There is no such thing as a typical day for Jaime McMillan.

Toronto FC’s director of administration and operations arrives at her desk every morning and tries to make a to-do list. By day’s end, she circles back to see if she got to any of it.

“Each day is completely different. I love that,” she said recently at TFC’s training ground.

McMillan looks over her shoulder and through second-floor windows that offer a view of the practice fields. It’s sunny but windy, and the field boards have blown over near one of the pitches.

“We really can’t afford to lose them, so what’s the plan?” she said with a laugh. “It’s really glamorous work.”

Recovering field boards is a tiny part of what the 35-year-old McMillan, one of the Major League Soccer club’s longest-serving employees, does on a daily basis and she has no problem wearing several hats. It’s versatility that has, in part, made her one of the most influential people in soccer in this country.

“As the operations department, administration, you try your best to be the proactive group … but you’re also the person who’s just there to make sure things get done on that day,” McMillan said of her role.

Sports was always part of the Oakville native’s life, but she didn’t decide to pursue it as a career until after a degree in political studies from Queen’s University.

“It was the question of, ‘What do I love?’ and ‘What would I enjoy doing every day?’” McMillan said. “Sports was something that I could really identify that with, so that’s kind of how I made that decision. Then life kind of unrolled the way it was supposed to, as I did.”

That might sound laissez faire, but McMillan is anything but. Her unique path began with George Brown College’s postgraduate program in sports and event marketing. From there, she chose to work in smaller situations with the opportunity to grow: an internship in dragon boating, a job with Edge Lacrosse, which connected Canadian players with scholarships in the United States.

“That’s not normal, but I got to do a lot,” McMillan said.

It turned out to be good preparation for TFC. She became co-ordinator of business operations — hired by Paul Beirne, then vice-president of business operations and now president of the Canadian Premier League. The job was “really just an executive assistant for (Beirne),” but she quickly took on more responsibility as co-ordinator for TFC’s academy, building on her experience in grassroots development of elite high-performance athletes.

“I’ve always kept my mind open to the less-traditional choice and bet on myself,” she said. “Maybe it was a demotion … but I believed I could make something of it.”

Whether it was working with TFC’s first team, scouting unit or academy, McMillan said she was the first to put her hand up and get involved. It wasn’t always painless, with frequent turnover at the management level and poor results on the field before back-to-back trips to the MLS Cup final in 2016 and 2017.

“I’m not going to be disingenuous and say it was easy,” she said. “It was hard, but it was hard for a lot of people. I wasn’t alone in those challenges. What I tried to remember is that each person who was coming in was a human with intent to be successful. Everybody wants to be successful — they’re trying — and what can I do to help them to that?”

Today, TFC is considered one of the league’s premier franchises, on the field and off. Consecutive conference championships culminating in an MLS Cup triumph in 2017 are among McMillan’s proudest moments. So too are her contributions to the opening of the training facility, renovations to BMO Field and the creation of TFC’s second team.

Anything to do with operations eventually makes its way to McMillan’s desk, said Bill Manning, president of TFC and the Toronto Argonauts, who joined the soccer club in the fall of 2015.

“In a lot of ways she’s almost like a chief of staff in terms of just making sure everything is operating properly, within budget,” Manning said. “She’s become invaluable to me. I think she is the — and I don’t say just women, she’s one of the best executives I’ve ever worked with.”

McMillan has seen women’s influence in the sport grow over the past decade. There is a strong female presence at the MLS head office and in administration, marketing and finance leaguewide. Women are also starting to make inroads on the technical side. Last year, Meghan Cameron — McMillan’s friend and colleague — became assistant director of player personnel with Sporting Kansas City, and Ena Patel was hired as Colorado Rapids’ director of player personnel.

“We’ll get there,” McMillan said. “It’s got to start somewhere.”

Change has been slow, but she says she enjoys working at a time when there are more and more female role models. She adds that while hiring the best candidates offers a competitive advantage, women often still face hurdles that men don’t.

“You might need to think about it a little bit more,” McMillan said about those hurdles. “I’m hopeful for the day when you don’t.”

Meanwhile, she continues to support the many young professionals in the industry.

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“Pay it forward comes not just with the sex card,” she said. “I’ve benefitted from a lot of people’s largesse and a lot of people’s generosity and a lot of people’s patience, time. My whole mindset is: How do I make sure to honour that, and do that for the next group who’s coming forward?”

What comes next professionally for McMillan is all about playing a role in cementing the club’s legacy. Personally, she is working on balancing work and life.

“Exhaustion is not a badge of honour, so what are we doing to ensure that we are building really strong sport professionals who also have really strong personal lives?” she said. “The goal is to do this for as long as I can, as long as the industry will let me, and burnout won’t help me get there.”