Work was never designed for motherhood.
The complexities of motherhood & work is a core focus area of Kristi’s work: exploring how leadership, systems, and culture must evolve to support working mothers—and why doing so strengthens organizations and the future of work.
What Often Feels Personal is Deeply Systemic.
For generations, work has been designed around assumptions of uninterrupted availability, linear career paths, and leadership norms that leave little room for care. At the same time, caregiving—particularly motherhood—has remained largely invisible in how work (paid and unpaid) is structured, evaluated, and rewarded.
Working mothers didn’t opt into complexity. They inherited it.
The tension many women feel between ambition and care is not a personal failure or a lack of resilience. It is the predictable outcome of systems that were never designed to account for the realities of caregiving, life transitions, and human limits.
Change can only happen when we shift the conversation from an individual ‘problem’ to systemic one.
This isn’t a lifestyle issue. It’s a leadership and systems issue.
Support for working mothers is often framed as a benefit, a personal choice, or advice on how to “work–life balance”. In practice, supporting working mothers goes much deeper than that.
When caregiving realities are ignored or minimized:
Experienced leaders exit at critical moments
Women’s career trajectories narrow during peak leadership years
Trust erodes between employees and organizations
Burnout becomes normalized rather than addressed
When leaders and organizations account for care directly:
Talent is retained through life transitions
Leadership pipelines become more equitable
Decision-making improves under real-world conditions
Cultures become more sustainable over time
This is about designing work that can actually hold the complexity of modern life.
How this focus shows up:
This focus on motherhood and work is a throughline across much of Kristi’s coaching, advisory work, speaking, and teaching. It is not a single program or initiative—it is a leadership lens applied wherever work, care, and change intersect.
It shows up through:
Executive coaching with working mothers and caregivers navigating growth, pressure, and transition
Advisory work with organizations seeking care-inclusive leadership and systems design
Speaking and facilitation for companies, universities, and conferences examining equity, leadership, and the future of work
Teaching and inquiry that explores how policy, culture, and leadership norms shape lived experience
Learning communities where working mothers come together to affect change
Teaching and inquiry:
An instructor at Stanford University, kristi teach a course titled:
Motherhood & Work: Challenges and Opportunities for Positive Change.
The course examines how leadership norms, workplace structures, and social expectations shape the working mother experience—and why understanding that context is essential to creating meaningful change at home, at work, and across society.
This course informs the perspective, questions, and frameworks behind this focus.
Learn more about her Stanford course here→
Why this matters beyond mothers:
While this focus centers working mothers, its implications extend far beyond them.
When organizations design work with care in mind:
Men and non-maternal caregivers gain permission to engage fully
Leadership becomes more realistic and resilient
Teams operate with greater trust and clarity
Performance improves without burnout
Care is not a women’s issue. It is a leadership issue—and a defining challenge of the future of work.
How this connects to Kristi’s broader work:
This focus informs how Kristi approaches leadership, change, and human-centered work across contexts.
It is woven into:
Executive Coaching
Corporate Coaching Retainers
Fractional Advisory
Speaking & Media
Writing and ongoing dialogue
Each of these reflects a commitment to building systems of work that recognize care as a fundamental part of leadership and human life—not a distraction from it.
