Cynthia Russell

The Harvard University MBA, now 46, set up her own mail-order business in 1991. She worked six years before quitting to care full-time for her children, now ages 11, 13, and 14.

I decided to launch my company the same year that I got pregnant and had my first child. I was 31. I never considered that I would have to make any compromises or sacrifices. I found it overwhelming. I used to do my e-mails at the same time I was breastfeeding. I would take the baby to my office in a basket while I did call processing.

I started to find it really hard to separate one life from the other. I found that by doing both, I was compromising both. When my [second child] turned 2 years old, I looked at her and honestly thought I didn't know her personality very well. I thought, "This isn't what I want." So [eventually] I decided to drop out and stay home with my kids. I had three then. It was devastating to have gone so far, to have successfully notched up the ladder, only to find that I just couldn't do it anymore.

This wasn't something that anybody cared about 10 years ago. Now there's an economic reason to wonder why highly qualified women are dropping out.… There's something wrong here, and I think it's starting to be addressed. People are talking about creating different environments, because flexible time doesn't really solve these issues. As we change from a manual society to a cerebral one, I think there have to be solutions. It's so much more about the structure of the job and the support you get. If you really want to do both, you have to live close to family, and you have to live close to work. You have to be wired in. You have to change so many things. [But] there are pockets of innovation. A few companies are taking this very seriously. Understanding the need is really promising.