Heather Odendaal is an accomplished Canadian entrepreneur, brand builder, and event producer whose experience in corporate environments inspired her to found WNORTH, a global organization dedicated to the development of women mid-career on a trajectory towards senior executive leadership.

Prior to launching her organization, Heather was employed as a sales executive for a Fortune 500 company. There, she noticed the lack of women in senior executive positions, and she decided to take matters into her own hands and launch WNORTH.

What originally started as an annual conference in 2015, WNORTH now connects top female business leaders in corporate, public, and entrepreneurial sectors through The Members’ Club, which provides women with development opportunities, including workshops, leadership masterminds, events, and courses, as well as a virtual forum of over 500 hours of online content. WNORTH also holds Chapter Cities throughout North America and the U.K., where members can network and uplift each other through meet-ups, group exercises, and activities.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, Heather and her team quickly pivoted to create virtual experiences for their members and conference attendees. They are hard at work highlighting and solving the problem of the insufficient support structures in North America for women in the workforce, which was even more pronounced over the last year and a half.