Jennifer Zeszut

Business leader, Change Agent, Entrepreneur, Foodie, Parent, World traveler

I am so sick of hearing it: “You poor thing. You have so much going on.” “How do you do it? You must be exhausted.” “I can’t believe you take on so much – why do you do this to yourself?” Why doesn’t my husband get this from people? While not a CEO, he has a high-powered, full-time job. He has two young children at home too, with another on the way. Not every day, but he also commutes 80 miles each way to San Francisco from our rural ranch in Santa Cruz. He also chose to get a new puppy and to take on the middle-of the night pee breaks. He has to somehow find time to exercise, manage nanny schedules, read interesting books that fill his soul and stay deeply connected to his spouse. So why am I the one who is either totally crazy or utterly remarkable? Because, as a woman, I am expected to choose between family and career. I am judged for my choices, while he is not. My recent announcement about baby #3 on the way was met with much concern. Most assumed it was an accidental pregnancy. “Poor thing.” When I tell them that, on the contrary, we have always wanted a third baby and are absolutely thrilled, the questioning usually shifts back to the topic of my sanity. “Why do you do this to yourself?” I do it all because I can. I do it all because I love, and am good at, it all. I love being a mom, and I have happy, thriving kids. I am a great wife and partner to Sam. I love Scout Labs, the company I founded. I leading a team and I am a great CEO. I love kick-boxing and swimming. I love the peace of living in the country, and I love the stimulation of working in the city, so I drive. I am even a great dog-trainer. So why wouldn’t I choose to have it all? Why is that so crazy or remarkable? Love is infinite. Passion is infinite. But time is not. And that is indeed the hardest part about the life I have chosen – the constraint of 24 hours in a day and the need to sleep for a few of them (thank goodness I only need a few!). That is where choices must be made. It means trade-offs of time and it means settling for “pretty damn good” at many things rather than “the best ever” at one thing. But I’m at peace with that. In my 20’s there were no choices to be made – I prioritized career and spent all my time nurturing it. Now, in my 30’s, my definition of success is how whole I can be. How much I can integrate. How true to myself I can be. I am not free of regrets. I see the emails about Parents’ Book Club that meets on Thursdays at noon before kids get picked up from school. Forget book club – I never pick my kids up from school. Other families take off for long summer trips. My PTO is reserved for only the most sacred of events: bad first-grade school play performances and birthday circle celebrations at pre-school. And I couldn’t possibly do this alone – I have an amazing husband who gets to work from home 3 days per week and therefore be there for the kids more often. We also enjoy an extensive and incredibly available family network who all live in our same town. It is most certainly tiring. I am weary quite often. But when I think about the difficulties of the moment, I consider giving any one of these things up – my career, my family, my sanctuary that is my home. It would be like living without a critical body part. Living unhinged. So I press on. And while I must make tough decisions about how I spend my time, my passions are not compartmentalized. I work most every weekend day, but typically from a quilt in the middle of our meadow, with my kids and a puppy and tea-party dishes all around me. And I will often work in SF 2-days straight, not even coming home in between. But after a morning board of directors’ meeting and short day with my team, I meet Sam and the kids and we head to a 4pm Cirque du Soleil performance, followed by ice skating in Union Square. If I had no family and no life, Scout Labs would probably get a bit more quantity, but they would not get the quality. My kids inspire me to be a more out of the box thinker and certainly make me a more effective leader of people and mobilizer of forces. Like any limits, my time constraints fuel creativity and necessitate delegation. Similarly, my kids get fewer hours per week with me than if I were a stay-at-home mom, but they are so lucky to have a mommy who is happy every day because she has found her calling. My son, Rowan, asked me the other day if I love running my company as much as he loves building train tracks. I answered without hesitation: YES. He instantly understood my long days and weekend working marathons. I was instantly reminded. Call me crazy. I choose to have it all.

My husband who I've been crazy-in-love-with every day since I was 19 Fiona (7), Rowan (5) and the "the bump" Scout Labs and my amazing team Living in nature Integrating all the parts of myself

Fewer than 4% of VC-backed companies are led by women. Why? I believe that VCs are pattern recognizers. They look for businesses / leaders / styles that have worked before and they want to replicate it. We need more female leader role models!

To be written...

Making breakfast (homemade cinnamon rolls, doughnuts, frittatas with herb sauce...) Making blanket forts Swimming (backstroke and butterfly) Kickboxing Telling stories Writing love notes