Doreen McKenzie-Sanders is the winner of the first Influential Women in Business Lifetime Achievement Award. She is the executive director of Women in the Lead Inc., an organization aiming to increase the number of women on corporate boards, in part by publishing the quarterly newsletter Leaders of Change to highlight qualified women.

The Vancouver-raised octogenarian began her career writing for The Vancouver Daily Province in the 1940s, before moving to Ontario to complete an honours degree in journalism at the University of Western Ontario. She became a special correspondent for The Financial Post before becoming publisher and editor of Business Quarterly, a management magazine published by UWO's business school, now known as the Richard Ivey School of Business. She remained at the Business Quarterly for 25 years before retiring as its editor in 1988. She became a member of the Order of Canada in 1987.

McKenzie-Sanders published and edited the book Learning to Lead, which traced the history of the Richard Ivey School of Business. She has also published and edited two editions of the book Women in the Lead, which identifies women who are qualified and willing to sit on Canadian corporate boards.

What book are you reading? An Accidental Canadian by Margaret Wente

What is your favourite movie? The Red Violin

What has been your toughest decision? To dig in my heels and insist that my full name be used in the masthead of Western University's Business Quarterly academic journal in the late 1960s. The faculty wanted me to simply use my first initial because they didn't think it was wise to make it known that a woman was the editor

What career would you like to try other than the one you're in? I'd go into something very visually creative such as painting or interior decoration

Who have been your mentors? Jack Wettlaufer, the dean of Western University's business school, who hired me