Q: What was your first professional job?
A: My first professional job that set me on my current career track was working for Accenture, the international management consulting firm. I joined their graduate training program with several others from universities across the UK and we were exposed to a disciplined training program and increasing levels of responsibility at very early stages. That first training course (3 weeks in Chicago where I met my husband – yes, it really happens like that!) was the most fun I never want to have again. It was also a great training ground for a career in consulting and I leverage many of the key skills developed there every day. These include things like scoping and proposing work, developing compelling presentations, and driving client success. It also established a work pace and level of quality that still infuses my work style today.
Q: How do you currently define success in your career?
A: I think that it’s achieving a level of responsibility that is challenging and rewarding and where I can truly have an impact for my company, my team and my clients. It’s also having a job that allows me to raise a family with happy, stimulated and (hopefully!) well-balanced children. For me, these two are intimately connected. If my work is not going well, my home life is impacted and vice versa, so they really go together because they’re both so much about who I am.
On the making an impact front, I’d also add that since my Accenture days, I’ve always been drawn to smaller, rapidly growing organizations and have been fortunate to be part of the executive team of several. I think that probably makes me some kind of glutton for punishment, but growing and scaling companies and teams and making them something bigger and better than you - or they - thought possible has always really driven me.
Q: What's one of your most tried-and-true secrets for maintaining or re-gaining your sanity?
A: I work hard to try and compartmentalize my work and home life. This means that when I’m at work, I focus on it 110% and when I’m at home, I focus on my family 110%. This means that I have to have a great support system, and that comes in the form of a very supportive husband and a full-time nanny. It’s not right for everyone, but it really works for us, especially with my travel schedule. When I transition with my nanny in the evening, it’s all about the children until after they’re in bed, and then it’s often back on email. But it’s really important to me that they understand that my time between 6pm and 8.30pm is all about them. We also work hard to squeeze in date nights once a
month (not much I know, so we need to work on that!). I’ve also found that my business travel can be a source of 'me time' – nothing like not having to get out of bed to retrieve a small teddy bear in the middle of the night! I need to say a huge thank you here to my husband for supporting a role in which I have to travel.
Q: What's one piece of career advice that was given to you when you were an emerging leader that you'd like to pass along to other emerging women leaders?
A: It was "if people like you, they will like doing business with you". I learned this early on and I still try to apply that. I’ve dealt with other senior leaders who seem to become more demanding and sometimes downright aggressive as they take on increasing levels of responsibility. For me, that’s just not an acceptable trade-off. I firmly believe that it’s possible to be a highly effective leader without compromising on being pleasant and approachable. But I do want to be clear on this: being approachable is different from being a push over. It means saying "no", but doing it in a way that is respectful, being clear about your reasons and suggesting alternative ways that you can help. Your role as a leader and the decisions that you have to make can sometimes make you unpopular, but even when dealing with difficult and unpleasant situations like layoffs, your humanity and care and respect for the individual should shine through.
I’d also encourage other emerging women leaders to seek out 'line' roles, especially those that involve generating revenue and/or interacting directly with your company’s customers. It’s the most straight forward way of demonstrating your impact to the organization, and highly motivating to know the difference that you are making to the company’s top and bottom line.
Q: What would your totally decadent day-off look like? (Think fairy-tale)
A: That’s easy! It would involve a spa day with my sister in the UK. Just the two of us with no husbands or children. We’d have lunch at the spa and then meet up with the children and the Dads (whose patience for our spa day would be wearing thin at that point). In the afternoon, we’d do something fun and kid-oriented like going to the zoo. It would end with a date night with just my husband. I was really fortunate to enjoy the spa day part of this experience earlier this year as a present from my sister, but for the fairy tale version, I’d forget the part about shivering our way to the outdoor hot tub. Definitely not a fairy tale experience on a windy and rainy December day!
Read her blog.
