is the founder of Breath of Gold--a breathwork company that hosts weekly breathwork and also trains breathwork facilitators.

Listen until 7:46 to hear Adrienne talk about finding peace within. 

“With my story of overcoming the eating disorder, I used to feel like food was that thing to fill the void, or food was that thing to give me pleasure. Or even you know dating and relationships was the thing to give me pleasure and shopping or buying new things was the thing to give me pleasure and novelty. When really everything is within ourselves and that is a lesson that comes through almost every single time I do breathwork and it’s a reminder because I think our human selves often forget that it’s all within us.”

Check out the book! - Fearless: Girls with Dreams, Women with Vision

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https://www.adriennerivera.com/

Sponsors:

BDC

Lockheed Martin

Export Development Canada