She set out to help breastfeeding moms but ended up helping corporations

Silicon Valley Business Journal named Sheila Janakos to its esteemed circle of C-Suite Award honorees and featured her story to inspire others.

An excerpt follows:

The secret to Sheila Janakos’ professional success is part great idea, part need and part serendipity.

When Janakos had her first child, she wanted to breastfeed her daughter but had some difficulties. Her doctor was not much help, her own mother had not nursed, and her search for professional guidance came up short.

“I realized when I was having issues with breastfeeding that there was nowhere for me to turn,” she said. “There weren’t lactation consultants back then and I decided to serve an area that was really overlooked. I ended up becoming a lactation consultant, changing my career and went back to school to get my master’s of public health.”

More than two decades later, Janakos is CEO of Healthy Horizons Corporate Lactation Services, a company with $1.1 million 2018 revenue that specializes in lactation services and setting up mothers’ nursing rooms at companies across the United States and Canada. Healthy Horizons also has two breastfeeding centers in Silicon Valley, one in Menlo Park and the other in Burlingame. These brick-and-mortar centers sell breast pumps and other supplies. More important to new moms who struggle with nursing, the centers offer on-the-spot lactation consultants who can answer questions and provide guidance. Healthy Horizons also rents breast pumps at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in Stanford.

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