Page 10 - CCCA 239285 Magazine_Fall 2015

{ ProFiLe }

Pr ac t ising t He Busines s oF
LAW

Paula Pepin gave up on law 10 years ago. at age 26, she was done.
Business, she believed, might be more her speed. and an MBa

earned at the university of Ottawa was her ticket to a new career.

By Michael Dempster

t says. “I wanted out of law.” keep women in leadership positions and
“ hat was to be the transition,” Pepin It can be demanding. The struggle to

in law, especially private practice, is well
Little did she envision in the de-
cade to come how she would fnd herself documented, Pepin says. As a youngster
aboard two hyper-growth organizations she saw frst-hand the pressures working
that would reignite her love for the legal moms can face.
profession. Pepin grew up in Hull, Quebec, an only
A rocket ship is how Pepin describes child in a single-parent family. Monic
Hootsuite, the Vancouver-based com- Pepin worked three jobs so her daugh-
pany where she serves as GC. Hootsuite ter could attend the best schools. While
is a platform for managing social me- mother and daughter did have “amazing
dia. Launched in 2008, it has grown to times,” Monic could not be as present as
nearly 1,000 employees, spreading across much as she wanted and constantly urged
10 cities, including San Francisco, Lon- her French-speaking daughter to study
don, Singapore and Sao Paulo. “A year in hard in order to fnd a good career.
Hootsuite’s life is like 10 years in real life,” “It was important to her that I would
says Pepin, explaining its speed of growth. have fexibility, time for family, because
She joined the company in 2012, frst in a she didn’t have those options,” Pepin
part-time role and now oversees an expert says. Today, although it’s not always per-
team of four lawyers. fect, she’s fnding work-life equilibrium
While that’s busy enough, she’s also through different strategies.
raising a family. Three-year-old Maxim, It’s a balancing act that begins at
and Olivier, born last November, make breakfast. “I typically block off time in
everyday life fy by. the early morning so I’m not rushing out

10 CCCa MaGazIne | FaLL 2015 auTOMne