Age: 35
At an early age, Jenny Krahn’s career path had been set out. Growing up in the south Okanagan, the blue-eyed girl with curly brown locks rounded up kids on her street to organize a parade. “We even had a float,” Krahn recalls.
Krahn, now an assistant professor of project management at the University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business, tackles megaprojects. She has worked as a consultant on the Chinook Centre expansion and has done project planning and risk management on oil and gas projects ranging from $40,000 to over $10 billion.
“I like bringing order to disorder,” she says. Krahn is no stranger to chaos. Three years ago, the mother of three had her first kid while completing a PhD. That kicked off a late night work pattern, which continues today. At 2 a.m., she preps for lectures, then sometimes drags her kids to the office the next day. “My kids can definitely find their way around the library,” she jokes.
That hectic schedule keeps Krahn sharp. “It’s weird, everyone wants to be more creative but we do the same things every day – which doesn’t give us much new with which to be creative.” Quick-witted and energetic, Krahn is a sought-after speaker who has presented on project management trends to packed auditoriums
in Poland, the United States and the United Kingdom. This summer she was invited as an international lecturer to the prestigious Vienna University of Economic and Business Administration, where she taught industrial and academic audiences.
Once a week, Krahn sits down with her hubby to project manage their lives. “We’re so boring,” she says. “We talk about pessimistic and optimistic outcomes. Then we set time frames.”
COMMUNITY WORK
Chair, Parent Board of
Directors, Community
Preschool
Kindergarten
representative, Parent
Vision Committee
Advisory council
member, Tamaratt
Teaching Professorship in
Geoscience, University of
Calgary
Conference team
member, Project
Management Institute
Southern Alberta
Chapter
PAST
Co-facilitator, Centre
for Affordable
Water and Sanitation
Technology
Strategic planning
facilitator, HomeCo
Conference committee
member, The Centre
for Innovation Studies
Advisory council
member, Health
Promotion Project,
Calgary Regional
Health Authority