We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Maggie DeCan. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Maggie below.
Maggie, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
My mother died when I was 10 months old and my dad remarried when I was 3. Nobody spoke much about my “real” mom and it was a taboo topic in our house to even bring her name up. However, when I was 13 and looking for a book to read, I came across my mother’s funeral book hidden deep in a bookcase in the basement. As I opened it, her obituary fluttered to the floor and fell next to me. I picked it up and began reading. It was written to the journalistic standards of 1963 and it did not say that she died unexpectedly nor did it leave the cause of death mercifully silent. It read “Mary Francis Wasson Michaels was found dead hanging from a gas pipe in her home at 809 North Sixth Street, leaving behind her husband Harry and daughter Nancy, 6, son Dan, 5 and daugher Margaret, 1. However, I was not yet 1 when she died. I did not walk, talk nor feed myself when my mother left me and I was an adolescent when words like colickly baby, post partum depression and mistake flooded my memories.
My imagined heroic “real” mother, had abandoned me and my siblings and I imagined it to be my fault. The fact that nobody would share it with me, was more proof of guilt in my own mind. This new knowledge set me on an immediate course to earn my place on this earth and deserve the spot that I imagined had been sacrificed for me. I literally felt that I needed to deserve my oxygen and have the right to live. When my dad died unexpectedly on Christmas Eve of my senior year in highschool at the age of 17, I doubled down on my need to control the world and prevent bad things from happening to me.
Deep trauma and tragedy tends to bring one of two responses in young children; some barely survive and some thrive beyond explanation. I do not know what inner strength was triggered when my mother left and my father died, but a will to fight to not just survive but truly thrive was triggered that still burns today.
This drive served its purpose in corporate america when I rose to become President and COO of the HoneyBaked Ham Company, and it serves me well to grow the mission of the Children’s Development Academy as we try to provide high quality early education to more children. In my next chapter, as I write my book “Humbled on Purpose”, it still inspires me to try to help those who suffer from losing other to suicide loss, who suffer from childhood trauma and those who battle other challenges.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I am currently the CEO & Executive Director of the Children’s Development Academy (CDA), a 501(c)3 in Roswell, GA where I have happily served for over 7 years. The CDA provides high quality early education to children from low-income households. I work with a talented board and staff to drive strategic priorities focused on increased enrollment, sustainable giving and quality outcomes. I’m excited to say that this fall I will be publishing my first book “Humbled on Purpose” a leadership memoir full of stories about my life’s journey including from the c-suite to running a small nonprofit. I’m also a certified executive coach mentoring and coaching other nonprofit leaders. I enjoy speaking and telling my story as a survivor of suicide loss, overcoming childhood trauma and ultimately triumphing by choosing to embrace my past and vulnerabilities to help strengthen and inspire others.
Prior to taking the helm at the CDA, I was with HoneyBaked Ham for 14 years and ran day-to-day operations for their national system as president and COO leading a team responsible for $500MM annually of system sales in 500 corporate and franchise operating units as well as e-commerce. My leadership is always built on a focus on the customer and those who serve them whether the customer is buying a ham or a 4 year old learning their alphabet. Prior to serving as COO, Maggie served as CHRO. Before HoneyBaked, Maggie served in human resources and operations for well-known retailers Circuit City, Belk and Macy’s.I am a proud graduate of the current CFP national champions, the University of Michigan Wolverines and an active national volunteer with my women’s fraternity Chi Omega. I’m also involved in my parish, St. David’s Episcopal Church of Roswell and serves as a volunteer for the Atlanta Lawn Tennis Association (ALTA) as well as playing tennis as often as I can.
I love to use my leadership skills in the community and have been lucky enough to be recognized for that with awards from the State of GA PTA for visionary leadership, the Turknett Leadership Character Award, the National Diversity Council as a “Most Powerful and Influential Woman” and a Womenetics P.O.W. winner. One of my proudest accomplishments is helping to create the Roswell North Elementary Education Foundation, a 501(c) 3 in 2009. I’m also past president of the Woodstock Junior Service League.
But most importantly, I’ve been married to my highschool sweetheart for 38 years. My husband Bob is a retired high school economics teacher and tennis coach. We have two sons, Riley, a UGA graduate who works for Truist in Atlanta and is about to marry fellow UGA grad and Chi Omega, Emily Armour. Our youngest son, Brady who is a marketing student at Georgia College who graduates in May of 2026. I love spending time with my family, friends and dogs, playing tennis and time in the north Georgia Mountains on the lake.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Looking back, part of my success was definitely built on showing up and demonstrating an enormous work ethic. I think that today’s generation has better priorities but can still invest in making a great first impression in their first 90 days on the job which forms so much of your professional reputation.
I also learned, but what I didn’t do well, that you need to take the time to invest in relationships and networks from day one. I though that if I worked hard and did a great job, that the next good thing would naturally come to me. However, if you spend all of your time doing and none of your time looking outward, you miss opportunities to connect, share and learn best practices and create a network of like-minded people outside of your company who can help you solve a problem at work or, worst case scenario, help you out if things go south at your current employer.
Finally, I would say that always having a great boss and mentor is important and don’t stay long anywhere that you are working for someone who is not invested in you and their entire team’s success. I’ve been very fortunate to be mentored and led by tremendously talented and committed supervisors. But every time your boss changes, it is like changing companies, so you have to reassess if it is a great new situation or not. People don’t change much after kindergarten, so once someone shows you that they aren’t really interested in you or your career growth, I’d believe them and move on.
What was the most impactful thing your parents did for you?
For those of you unfamiliar with the Johnny Cash song, “A Boy Named Sue”, you might want to listen to it, before you read this, because I’m going to follow his logic here. My parents didn’t intentionally do this “for” me, but my mother died when I was a baby and my dad died of an unexpected heart attack on Christmas Eve my senior year in highschool. While these weren’t things that they intentionally did to strengthen me, both of these circumstances contributed to the person that I am today in a way that nothing else could ever have a bigger impact.
Being a biological orphan at 17, set me on a course to achieve enough success that the world could not surprise me again or take too much from me. It created a mindset that I didn’t want to depend on anyone else for anything else and created a lot of independence and self-sufficiency in me. I have a resilience and a teflon like armour that is difficult for many to penetrate. Of course these ‘strengths’ can be obstacles when used to excess as well.
But rather than take these tragedies and claim my victimhood, I have taken them and embraced their impact on my life and thank them for making me a stronger more resilient woman, giving me some victories that I wish I didn’t have, but since I do, I’m going to be grateful for the positive that came from the negative.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://maggiedecan.substack.com/
- Instagram: mdecan
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/maggie.decan
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maggiedecan/
- Twitter: @mdecan
