Tune Up Your Warrior

What does someone living with cancer need beyond cancer treatment? I thought I understood cancer care because my family had lived through cancer. I sat beside my husband through chemotherapy. I knew the fear, the appointments, the uncertainty and the strange way life keeps moving while your entire family feels like it has stopped. But my conversation with Tricia Ross made me realize there was an e...

What do you do with power once an institution gives it to you? Daniel Quan-Watson spent nearly 35 years in public service, eventually becoming the first federal Deputy Minister of Chinese-Canadian ancestry. But this conversation isn't really about titles. It's about what happens when the decisions you make inside a very large institution land in the life of a single human being. Daniel tel...

By the time a workplace problem becomes a legal problem, how long has it actually been a culture problem? Charlene Theodore has spent more than 20 years working at the intersection of law, leadership, workplace culture and institutional change. A lawyer by training, Charlene began her career representing employees and seeing firsthand how deeply work can affect a person's identity, livelihood...

How much of fighting hunger is actually about food? For Part Two with Onome Ako, CEO of Action Against Hunger Canada , we’re going much deeper into that question. Because hunger is rarely caused by one thing. It is connected to conflict, climate, poverty, health, access to clean water and sanitation, agriculture, gender, displacement, economics and politics. And when a problem crosses that many sy...

What exactly are we asking someone to recover into? We often talk about recovery as though treatment is the finish line. But what happens afterward? Where does someone live? Who is waiting for them? What relationships remain? Can they find work? Community? Purpose? Mental health support? A place where they are seen as a whole human being rather than the hardest chapter of their life? In this episo...

Can we love a country and still tell the truth about it? For Dr. Niigaanwewidam Sinclair, understanding Canada requires us to hold more than one truth at the same time. The beauty and the harm. The things worth celebrating and the things we were never properly taught. The country Canada says it is and the people whose histories and contributions have too often been left outside that story. Niigaan...

If Roger Greenberg could change one thing about his career, he would have built a board sooner. After decades of leadership, including more than 20 years as CEO of Minto, that might not be the answer you'd expect. But Roger has experienced governance from almost every angle: as a CEO accountable to a board, a family-business leader, a board member and chair, and through organizations spanning...

What makes a story unforgettable? For Keith Chang, it isn't the biggest production, the fanciest technology or the most recognizable person in the room. It's whether you made someone feel something . Keith has spent more than 30 years doing exactly that. Today, he is President, Canada at SenovvA, but his entrepreneurial story began when he founded Silverpoint Media at just 26 years old. Ov...

When Brian Wong arrived in Calgary from Hong Kong at 17, he thought his English was pretty good. Canada quickly taught him otherwise. Suddenly, Brian was navigating culture shock, language barriers and the complicated experience of trying to find your place in a country that is now supposed to be home. Sport became one of the places where those barriers began to disappear. First through soccer, wh...

What happens to equity when the DEI department disappears? Over the last several years, organizations have changed how they talk about diversity, equity and inclusion. Teams have gotten smaller. Roles have disappeared. Programs have been renamed. In some places, even the language has changed. But who gets hired, promoted, sponsored, heard and given access to opportunity still matters. So if equity...

Five years later, would you still choose the same person? On September 9, 2021, Jenny Chen and Daniel MacMillan got married. Five years, a cancer journey, career changes, entrepreneurship, a growing and changing blended family, and more than a few adventures later, Dan is back for Part Three of Tune Up Your Warrior to open Season 5 on their fifth wedding anniversary. And this time, the conversatio...

In this closing solo episode of Season 4 of Tune Up Your Warrior , Jenny Chen reflects on belonging, what it means, where we find it, and how we learn to create it for ourselves and others. She shares more of her own story, including the experiences that shaped her understanding of identity, visibility, and finding her place in spaces that were not always designed with her in mind. From there, Jen...

What if supplier diversity is not a side initiative, but one of the clearest indicators of whether an organization actually understands growth, innovation and economic resilience? In this episode of Tune Up Your Warrior , Jenny sits down with Cassandra Dorrington , President and CEO of the Canadian Aboriginal and Minority Supplier Council, for a conversation about supplier diversity as a real busi...

