2020 Judge J. Elliott Hudson Award
Eleanor Beaton
Read more about Eleanor Beaton on King’s Community.
It’s hard to imagine any one person could do as much to advance the cause of helping female entrepreneurs and executives get to the table and be heard as Eleanor Beaton, BJ’03, has. But a quick look at her accomplishments and awards tells the story.
Eleanor is an entrepreneur, an author, a women’s leadership development mentor and much sought after speaker. She has presented at top tier conferences attended by such notables as Hillary Rodham Clinton. She’s also an executive coach working with women such as Arlene Dickinson of CBC’s Dragon Den.
Eleanor is also executive producer and host of the podcast Fierce Feminine Leadership: The Success Podcast for Ambitious Women. More than three hundred episodes in, it’s highly ranked on iTunes with over a million downloads.
She has won numerous awards including the Profiles in Diversity “Women Worth Watching” Award for her work promoting diversity and inclusion. Eleanor was named Canada’s Leadership Coach of the Year in the 2017 Corporate Excellence Awards, and was a 2018 winner of the NSBI Export Achievement Award.
Eleanor’s mission is to help women in leadership succeed. She wants women “to stand at the forefront of change”. She says she acquired many of the skills she needs to do that while studying journalism at King’s. But she says she learned how important it is from her mentors.
“I have these incredible women in my life,” Eleanor says proudly. “My mother gave me the understanding that economic empowerment is critical. If we are going to achieve any kind of gender equality in our society you can’t do that without talking about money.”