
HONEST CONVERSATIONS
WITH LEADING WOMEN
The Honest Talk is Canada's leading podcast for professional women who are looking for more – out of themselves, out of their businesses and elected leaders, and out of the world around them.
At The Honest Talk, we interview North America’s most influential and inspiring women.
Our guests are famous TV hosts and journalists, entrepreneurs and business leaders, and politicians.
We engage in real, honest conversations about the experiences, challenges, aspirations, and lessons shared by our amazing guests. We create a forum that leaves women feeling connected, inspired, and motivated in their careers and personal lives.
EPISODE 62: Lieutenant-Colonel Melanie Lake is one of the most public-facing women in the Canadian Armed Forces. Melanie
trained the Ukrainian army right before the Russian invasion as Task Force Commander of Operation UNIFIER, and she joins Jennifer and Catherine to talk about her experience as a woman in the Armed Forces and her decision to go to Ukraine when her daughter was only 5 months old. Melanie is honest about how she feels trying to manage all
aspects of her life, including the fact that – like many women - she doesn’t believe there is such a thing as work-life
balance.
Melanie also discusses her childhood, her parents, and her mom’s reaction to her first deployment to Afghanistan (spoiler alert: her mom offered her retirement severance pay if Melanie would stay home). It is a powerful conversation with a mom, wife and ranking military officer who knows firsthand the sacrifices of the men, women and families of Canada’s Armed Forces, and we hope you’ll find it as engaging and important a conversation as we did.