What does it actually take to remove barriers for young people? In this episode of Tune Up Your Warrior , Jenny sits down with Adrienne Vienneau, CEO of Christie Lake Kids, an organization that has been supporting children and youth from low-income communities in Ottawa for over 100 years. Through free programming, deep community engagement, and a commitment to meeting families where they are, Chr...

In this episode of Tune Up Your Warrior , I sit down with Brandon, an Ottawa guy who grew up in the suburbs, played sports, went to Carleton, built a career in consulting, and was living a normal life until everything changed in June 2020. While walking into a barbershop in Bayshore, he was caught in a drive-by shooting and hit three times, including a life-threatening injury that severed his femo...

What does it actually take to build women’s professional soccer in Canada from the ground up? In this episode of Tune Up Your Warrior , Jenny sits down with Tom Gilbert , CEO of Ottawa Rapid FC and one of the co-founders behind the Northern Super League , for a conversation about vision, belief, business, and what it takes to build something before the rest of the market fully catches up. Tom shar...

What does it mean to succeed at someone else’s success, not at their expense? In this episode of Tune Up Your Warrior , Jenny sits down with Mike Lipkin : motivator, coach, consultant, entrepreneur, author, and creator of the Potentiator framework, a leadership philosophy built around helping other people perform at their best. Mike has spent decades helping leaders, teams, and organizations think...

This July 1 episode of Tune Up Your Warrior is not a surface-level Canada Day conversation. It is a deeper reflection on humanity, dignity, compassion, and what it means to build systems that do not just function, but actually see people. Jenny sits down with Nadia Ferrara, whom she first met while speaking on a panel together for International Women’s Day on Parliament Hill. What began as an inst...

What does it actually take to change systems, not just conversations? In this episode of Tune Up Your Warrior , Jenny sits down with Barbara Cartwright, CEO of Humane Canada, to explore the intersection of policy, advocacy, and leadership — and why compassion is far more strategic than we give it credit for. Barbara has played a key role in shaping some of Canada’s most significant animal protecti...

In this episode of Tune Up Your Warrior , Jenny sits down with Leslie J. Anderson , a senior financial services leader, 2024 VersaFi Champion of Change , cancer survivor, and someone whose leadership has left a lasting impact on the people around her. VersaFi’s Champions of Change Award recognizes leaders helping advance women in Canadian finance, and Leslie’s recognition reflects the advocacy and...

What if climate action did not have to feel like sacrifice? In this episode of Tune Up Your Warrior , I sit down with Josh Dorfman for a conversation about climate innovation, sustainability, and why the future does not have to be framed as deprivation in order to be meaningful. Josh brings both deep professional credibility and a refreshingly practical lens to this conversation. He has spent year...

In this episode of Tune Up Your Warrior , Jenny sits down with Marc Forgette , an Anishinaabe educator, speaker, and founder of Makatew Workshops . Marc is a proud member of the Apitipi Anicinapek Nation , belongs to the Bear Clan , and is currently learning the language. Through his work with Makatew Workshops, he leads cultural awareness workshops, speaking engagements, and conversations focused...

Expanding the Narrative is a live AAPI Heritage Month panel recorded at STACKT’s Asian Night Market. In this special episode of Tune Up Your Warrior , Jenny Chen is joined by Trevor Lui and Abby Albino for an honest, layered, funny, and thoughtful conversation about identity, belonging, visibility, stereotypes, mental health stigma, representation, and what it means to take up space on our own ter...

In this episode of Tune Up Your Warrior , Jenny sits down with Karen Ta for a thoughtful conversation about intersectionality, identity, and why leadership conversations fall short when they treat women or Asian professionals as a monolith. Karen Ta is passionate about helping those who feel invisible become visible so they can break through doors and ceilings. While she is best known for her role...

On this episode of Tune Up Your Warrior , Jenny sits down with Sarah Chamberlin , communications strategist and founder of Pin Drop Communications . With a background in leading complex communications in high-impact environments, Sarah brings a grounded, real-world perspective on how organizations navigate reputation, leadership, and trust in moments that matter most. This conversation explores: W...