‘Attitude of gratitude,’ role models and optimism lay path to success
Lori Atkinson was thrilled when she came upon the opportunity for a senior management role in a global corporation located in Windsor.
Having obtained her BA in Communications from the University of Windsor years before, Atkinson’s fond memories of the region brought her home.
“I feel like my heart had always been here,” says the Toronto native. “It was a natural move.”
As head of Canadian global operations for Sutherland Global Services, Atkinson’s 2014 move was merely one more step in an already illustrious career.
She got her start in marketing, working for a large advertising agency and carrying multiple senior roles in the field. When she branched out on her own, opening her own agency, it would only be five years before her business was so lucrative and successful that a buyer presented her with an offer she couldn’t refuse.
It was 1996, she recalls, and at the time, telecommunications was an industry going through a rapid incline. It was the dawn of the internet, and Atkinson recognized telecommunications as one of the world’s leading industries in growth mode. She took on a position in business development with Bell Mobility, and cut her teeth in the areas of sales and operations, holding numerous senior management roles and becoming a force in the field of technology and telecommunications.
This industry was home to Atkinson for 25 years.
And then the financial services sector called, and Atkinson found herself on a new path once more. Today, she is the regional manager for Libro Credit Union, and leads a dynamic and sophisticated workforce.
As a woman in corporate leadership, with a career spanning three decades, Atkinson says she is proud to have witnessed – and to be a part of – the long and challenging journey of women in the workplace.
“We’re seeing more intention, both on the part of the woman herself and from the employers,” she says. “There’s an intentional focus on diversity, on inclusion. I’ve been seeing that change, and I continue to see that change. I can speak to the employers for whom I’ve worked, who have been leaders in this change – they have respected a work-life balance, a real appreciation for the contributions of women, and they have recognized the importance of having women at the table.”
Atkinson says that it has extended beyond women entering the workforce; they’re being selected to sit in on important conversations, and are being asked to lead.
“I have sat on boards of directors, and it hasn’t always been this way, to see female faces and hear female voices participate,” she says. “Women are now there.”
As for the challenges for young women today, Atkinson suggests a switch in perspective.
“I am what I call a pathological optimist,” she says, “so I’d rather speak to where the opportunities are. We need strong role models and mentors. We need our young women to believe in themselves. Believing in (oneself ) is one thing women are getting better at, but if we want to talk about challenges, that’s it – we’re still refusing to believe that we can do it all and achieve it all.
“We play so many different roles,” Atkinson continues, “and you’ll read sometimes that it’s a case of impostor syndrome, like we feel as though we can’t actually do it, or that we don’t deserve it. “But we do.”
Atkinson admits she has been fortunate in having been supported throughout her career, but is firm in that it is hard work and unbeatable work ethic that will define a woman’s future – especially in traditionally male-dominated spaces.
She recalls a conversation with her daughter, now in her 20s, who in her teens had become disenchanted with effort and joked that she would just marry a wealthy man and never have to worry about being independent.
“I turned on my heel,” Atkinson says with a laugh, “and I said, ‘I didn’t raise you to be that way! You need an education. You need to put in the work. No one will ever be able to take that away.’”
It is this lesson Atkinson shared with her daughter, who’s now a successful entrepreneur in her own right, and the lesson she teaches to every young woman she is honoured to mentor.
“Especially now, during COVID, when we as women are trying even more to be all things – a good mother, a good daughter, a good leader – it’s easy to question ourselves,” continues Atkinson. “I know I question myself every day. But it helps to have an attitude of gratitude, to seek balance, to just try to do good things.
“That’s the secret sauce.”