Petra: Hi, Donna. Thank you so much for being here today sharing your story.

Donna Meyers: My pleasure. I'm happy to be here.

Petra: You're the Senior Vice-President of Risk for Wealth Management. Can you tell me just a little bit about what that involves, and how you've been able to manage the demanding career with all of the pressures that you would have outside of your career?

Donna Meyers: Sure. Thanks, Petra.

Well, the job involves oversight – risk oversight – of our Wealth Management platform. I've been in the job for six weeks now. In terms of my longer career at RBC, which is coming on 25 years, work/family balance has been a key focus of mine. I think the thing is that it's something that changes over the span of a long career. How I've been able to manage it is varied, and I think that one size doesn't fit all; different things are needed at different points in your career. For instance, when my children were very small, I looked carefully at the jobs that I was able to do, and then, as I got older, I was able to change my focus and become a little bit more engaged in work again.

So, I think it really varies depending on where you are, and the key is to be very open and flexible with your manager. I think we're all very lucky we work at an institution that takes work/family balance so seriously and is open to various possibilities.

Petra: Donna, you just mentioned that you made some careful choices about your career when your kids were younger. I find myself in that situation today. I have two small children, and that always comes with a juggle, and there are choices that I'm faced with every day. How do you ensure that, when you make those choices, that the people that are looking out for you understand what your longer term goals are, and that you don't carry I guess what could be called a stigma of being on the Mommy Track or some type of stigma like that?

Donna Meyers: I think that is a great question. I think it behoves all of us to really realize that because people – and this both men and women, it's not just women. I think that's important to realize that it's not just women, and it's often not just children. There may be other wonderful reasons why people want balance in their life – that needing work/life balance doesn't mean that the individual has a lack of commitment to the organization. You can be – and as I was – very, very committed to the Royal Bank, but needing at times in my career jobs or assignments, or, even at one point I took a year leave of absence, to give me the balance I needed.

But, in the long run, I think you get better employees, happier employees, and that's better for all of us in the end – our shareholders, our clients and ourselves.