MY BOOK

Mary Tidlund was never able to blend in, so she embraced standing out. Labelled “unadoptable” because of the colour of her skin, the odds seemed stacked against her from the start. Memoirs of a Wildcat is the story of a woman’s search for identity and the solution to a genetic puzzle. Mary’s quest for an adventurous career led her to become the first black woman CEO in the energy industry, but when everything she thought she wanted in life came to a crashing halt, she had to look inside herself to figure out what to do next. From that struggle came the Mary A. Tidlund Charitable Foundation and Mary’s development work supporting women and children globally.

Memoirs of a Wildcat is about trusting your own courage, pushing beyond internalized stereotypes and making your way in the world, especially when it means taking a risk to achieve your heart’s desire.

- Mary

Mary Tidlund’s story is about so many layers of life – being black, being abandoned, being taken into foster care and then adopted by a white family. It’s the story of rejection and powerful love and a search for the missing threads in the tapestry that is her life. It’s also the story of a woman who becomes an enormously successful oil executive and then uses her wealth of connections to help other women and children.  Mary ties all these threads together when she tells her remarkable story.

 - Sally Armstrong, journalist, human rights activist

You may enter these pages through the poetry of flying, the psychology of tense negotiations, the science of drilling or the art of a jeté across a darkened boardroom. Whichever it is that draws you in, you’ll stay for this page-turner of an improbable and wondrous life.

 - Cheryl Foggo, filmmaker, playwright, author