Moving from Quiet Resilience to Active Disruption

Introducing Jodee McCallum, RSP Progress Pillar Lead

At Ready. Set. Pivot. we don’t hand leadership to people who simply care. We hand it to women who are willing to challenge systems, push boundaries, and lead with both conviction and courage.

Because let’s be honest: a Pillar Leader at RSP cannot be passive. She must be fierce in all the right ways—strategic, outspoken, values-driven, and entirely unwilling to accept “that’s just how it’s always been done” as an answer.

That is exactly why we are proud to announce Jodee McCallum as the 2026 lead of the Progress Pillar. Jodee brings the kind of leadership this work demands:deep expertise, lived experience, and a refusal to stay silent in the face of broken systems. Her career has spanned law, entrepreneurship, executive HR, DEIB leadership, and executive coaching—all rooted in one relentless truth: systems were not built with women in mind, and they will not change unless we force them to.

Jodee doesn’t believe resilience alone is the goal. She believes disruption is.

Under her leadership, the Progress Pillar will challenge us to move beyond quietly surviving inequity and into actively dismantling it. Here’s Jodee and the Progress Pillar, in her own words:

The Progress Pillar by Jodee

For too long, women have been praised for our resilience. We are celebrated for our ability to quietly navigate and endure systems that were never built for us and certainly do not serve us. I am no longer interested in how much we can endure. I am interested in how much we can change the systems.

When Wendy created the Progress Pillar earlier this year, she asked for women who refuse to whisper about the issues that impact us to step forward. It resonated with me, so I did.

The Path to Disruption

My professional journey has been a long-form study of these broken systems. I was a lawyer in my thirties with small children in tow. I navigated a legal industry that was not built for mothers then and has offered too few exceptions since. That experience fueled my transition into full-time entrepreneurship. I built a midsize company rooted in an intentional organizational culture.

Eventually, I stepped exclusively into the executive People & Culture space and focused on the deep interconnectedness of HR and DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging), which together create the foundation of the human experience within organizations. In 2025, I pivoted to executive coaching and consulting to help leaders rebuild the systems I spent decades navigating to be more inclusive, people-centered, and forward thinking.

My commitment to the Progress Pillar is rooted in two of my core values: justice and integrity. I would not be honoring those values if I stayed silent while people are being harmed.

This fight is also deeply personal. I have three adult children who all identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community. I feel the weight of our current political climate every day. The rhetoric coming from our systems of government is a direct attack on bodily autonomy, women’s rights, and the safety of the people I love most. The mainstream acceptance of violence against women has not only persisted, it has intensified.

I am leaning into the power that has grown through four decades of overachieving and excelling in spaces that were not meant for me. It is time to move from quiet resilience to active disruption and I hope to lay that foundation with RSP this year.

Our 2026 Collective Action

Change does not happen because we ask nicely. It happens because we activate our voices and take both individual and collective action. Here is how we begin.

• This Week: We start with an Online Forum. This is a space to build the pillar together by identifying the issues hitting the women in your world the hardest. I will bring my topics to the table. I want your ideas and feedback to help shape our October event and beyond. If you can’t attend, reach out to me at jodee@mindfulexecutivestrategies.com or on LinkedIn. I want to hear from you!

• June 8: Several of us will show up to support pro-choice candidates at the Women Winning MN Annual Luncheon. If you’ve not been able to join the first wave, do so now and meet up with us at the event. Join us here: Women Winning 

• September: We will create Brave Spaces to discuss the realities of violence against women and learn how to use institutional audits to root out harm. These will be conversations intended to activate your voices without the fear of saying the wrong thing. We will follow that dialogue with direct volunteer action at a local women’s organization.

• October: Expect another impactful event based on your input at the May 20th Forum. Again, reach out to me directly if you cannot attend and want to participate. 

  2026 is the year we stop navigating the system and start changing it. I cannot wait to be in collective action with each of you.

  
  

  - Jodee