Workshop: Renae Barlow – Second Curve Leadership; Women Navigating Professional Transition

Every woman reaches a point where the identity that built her career no longer matches where she is heading next. This is the second curve: the shift that occurs when experience and capability have outgrown the role, title, or definition a woman has been operating from, whether by choice or by circumstance.
This two-hour workshop gives women a framework for recognizing where they are in that shift, understanding why the middle of it often feels chaotic and undefined, and making clear decisions about what to keep, what to release, and when. The harder question is not whether to change, but how to know when the moment has arrived: when you have learned what a role had to teach you, and what signals that it is time to move on.
Participants will leave with a practical tool for that decision, along with language for a stage of transition that is rarely named and often navigated alone. This is not a session about starting over. It is about recognizing what remains once the titles are set aside and building the next chapter with clarity.

Renae Barlow is the founder of Summit Stream, a principal-led advisory practice for senior leaders and organizations navigating complex transitions in leadership, innovation, and emerging technology adoption.
Her recognition includes Woman of Distinction and a nomination to Canada’s Most Powerful Women Top 100. Her work on second-curve leadership draws on the combination of lived transition and applied practice: the point at which experience and capability outgrow the identity a career was built around, and the discipline required to recognize when it is time to move.