How She Does It

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Sophie Vandebroek, Xerox's chief technology officer, in the company's offices in Rochester, New York.

"So many things we worry about," she understands now, "are not important."

Sophie Vandebroek is in a rush. It's six o'clock on a Tuesday evening, and she has just arrived home, half an hour earlier than usual. Her eldest child, Elena, 17, is at the movies. Arno, 15, is in the kitchen, playing with his pet snake. And her youngest, Jonas, 13, is at school, where he's scheduled to begin a viola concert in an hour. Vandebroek, who showed up late for the last recital, is determined to be there.

The family's sitter sets dinner on the table, and Vandebroek talks quickly between bites of pasta. It's a simple meal in a simple home. There's an antique granite dining table and a big deck where she likes to read on quiet Saturday afternoons. "The schedule is just so hectic at work--people popping in, running from one thing to the next," she says. "You really need your refuge." On the table, the red light of her BlackBerry flickers as email pours in.

Ten years ago, Vandebroek's husband, Bart, died suddenly, leaving her alone with three small children and no other relatives in the United States. Vandebroek responded not just by sticking to her career but by taking on a series of increasingly challenging, high-profile jobs. In January, she became Xerox's chief technology officer, responsible for harnessing the creations of five global laboratories to drive growth at the $15.7 billion document company.

Her colleagues have watched this ascent with some awe: I don't know how she does it, they whispered. And for years, Vandebroek, 44, fed the mystery, reluctant to discuss her husband's death. But lately, she has begun talking openly about how her family's tragedy helped her understand what's really important. She's passionate about the strategies she has used to balance home and work as a single parent, including strict rules for travel, refusing relocations, even capping the number of friends she keeps up with. Her mantra: "Delegate, simplify, and leverage IT."

For most of us, work-life balance is like losing those last 5 pounds on a diet: It's something we'll get around to… someday. We collect time-management tips at www.lifehacker.com, we read David Allen's Getting Things Done, but like New Year's resolutions, the discipline fades and we're just as time-strapped and stressed-out as ever. Vandebroek, by contrast, was forced by difficult circumstances to make changes immediately--no procrastination allowed. "We had a balanced life when Bart and I were together, then the balance broke," she says. "So I had to find a way to get it back."

Vandebroek was born in Belgium and earned undergraduate and master's degrees in engineering before emigrating to the States in 1986. She and Bart, also Belgian, arrived at Cornell University with four suitcases, $500, and two scholarships. She earned a doctorate in microelectronics engineering and he an MBA. By 1991, they'd bought a house in suburban Rochester, New York, near Bart's job at Electronic Navigation Industries, where he was director of engineering. Sophie was working at IBM's research center in Yorktown Heights, driving seven hours to work each Monday morning and returning home each Friday night. When her second child arrived, she persuaded IBM to install a broadband Internet connection in her home, though her boss at the time made her keep an hour-by-hour journal of what exactly she was working on. She telecommuted for a year before jumping to Xerox.

By 1996, the Vandebroeks had three kids. Bart, then 34, and Sophie loved their jobs and life beyond, spending weekends hiking, kayaking, and camping. Then in August, during a trip on an isolated island in the Adirondacks, Bart suffered a severe asthma attack. Sophie called for help, and two EMTs arrived in a rescue boat. "He was alive when they came," she says softly, but he died before being evacuated. The next morning, she drove Elena, Arno, and Jonas, then 7, 5, and 2, back to Rochester. Relatives came from Belgium for the funeral. And within 10 days, she was back at work as a manager in Xerox's inkjet printer division.

Her boss suggested she trade her line job for a less-demanding staff role. "Don't worry about us--just get through this," he told her. She declined. "I said, 'That's the worst thing you could do.' I loved my job--it's like reading a fantastic book where your brain gets so involved in a topic that you basically forget everything else."

At home, though, there was no forgetting her new status as a single parent. Bart had barely any life insurance, and the family's income was cut in half. He'd done most of the cooking, handled all the finances, and mowed their one-acre yard. Sophie immediately delegated cooking to the sitter who watched Jonas during the day, telling her, "I don't care what's on the table as long as there's something to eat." She spent weekends riding the lawn mower and digging through their financial records. When Jonas entered school in 1998, she cut the sitter back to three hours each afternoon. Life went on.