We are founder-managed and member-led.

Our founder, Kate Westlund Tovsen, is actively invested in and involved as the community manager of the group, setting the stage for the connection, education, and unabashed support that are the hallmarks of this special community.

But Kate also has a career that she loves, so she relies on members to help shape the community, which they do through things like participating in our oft-employed emoji polls (🦙🍑💞🤠), dropping a channel rec in our digital “suggestion box,” presenting workshops to the community, or volunteering on our advisory board, a.k.a. “the Glue Crew.”

This is a space that is engaged and active and always changing to reflect the group as it grows.

Our Founder

Kate Westlund Tovsen
Founder & Convener in Chief

Person with long blonde hair and glasses wearing a gray sweater and smiling.

The Society of Working Moms was born shortly after the birth of Kate’s second child. Though on paper Kate knew she was quite well supported, she still felt like she needed more. And she figured she wasn’t the only one.

Taking advantage of a seasonal downturn in her consulting work, she set to work creating the group she wished she had, studying at length how best to build and manage a community, and having virtual coffees with potential partners that also felt strongly about meeting the needs of working moms.

She adores this community of supportive, smart, engaged, powerhouse women and is eager to meet even more!

Our Team

While Kate is on maternity leave during the spring of 2026, the following longtime community members are holding down the SOWM fort!

Carisa Deegan
Interim Community Engagement Manager

Kate Pickett
Interim Event Operations Manager

Our Coaching Partners

Jess Ringgenberg, PCC
SOWM Head of Coaching
Founder and CEO, ELIXR Coaching & Consulting

Jess sitting on a couch with a huge smile; legs crossed and her arms bracing on the couch cushion.

After years in leadership roles within a Fortune 500 company, Jess experienced firsthand the systemic barriers women and mothers face at work. She left corporate life to focus on closing these gaps, blending science-backed frameworks with research in neuroscience, positive psychology, and matrescence—the transformational identity shift into motherhood. She lives in Dallas, TX, with her husband and two pre-teen boys.

Kelly Ling, ACC
SOWM Coach-in-Residence
Founder, Stork & Spark

Smiling woman with dark brown hair, wearing a navy and white striped shirt, in an indoor setting with blurred lights in the background.

Kelly is an executive coach who supports ambitious, expectant parents as they navigate fertility, pregnancy, parental leave, and return to work. She knows firsthand that the transformation into parenthood can also be a career growth opportunity. She lives in California with her husband and two young kids.