The Spare Room: Define Your Social Legacy to Live a More Intentional Life and Lead with Authentic Purpose

Emily Chang is a seasoned executive who has worked with some of the world’ ’s most renowned companies like Procter & Gamble, Apple, and Starbucks. Over the last 21 years, her job has brought her and her family to eight different homes across the US and China.

And everywhere she’ s lived, Emily has found herself at the unique intersection of her offer and offense.

Life has served up young people who have been abused, neglected, or marginalized, to find sanctuary in her spare room. Among her deeply personal accounts, Emily shares heart-wrenching stories of an emotionally abused child bride, a dying 18-month-old boy born with hydrocephalus, and the abused daughter of a local prostitute.

With the 16 young people she and her family have cared for, Emily has found that living into her social legacy has not only deeply enriched her home life, it has also enabled her to become a more authentic and relatable leader in the workplace. Each time she opened the door to her spare room, Emily found herself in a front-row seat, witnessing one of life’ s incredible stories unfold.

Integrating work and life, she introduced her spare room kids to colleagues and encourages her team members to invest in their own social legacies. Now more than ever, social purpose has become an urgent leadership imperative.