Sarah Baldeo says she knew it was time to make a career change when ‘I started to question the definition of success I was raised on.’Supplied
Sarah Baldeo inherited a roadmap for achieving the Canadian dream. Just as she was about to achieve it, she decided to chart a different path.
A few years ago, Ms. Baldeo, 39, was juggling a demanding job, her own entrepreneurial venture, multiple board appointments and business school, while raising her son on her own.
Now, the consultant, speaker, entrepreneur and neurotechnologist splits her time between Toronto, Miami and Chicago, building her business, her personal brand and her public speaking profile, while also prioritizing time for her 14-year-old son and new husband.
In this series, Reimagining Wealth, we explore the evolving definition of wealth in today’s world.
Here’s what Ms. Baldeo discovered about herself as she transitioned from a life of pleasing others to one that prioritized her own needs, passions and interests.
What were your professional ambitions growing up?
My parents are immigrants from Jamaica and South America, and they had very specific goals in moving to Canada, so I grew up with this idea of going to school, getting an education, getting a graduate degree, making six figures, working to 65, retiring and collecting a pension. That was the definition of success.
So, I studied neuroscience, then pivoted to being an artificial intelligence architect at major consulting firms. I was always going after that next title. I was on a partner track at a big accounting firm – the very definition of Canadian success – but I was working 80 to 90 hours a week.
As I approach 40, I’ve found through my journey of education and that gruelling climb up the corporate ladder that I had to pivot my thinking in terms of how I valued my time.
What did you want to do with your time?
I really didn’t have time for anything I enjoyed doing. I couldn’t travel, I couldn’t show up to my kid’s concerts at school, I couldn’t live in multiple cities, I couldn’t focus on building my own business or my personal brand. That’s when I started to question the definition of success I was raised on.
Were you always entrepreneurial?
I started my first business when I was 19, and for the past 20 years I’ve always had my own company. In total, I’ve had six companies and two exits. I always wanted to build generational wealth, and I don’t mean just the bank account, but the experiences that my child and my partner are going to inherit from the time that they spent with me.
Ms. Baldeo and her son in Amsterdam in 2023.Supplied
When did you quit your corporate job?
It was May 2020, right in the thick of COVID. I was a chief compliance officer at a very large insurance company, and they offered me a raise and all these bells and whistles, and I said, ‘No, I’m leaving.’ Doing that during COVID was the biggest risk I’ve taken in my life, and it was really difficult, because I was not expecting a two-year lockdown at the time, which negatively affected my business.
I ended up going back into corporate as an executive director working on digital identity, but I still had my business. Finally in 2023, I said, ‘I’m done; no more juggling entrepreneurship, corporate board roles, and being a mom.’
Why was that the breaking point?
In 2022 I had eight board roles, I had my job, I had my company, I had my kid, I was finishing up my executive MBA, and there was no time to sit still and do anything. There wasn’t even time to sleep. Honestly, I would sleep two or three hours a night, because I was working with clients in Dubai or Singapore.
So, [the breaking point] was twofold; one was, ‘Why am I spending all my time building something that someone else owns?’ And then, very transparently, there was a lot of pushback from these large corporations for me being a keynote speaker, a TED speaker, doing frequent media appearances. There was a lot of, ‘How can you be the face of our company if this is what you’re doing in your spare time?’
Now, you are CEO of your own consultancy, ID Quotient Advisory, and an international speaker. What is life like now?
I now live in three cities – Miami, Chicago and Toronto – and last year I took 27 flights, which was awesome. I love the adventure.
My son, who is 14, travels with me often. So far, he’s come with me for work to more than 20 countries. Typically, during work travel, he knows I might be attending meetings or giving a keynote. He’s even attended conferences with me. [When he can’t travel with me], my son stays with my best friend or his grandparents.
To me, the traditional path is about saying ‘yes’ to everything. When you build a non-traditional life, you can say, ‘no,’ as in, ‘I don’t want to be in Chicago next month because it’s the coldest month of the year, and that’s going to make me miserable, so I’m going to go to Malaysia to do some consulting work in the Asia Pacific.’
Yesterday my son decided he wanted to visit the famous Rock n’ Roll McDonald’s in Chicago, and I was able to take him for lunch, then in the afternoon I went back to work on some neurotechnological apps for a company in Sweden. Today, I’ll be working on a consulting project for Coca-Cola.
So, instead of waking up every day and going into the same meeting, I get to wake up every day and decide what I want to do and only say, ‘yes,’ when I feel like saying, ‘yes.’
