I first saw Joanna Cameron speak at a Cause We Care charity luncheon several years ago. As a partner at Osler law firm, she was one of the luncheon sponsors and spoke, but not in the way sponsors typically do at these events. She held the room rapt as she told a raw, authentic story of resilience and determination while raising her children single-handedly during her rise in securities law, an area where women are scarce.
Hearing her story again is no less compelling, especially for the insight it offers into how she balanced her fast-paced, all-consuming career with motherhood. Joanna entered corporate law almost by accident. She graduated from law school in 1996, saddled with student loans during an economic contraction in Canada. Jobs were scarce, and she considered herself fortunate to land a position at a firm in Regina, a move she cites as one of the best decisions of her career. While initially drawn to employment law, she was soon tapped to work in corporate finance and securities law, which remains one of the least gender-balanced areas of the legal profession today.
“The barrier isn’t just that it’s male-dominated,” Joanna explained. “The barrier is the hours and the unpredictability.” Still, she was up for the challenge.
Despite some initial imposter syndrome, which Joanna jokes she has a PhD in, she forced herself to speak up in meetings and learned by observing the men around her, gradually adopting a more direct communication style. Early on, she would frame issues or outline discussion structures, but over time, she gained the confidence to offer her own ideas.
Although she was one of the very few women in the field, Joanna thrived during her first decade in the profession. She worked tirelessly and made great strides, taking only three and a half months of maternity leave with each of her two children. But life shifted, and she found herself negotiating her future and weighing trade-offs between her career and her personal life. She could no longer work around the clock in mergers and acquisitions in the same way, while raising a six-year-old and an eight-year-old on her own. She remembers mornings after very late nights with papers everywhere and then trying to work from the sidelines of her children’s activities, snapping in frustration because she could not find a WiFi connection for her laptop.
Unable to continue at the same pace, she became more creative about working within different constraints. To carve out more time for her children, she took her foot off the gas and moved in-house and at a small securities law boutique for several years. During this period, she also pursued an MBA at Rotman. As her children grew older and gained more independence, she eventually landed a partner position at one of the country’s pre-eminent law firms, Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt.
“My MBA was the single best and most important thing I’ve ever done,” Joanna emphasizes, pointing not only to the strength of the education but also to the community she found among her business school peers.
But the challenges did not end. She describes her schedule during that period as ugly, full of all-nighters, sports field studying, and virtually no downtime. Days were filled with full-time work, bond pricing lectures and evenings spent sitting in parking lots with highlighters while her children were at different activities. Reflecting on the challenge of juggling single parenting and a career, and the clarity she found through shifting gears and going back to school, Joanna says simply, “Life can be messy. You just move forward differently.”
Over time, Joanna became more deliberate about the culture she created as a leader, emphasizing psychological safety and strong relationships within her team. She recognizes the performance-oriented environment she works in, one where exceptional results are expected for clients, but she has also learned to make room for people’s humanity and to protect at least some much-needed personal time.
Today, with her children launched, Joanna says she has her foot on the gas again, but with greater purpose. That includes her board work with Cause We Care, where she is deeply moved by the organization’s ability to change the trajectories of the single mothers it serves. “The ask is dignity, security and stability.”
Having navigated her own challenges, Joanna is also acutely aware that her circumstances have been more fortunate than those of many others. Through her board work with Cause We Care, she is able to give back in a way that brings a profound sense of purpose.