Kyla Penner

Kyla Penner became a mother at sixteen — and what many saw as the end of her story was only the prologue.

After building a successful career in Alberta's oil sands, Kyla was forced to walk away when no licensed child care existed outside standard weekday hours. Rather than accept that as the answer, she built what didn't exist — a 24-hour child care model that served shift-working families when the system refused to. When the government threatened to shut her down with a $250,000 lawsuit, she refused to back down. The lawsuit folded. Her team co-authored the legislation that made 24-hour child care legal in Alberta.

Today, Kyla is the founder and CEO of KPSquared Innovative Childcare — North America's largest 24-hour child care network — serving over 1,000 families with 85 staff across seven Alberta locations, with an eighth in development. She is a Girls Inc. Women of Inspiration award recipient, a YMM Top 50 Under 50 honoree, and a voice that has reached the floor of the House of Commons.

In 2025, Kyla was a featured guest at the Zero to Five Montana Childcare Conference — where her model caught the attention of state leadership and opened a direct conversation with the Montana Governor on childcare as an economic development pillar.

Off the stage, Kyla lives on a ranch in Crowsnest Pass with her husband Kyle and their three children — a deliberate, sovereign choice to build a life as boldly as she built her business. She speaks on leadership, sovereignty, family culture, childcare as community infrastructure, and what it looks like when a woman stops betraying herself and starts building the life she actually wants.

Kyla Penner's story doesn't start with a business plan. It starts with a sixteen-year-old girl who became a mother and decided that was the beginning — not the end.

Born and raised with deep Métis roots, Kyla built a career in Alberta's oil sands. When she discovered that no licensed child care existed outside standard weekday hours, she faced the impossible choice that thousands of shift-working parents face every day: your career or your child. She refused both options.

What began as a private network of dayhomes serving 65 families — with no advertising, a waitlist of 50, and zero legal framework to support it — eventually drew the attention of the Alberta government. They arrived on her lawn with inspectors, informed her that what she was doing was illegal, and threatened her with a $250,000 lawsuit. Kyla called a lawyer and refused to back down. Court was set for 45 days later. The lawsuit folded — and Kyla's team was invited to co-author the legislation that made 24-hour licensed child care possible in Alberta, a first in Canadian history.

In May 2023, KPSquared Innovative Childcare opened Canada's first licensed 24-hour child care centre in downtown Fort McMurray — complete with ten individually themed overnight sleep rooms, a curiosity-based learning philosophy rooted in neuroscience and attachment science, and a family-unit care model that treats the whole family, not just the child, as the unit of support.

Today, KPSquared operates seven locations across Alberta with a dayhome agency and continued expansion underway, serving over 1,000 families with a team of 85 — and has become a model for how child care can function as genuine community infrastructure, supporting workforce participation, economic development, and family sovereignty simultaneously.

In 2025, Kyla was a featured guest at the Zero to Five Montana Childcare Conference, where her model of 24-hour family-unit care caught the attention of state leadership. She met with the Montana Governor to discuss childcare as an economic pillar — a conversation that positions KPSquared's model as a blueprint not just for Alberta, but for jurisdictions across North America facing the same impossible equation.

Kyla is a Girls Inc. of Northern Alberta Women of Inspiration award recipient, a YMM Top 50 Under 50 honoree, and has been cited on the floor of the House of Commons. Her work has been covered by CBC News, Fort McMurray Today, and Mix 103.7, among other regional and national outlets.

In 2024, Kyla made her next bold choice — leaving Fort McMurray, the city where she built her legacy, to move to a ranch in Crowsnest Pass with her husband Kyle and their three children. Not as a retreat. As a declaration: that you can have it all — you just have to be willing to choose it.