Who Are You After You Leave the Company You Built? | Amy VanHaren

Amy VanHaren is a founding partner of the Northbound Company, which helps women prepare their businesses, and themselves, for an exit, so they can walk away with the wealth and dignity they've earned without doing it alone.

More than a decade ago, while working full-time and breastfeeding her second child, VanHaren found herself pumping in an airport bathroom stall after another cross-country work trip.

Overwhelmed by the logistics, exhaustion, guilt, and lack of support, she realized she was far from alone. That moment helped inspire pump spotting, a company that would go on to create community and resources for mothers navigating infant feeding.

After nearly a decade of building the company, VanHaren began to recognize another experience that was rarely discussed: what happens when it is time for a founder to leave. By 2024, she was exhausted and beginning to feel internally that it was time to let the business go. A panic attack while waiting for her son at an orthodontist appointment became an unmistakable signal that the company was no longer good for her. What followed was a two-year process of selling and ending the business—and confronting the grief, identity, self-worth, and uncertainty tied to leaving something she had spent years building. That experience eventually led VanHaren to her next chapter with Northbound.

VanHaren and Dr. Lisa also explore storytelling, friendship, motherhood, leadership, and the challenge of separating personal worth from the public story of what we build. From the friendships that have carried her through different stages of life to the relationships she believes have shaped her success as a leader, VanHaren reflects on the connections that allow us to change without losing ourselves.

Join Dr. Lisa Belisle for this conversation with Amy VanHaren today on Radio Maine.

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