About Workable Concept

Advising leaders who are building a world where
employees with caregiving responsibilities can thrive.
But why?

Heather Ainsworth, CEO and Founder, has been on the front lines of building workplaces that are inclusive of parents and caregivers for over 20 years. She created the Client Services team for the Employer Sponsored Child Care division of Knowledge Learning Corporation (now KinderCare Education at Work), where her team managed child care benefit solutions for Fortune 1000 employers. As a member of the global senior leadership team at Intrax, Heather managed AuPairCare to become one of the largest au pair agencies in the U.S., engineered the turnaround and sale of a nationwide chain of ESL schools to Stafford House, and managed an early childhood education franchisor business to over 100 franchisees nationwide.  To pursue her passion for the intersection of caregiving and gender equity in the workplace, she served as Chief Operating Officer of The Representation Project, a national non-profit dedicated to reducing the threat of gender stereotypes. During her tenure, the organization worked with a wide range of employers including Harry's, Unilever, StubHub, Spotify, AT&T and Ellevate Network.

Heather has worked with a wide variety of clients, including AARP, Cambridge Education Group, Bay Area Discovery Museum, and Children’s Creative Learning Centers. She has also served as Advisor for Kinside, a child care benefits company, and on the Advisory Body of Build Up!, an initiative of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and San Mateo County to increase the supply of affordable, quality childcare in Silicon Valley. She enjoys engaging audiences at speaking engagements, most recently at the Watermark Conference, for Stanford University alumni, Ellevate Network, Professional BusinessWomen of California and on the Working Mother's Mentor podcast.

She holds an AB from Duke University and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and children. For more details on her background, see https://www.linkedin.com/in/heatherainsworth/

Professional credentials aside, what inspires Heather to focus her consulting on making work work for employers and employees who have people they care for at home? 

First, find Ann in this photo of the medical school class of 1969 at Washington University. She was one of three women in her class, worked full-time in academic and private medicine, and raised three kids single-handedly in an era where childcare didn't exist because moms showed up at school pick-up in a wood-paneled station wagon.  (Ask Heather about the taxi that picked her up from kindergarten every day.) Eventually, the kids moved out...and then her 93-year-old mother moved in. 

Second, there's Mark.  He was among the first to use California's paid family leave benefit back in 2005, and had to explain it to his HR team. He saw first hand that caregiver bias hits men too, but has had 16 years of parenthood to prove that dads who take their full family leave turn in to dads who are deeply connected to their kids and who are truly equal parents.

Finally, there are the hundreds of employees on Heather's teams over the years, who proved that

you can launch new businesses, turn-around failing ones, and nail your P&L goals while still creating room for people to take care of those they love.