Hi, I’m Allison Venditti, and this is the Moms at Work podcast. I’ve been an HR professional and a career coach for over a decade, and our team has helped thousands of women grow their careers. So whether you’re burnt out, underpaid, or just plain fed up, this podcast is here to fuel your fire, connect you to our movement, and help you take your career to the next level.

In this episode, I’m going to tell my story. People always ask me how I started Moms at Work, how I grew it, what the decision-making process was, how we keep at it, and what’s next.

There really weren’t many decision-making processes involved. I’m going to start from the beginning, move through some of the more boring parts fairly quickly, and get into the energy and idea behind Moms at Work.

To start: shockingly, in my 20s, I never thought, “Hey, I should start an organization called Moms at Work.”

I went to the University of Toronto and studied history and classics. I played Greek and Latin Scrabble. I had zero intention of doing anything other than studying art history and figuring it out later. Of course, by the time I graduated, I realized I wasn’t going to get a job unless someone needed their menu translated into Greek.

So I did what any normal 24-year-old did back in the day: I went to the career counseling office at my university and flipped through binders—literal binders—of jobs and careers. I had about half an hour because I had to go to work. I landed on human resources and brought the brochure to my boss at the community centre where I was running kids’ programs.

She said, “Oh yeah, you already do this. You run payroll, you hire people, you fire people. You’d probably be good at that.” And she was right.

I took a year-long program in human resources and loved the parts everyone else hated. I fell in love with health and safety and disability management—no one ever says, “Yes, I love health and safety training,” but that’s what lit me up.

When I graduated, my mom—who had cancer when I was 13 and had recovered—got sick again. She always told me, “Don’t worry until I tell you to worry.” As I was graduating, she called and said, “Now it’s time to worry. You need to come home. I’ve got six months.”

I moved home in May. She passed away in October.

During that time, I got my first real HR job at a community healthcare centre, and I loved it. But I wasn’t happy living outside Toronto, so I eventually moved back and went into consulting—which I also loved.

I want to be really clear: I never had one of those “I hate my job, I need to do something else” moments. I would still be doing HR if life hadn’t happened.

In my twenties, I lost my mom, all my grandparents, and my father-in-law. That level of loss fundamentally changed how I saw life. When you watch people die in their early 50s, life doesn’t feel endless anymore. My partner and I were the only people we knew in our twenties who had a will—and honestly, shout-out to anyone who hasn’t done one yet. It’s probably a good idea.

Then we decided to have kids.

I have three boys. The first time I got pregnant, I was excited and fully intended to go back to work. But my child had high medical needs—endless appointments and emergencies—and work became incredibly hard.

My first two kids are two years apart. After my second, my oldest’s medical needs worsened. I asked my boss to go part-time and work from home so I could reach daycare within 10 minutes for emergency medication. This was not my career plan—and I know it wasn’t part of many other moms’ plans either.

No one puts “high medical needs child” in the baby books. No one talks about career planning while navigating SickKids appointments. I’ve been through those hallways hundreds of times. Huge shout-out to immunology—but it wasn’t part of the plan.

At this point, my kids were three and one. We were in the thick of it. One morning, my three-year-old jumped into my bed, flung his head back, and hit me so hard that he caused a major traumatic brain injury.

At 33, I suffered a TBI. I’d had eight prior concussions from competitive sports, and this was the one that tipped everything. He cracked my cheekbone. Half my face was bruised. I was off work for almost three years.

I lost the ability to read. I developed a seizure disorder. The left half of my body stopped cooperating.

At 33, with a three- and one-year-old, I was told:

1. I’d likely never recover and was approved quickly for long-term disability.

2. I couldn’t pick up my children due to seizure risk.

3. I’d probably never read again.

I spent nearly two years in full-time rehab. I relearned to read using Frog and Toad books alongside my four-year-old. I hate those books, by the way.

My goals were small: pick things up with my left hand, read short sentences, cook a meal. I lost most of my executive functioning. Shout-out to the friends who stuck around—and to my husband, who raised two kids, kept his career going, and supported a wife with a brain injury.

Moms at Work still wasn’t on the table.

Eventually, my insurance company offered a payout. A work assessment said I could never work full-time again—maybe six to eight hours a week. Not exactly a glowing endorsement for entrepreneurship.

I reached out to former consulting clients. I was honest about my limits. Three out of four offered part-time work. One asked me to do one-on-one coaching. All the clients were women. Then women with kids.

That was the beginning.

I moved fully into career coaching. No website. No social media. My first site—CareerLove—was truly terrible. But it existed, and that was enough.

I noticed something important: my male clients got jobs through their networks. Tennis games. Hackathons. Friends of friends. They weren’t applying online. My women clients—especially mothers—had no time and no access to those networks.

Then I was invited to speak at an unpaid event scheduled from 5–7 p.m. on a Wednesday. I said I couldn’t attend because of daycare pickup. Someone asked, “Don’t you have a nanny?”

That was the moment.

I went home and thought: What if we built a network for moms? We organize everything else—schools, camps, councils. Why not careers?

So I opened a Facebook group. Moms at Work wasn’t a clever name—it was the only one available.

From day one, I had three pillars:

1. We show up for each other.

2. No tearing women down.

3. This space is for women without endless support.

No sponsorships. No selling diaper cream. Just community.

Eventually, I launched a six-month collective with 60 women. They wouldn’t leave. I launched another. They wouldn’t leave either. That became The Moms at Work Collective.

In 2020, I got pregnant with my third child. Then the pandemic hit. I lost all contracts and clients—except the collective.

That community kept me going.

During the pandemic, I did over 200 media interviews, grew the Facebook group to over 20,000, and stepped fully into advocacy. Moms at Work came out swinging.

Eventually, others joined me—Collette Abbott in PR, then Shafina, who’s still part of the community. Women took a chance on this idea.

Today, Moms at Work employs four part-time women. We work four days a week. We close for school breaks. We take real time off. I took five weeks off one summer—and everything still worked.

Moms at Work is an act of advocacy.

There was no big “aha” moment. Just a series of small chances I kept stepping into anyway.

Now, Moms at Work is Canada’s largest advocacy group for working mothers. And if you’re thinking about starting something—anything—I want you to know: I believe in you.

I didn’t have anyone telling me that. Maybe if I had, this would have happened sooner.

I’m Allison Venditti, reminding you that you’re doing a good job.