You didn't lose yourself.
You're redesigning.
A small-cohort program for ambitious moms in the early years — built to help you find clarity, rebuild your rhythms, and show up fully without burning out. In person. In community. By design.
Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. Registration closes July 31.
The Design Year
The Design Year is an intimate, guided program for high-achieving mothers navigating one of the most disorienting transitions of their professional lives.
You built a career. Then you had a child. Now you're figuring out who you are in both.
You're at the peak of your career. Leadership role. Strong compensation. A great partnership. And you decide — it's time to start a family.
Nobody told you that the version of you who walks back into that office after maternity leave would feel like a stranger in her own life. That the confidence you built over a decade could feel so fragile. That you'd sit in a meeting where you used to lead the room and find yourself wondering if you still belong there.
Nobody talks about the grief of leaving behind a version of yourself you worked so hard to build. Or the guilt of wanting your career back when you love your child more than anything. Or the loneliness of being surrounded by high-achievers and not knowing a single one who admits to feeling exactly this.
That's who this is for.
Returning to work after having a child isn't just a scheduling problem. It's a neurological shift, an identity reconfiguration, and a relationship renegotiation — all happening at the same time, while you're also trying to perform at a high level professionally.
Most support out there treats it like a logistics problem. The Design Year treats it like what it actually is.
This program is for you if you're pregnant, newly postpartum, or in the thick of early childhood — and you're a woman who has never stopped being ambitious, even when everything feels impossible to hold at once.
You're returning to work or already back — and something still feels off.
You love your child fiercely and also miss the version of yourself that felt purposeful.
You're carrying more than anyone around you fully understands.
You want tools, not platitudes. Community, not content. And someone who has actually done the thing you're trying to do.
If you nodded at any of this — you belong here.
This isn't a course.
It's a container — designed to hold you while you figure out what the next version of your life looks like.
Weekly
Virtual Touchpoints
A consistent, protected touchpoint each week with your cohort and your guides. No commute required — just an hour that belongs entirely to this work and to you.
In-Person
Retreat Experiences
Immersive days in the Chicago area designed around deep work, real conversation, and the kind of reset that only happens when you're physically present with people who get it. In-person dates shared with accepted participants.
Curated
A Curated Cohort
Applications are evaluated for personal fit and alignment — not processed first-come, first-served. This will be a small group, intentionally. Because depth requires trust, and trust requires the right people in the room.
Included
Free MBD App Access
Every cohort member receives free access to the Motherhood by Design App — a personal assistant built specifically for the ambitious mom. Cohort members join as founding users, with early access before the public launch.
Program at a glance
Duration
8–12 weeks
Format
Primarily in-person, Chicago + weekly virtual
Cohort
Small and intentionally curated
Investment
$2,500 — payment plan available
App access
Included at no additional cost
Registration closes
July 31, 2026
The people in your corner
Program Lead
Zeba Khan
I'm Zeba Khan — a senior technology consulting leader at EY, franchise owner, and the founder of Motherhood by Design. I built this because I lived the gap: the version of you that existed before the baby, and the version that arrives on the other side, and no real map for navigating between them. This program is that map.
I've spoken at GitHub Universe and Women Impact Tech, sit on the FinOps Foundation Governing Board, and hold certifications from MIT Sloan and Harvard. But the credential that matters most for this work is simpler: I'm a mother who has built multiple businesses and a demanding career at the same time, and I'm still standing — by design, not by accident.
Program Partner
Rachel Kurasz
This cohort is supported by Rachel Kurasz, PhD candidate at Northern Illinois University, where she researches how people communicate across difference, rebuild civil dialogue, and develop critical thinking skills in a world that makes all three harder than it should be.
In early motherhood, many women lose the language to articulate what they're experiencing — to their partners, their employers, their communities, and themselves. Rachel's research gives us a framework for that. Because before you can redesign your life, you have to be able to speak it.
She's also a mother to a 7-year-old daughter — which means she brings lived experience alongside the academic rigor. This isn't theory applied to motherhood. It's motherhood informing the theory.
$2,500 · Everything included
- Full 8–12 week program access
- Weekly virtual touchpoints with your cohort and guides
- In-person retreat experiences in the Chicago area
- Small cohort, high-touch facilitation
- Free lifetime access to the MBD App (founding-user early access)
Prefer to split the investment? A two-installment payment plan is available — ask us when you apply.
Payment details are shared upon acceptance. This is an investment in the version of you that comes out the other side.
Apply for The Design Year
This program is intentionally small. Applications are reviewed for personal fit and alignment to your goals — not on a first-come, first-served basis. There are no wrong answers. We're looking for women who are ready.
A speaker who has lived the topics she talks about.
The talks sit at the intersection of technology, leadership, and the deliberate design of a career and life. Every session is grounded in 19 years of practice — not theory — drawing on experience as a senior leader at EY, a founder, a mother, and a woman who has navigated all of these identities at the same time.
Topics
- The motherhood advantage: how having a child sharpens the skills that matter most in leadership
- Designing your career architecture: building a professional life that holds the personal one without deciding between them
- AI and the human pace: why the real transformation challenge isn't technical, it's organizational
- The leaky pipeline: what organizations must do to retain mothers in tech and leadership
- Redesign, not balance: a new framework for ambitious women navigating multiple identities
Speaking formats
Keynote
45–60 minutes
Panel & Roundtable
Flexible duration
Workshop
Half-day format
Podcast Guest
Interview format
Past stages
- GitHub Universe — speaker
- Women Impact Tech — featured speaker
- EY global forums and panels — women in technology and leadership