An honest, relatable keynote about building a business or career alongside motherhood, from nap-time emails to school-gate strategy calls.
The dominant story about working motherhood is still either heroic (she has it all!) or apologetic (she’s doing her best). Neither is useful, and most women in the room know it within the first sentence.
Motherhood & Momentum is a keynote that takes a different angle: that ambition and motherhood are not in opposition, but they do reshape each other, and the way you build through it matters more than the way you talk about it.
Sally Lovett, founder of Stretching the City and mother of two, built a multi-six-figure consultancy through two pregnancies, two maternity leaves, and over a decade of nursery and school-gate strategy calls.
The keynote covers the boundaries, mindset shifts, structural decisions and quiet practicalities of holding ambition without guilt, and redefining success in the different seasons of life.
What audiences leave with:
- A practical, honest framework for holding ambition alongside motherhood without the guilt loop
- Specific structural decisions (childcare, partnerships, admin, money) that quietly scale or sink momentum
- Permission to redefine success by season instead of by an ideal
- A different mental model for what working motherhood can actually look like
Themes explored:
- Ambition + motherhood as a both/and, not an either/or
- The structural decisions (not the mindset ones) that actually scale momentum
- Why the guilt loop is a productivity tax, and how to get out of it
- Building through different career and life seasons — and changing the metric
- The conversations partners, employers and friends rarely have about working motherhood
- Why the corporate “return-to-work” conversation often misses the actual hard part
- Redefining success when you can’t (or won’t) do everything Money, time, support and the quiet logistics nobody puts in keynotes.
Who this keynote is for:
- International Women’s Day events (especially in sectors with mid-career female attrition)
- Women’s networks, ERGs and parents’ networks
- Leadership programmes with a working-parent focus
- Return-from-maternity programmes and onboarding events Founder communities and women-in-business networks
About Sally Lovett
Sally Lovett is a workplace wellbeing keynote speaker, founder and entrepreneur. She built Stretching the City from a one-woman yoga side hustle into a multi-six-figure workplace wellbeing consultancy – working with 350+ organisations including Amazon, the Cabinet Office, Universal Music, Soho House and Accenture, without external investment, a PR agency, or a business plan.
She did it whilst raising two sons, navigating the messy chaos of family life and figuring it out as she went.
Her talks are evidence-based, commercially grounded, and full of the kind of insight that only comes from actually building something — not from a business school case study.
Contributor: The Guardian · The Times · Condé Nast Traveller
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Motherhood & Momentum Keynote: FAQs
Is this only for mothers?
No. The audience that gets the most from it tends to be mothers, but the keynote is built for mixed audiences — including line managers, partners, leaders without children of their own, and anyone in a culture-setting role. The structural arguments apply regardless of personal circumstance.
Is the talk only for working mothers in corporate roles?
No. Sally speaks from a founder’s perspective — building a business while raising children — and the framework applies equally to corporate careers, self-employment, and the in-between. The keynote can be tailored to your audience’s specific working arrangement.
Is this keynote suitable for return-from-maternity programmes?
Yes — it works particularly well as a candid, encouraging session at the start of a return-to-work pathway, and is often used to bookend more practical sessions on flex working, manager support and progression.
How honest is it about the hard parts?
Very. The keynote names the things most “working mother” content sanitises — guilt loops, identity loss, the cost of childcare, partner negotiations, the boring logistics. Sally’s tone is warm but unflinching.
BOOK SALLY FOR YOUR NEXT EVENT
Sally personally reads every enquiry and replies within 2 working days. For urgent enquiries: sally@stretchingthecity.com.
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