If you’ve ever wanted a seat at a table that wasn’t available to you, this week’s post might be for you. For a long time, I wanted to feel ownership over something I could shape into my own—a role, a team, an idea. I spent years believing I’d find that within a traditional career. But it wasn’t until I became a mother that I realized I could build my own table—and choose where I sit.

Why I Wanted a New Room (Without Leaving My Career)

Let’s get one thing out of the way first — I love working in tech. LOVE. I don’t use that word lightly. Technology solves some of the world’s greatest challenges and this new era of AI brings with it the possibility of even greater discoveries. It’s fast paced, never boring, and I feel engaged when I go to work each day.

Also, I love working on teams. Interacting with smart people and knowing that I have colleagues to fall back on when I need support engages me in ways that working alone would never satisfy. In addition, like being the person people look to for expertise and support. When I started to feel restless, I knew I didn’t want to leave my job or shift careers. In fact, I am deeply committed to growing inside my company and creating impact with it’s technology. But I also wanted creative expansion — something I could build alongside my adjacent career, something that allowed me to use parts of myself I couldn’t always use at work.

No single job can hold every part of who I am, especially as a working mother. We are multifaceted human beings — my friend Hitha calls it being multi-hyphenates. For years we’ve been told that our careers should encompass all of our desires, interests, and abilities. Or we were told that if our jobs didn’t completely fulfill us, we shouldn’t talk about anything outside of our careers for fear it would compete with our jobs. I disagree with both of those perspectives - I believe our pursuits outside of our jobs can help us even more with the work we do in our careers. The two can be symbiotic, not mutually exclusive.

When I set out to create The Cabro, I didn’t realize I would be building the table I so desperately wanted to sit at. I really just wanted to create a community of other working mothers who wanted to reconcile their deep ambition with their growing love of a child. At work, I wanted agency, control over my ideas and the authority to execute when and where I felt was right. As a new mother, there were insights, experiences, and truths I wanted to share that didn’t have a natural home in my corporate role. At work, I wanted more speaking opportunities, more visibility, and more agency in how I impacted others.

Over time, The Cabro moved from a place where I felt supported as a working mother into the platform for me to embrace, own, and promote as the space to bring more of my voice to the world. I wanted more speaking opportunities, more visibility, and more agency in how my story was told. As more speaking opportunities and writing opportunities presented themselves, I realized I finally had a seat at the table I so desperately wanted. Even more exciting, I created the room and the table and could bring others along with me.

Onstage with Jeanelle Teves and Hitha Palepu at The M Dash by M.M.LaFleur “Women Who Master the Juggle” event in NYC

The Moment I Stopped Waiting and Started Building

The biggest shift came when I stopped asking how to get into the room—and decided to build the room myself. Being invited to speak at M.M. LaFleur’s Women Who Master the Juggle talk was a turning point. Sitting alongside Hitha Palepu and Jeanelle Teaves,