Why Tamara Hinckley Is Building a Better Playbook for Working Mothers

For Tamara Hinckley, the road to motherhood wasn’t simple. After navigating infertility, welcoming her daughter brought immense joy and gratitude. But maternity leave also brought something she hadn’t expected: a destabilizing loss of identity.

Hoping to feel more like herself again, Tamara returned to work early. Mostly on her own, she learned how to juggle the demands of home and career, eventually doing it so well that she was promoted to Director of Product at Pinterest while seven months pregnant with her second daughter.

But returning after her second maternity leave was different. Between postpartum depression, a bigger leadership role, and the loneliness of often being the only mother in the room, Tamara found herself wondering—for the first time in her career—if she should quit.

As the systems that once helped her succeed began to break down, Tamara went looking for a better playbook. What she discovered was that the women who seemed to be thriving weren’t doing it all. They were operating differently, with clearer priorities, stronger support systems, and a more intentional approach to work, motherhood, and leadership.

That realization inspired Tamara to leave Pinterest and start Momentum Rising, where she now helps senior women redesign how they lead and live during early motherhood. Through her curated community, she empowers high-achieving moms to keep building ambitious careers without sacrificing the lives they want to be present for.

What are some of the most meaningful impacts your business has had so far? 

Women often come to me wondering if they’ve lost their ambition and leave making some of the boldest career moves of their lives. Throughout my career, I’ve worked with dozens of women who were convinced they needed to step back, only to realize they still wanted to pursue their ambitions and just needed a more sustainable way of operating.

One burned out client, for example, was considering taking a career break until she realized she actually wanted work that felt more energizing. Ultimately, she left her company to join OpenAI. Another client—who also happened to be a new mom of twins—stopped doubting herself and stepped into a senior leadership role at a startup. A third came in exhausted and convinced she needed to scale back, only to realize she needed better systems, not less ambition. She went for the C-suite promotion she knew she deserved—and got it!

The transformation is rarely about becoming more productive, but about rebuilding confidence, clarity, and a way of operating that actually works for this season of life. Again and again, I see women stop questioning whether they still “have what it takes” and start leading with far more conviction and self-trust. When more mothers rise into positions of leadership, workplaces, policies, and expectations begin to change, too. As a mother of two daughters, that mission is deeply personal to me. It’s bigger than any individual client.

Have you ever felt like you’re “different?” If yes, in what ways has this contributed to your journey as an entrepreneur?

When I was seven years old and didn’t know a word of English, my family moved from Ukraine to the United States. Growing up as an immigrant, I spent years feeling like an outsider and desperately wanting to belong. 

That followed me throughout my career as I worked in male-dominated industries on Wall Street and later in Silicon Valley. I know what it costs to feel like the only one: the self-doubt, the constant second-guessing, and the pressure to prove yourself over and over again. As the only woman in the room, I learned how to adapt, earn credibility, and succeed in spaces that were not designed with me in mind.

When I became a mother, I found myself alone in rooms full of people who did not share my experience for the third time in my life. My managers were all men, and I had very few peers who were also mothers with young children. Momentum Rising exists because I wanted to build the community and support I never had. Ambitious mothers shouldn’t have to figure it out alone.

What’s been the hardest and most rewarding part of your entrepreneurial journey?

The hardest part of building Momentum Rising has been starting over—not from zero, because I bring 15 years of experience with me, but from a place where all the old markers of success disappeared. When I worked at Pinterest, success was easy to measure. I had a big title, a large team, clear goals, and constant external validation that I was doing well.

But entrepreneurship is completely different. No one tells you if you are on track, and there is no promotion, performance review, or company brand signaling that you are succeeding. I’d spent years building a career at places people instantly recognized, and learning to stand behind something that’s still growing has required a much deeper level of confidence than I expected.

The most rewarding part of this journey, though, has been creating something that makes women feel seen in a stage of life where so many feel isolated and ashamed of struggling. I feel so proud when I hear women say things like, “I’m not doing it wrong; this is just hard” or “I finally have a path forward instead of feeling stuck in limbo.” Working with more than 70 women over the last year, I’ve realized the most meaningful part of this work is helping ambitious mothers feel less alone in a season where so many silently believe they are failing.

Has your definition of success evolved throughout your journey as a founder?

For most of my life, success meant achievement: getting into the right schools, being promoted, and proving I could advance in highly competitive environments. Growing up as an immigrant with everything to prove, external validation defined me.

Motherhood changed that. After becoming a mother, I could no longer optimize for work at the expense of everything else. For the first time, I started asking different questions: What kind of life am I actually trying to build? What do I want my daughters to see when they think about ambition? What does success look like if it includes my family, health, energy, and relationships… not just my career? 

What surprised me most is that letting go of the old definition of success has made me feel more ambitious, not less. My ambition is no longer about proving myself. It's about building something that matters deeply while also having strong relationships, a grounded family life, and the ability to actually enjoy the life I am creating.

Have you discovered any underappreciated leadership traits or misconceptions around leadership?

One of the biggest misconceptions I see is that motherhood reduces ambition. In reality, motherhood often exposes how unsustainable many of our systems already were.

For decades, professional success has largely been built around an ideal worker model: someone with unlimited availability, very few caregiving responsibilities, and the ability to prioritize work above almost everything else. Even in modern dual-career households, women still carry a disproportionate amount of the invisible labor at home, which means many mothers are effectively managing two full-time jobs at once. Many women mistake the exhaustion that comes from that reality for personal failure. They assume they became less capable, less driven, or less ambitious after having children. But in most cases, the ambition is still fully there. What breaks is the system underneath it.

Motherhood forces us to confront questions we could previously avoid: What am I optimizing for right now? Can I keep working this way for another five years? What kind of career and life can I actually sustain long term? After taking this time to reflect, many women become stronger leaders. They develop sharper judgment, clearer priorities, and a much deeper understanding of people, tradeoffs, and constraints.

Especially as the pace of work accelerates with AI, I believe the future of leadership is not about working more. It is about building ways of working and leading that are both high-performing and sustainable in the realities of modern life.

What’s next for you and your company?

In the near term, I’m scaling my flagship group coaching program and building the kind of community where ambitious mothers feel deeply supported, understood, and less alone while navigating early motherhood and leadership. But the bigger work is changing what women believe is possible when motherhood and ambition collide: helping them make decisions from clarity instead of fear, redesign their lives and support systems more intentionally, and pursue ambitious careers in ways that actually feel sustainable.

At the same time, AI is rapidly reshaping the tech industry and new power structures are forming in real time. Senior women—already stretched thin and carrying a disproportionate share of the invisible labor at home—are at real risk of stepping back during one of the most consequential shifts in modern work.

My work is about ensuring the women who do want to lead have the systems, community, and belief in themselves to keep rising and shaping the future of leadership from inside the room.