In this episode of the Big Careers, Small Children podcast, Verena Hefti MBE speaks with Dr Nara Daubeney, CEO & Co-Founder of Phaim Pharma and NHS Surgeon.

Nara is also a mum of four. She shares her deeply honest and inspiring reflections on what it takes to build a big career and raise a thriving family without sacrificing either.

From designing Easter hats at 5am to leading a clinical-stage biotech company, Nara brings warmth, clarity, and wit to a conversation about redefining ambition, letting go of guilt, and building systems that work for your life, not against it.

Together, they explore:

✔️ Why guilt is baked into motherhood and how to release it

✔️ How to balance ambition with presence during different parenting phases

✔️ Why support systems are essential (and how to build your own, even without nearby family)

✔️ What makes someone ready to be a CEO

✔️ How leadership and parenting challenges mirror each other

✔️ What teens really need from you, and how that shapes career decisions

✔️ Why perfection isn’t the goal, and how embracing imperfection is freeing

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• How to redefine success on your own terms
• Why motherhood and leadership are not in conflict
• The mindset shift that helps you build a sustainable career
• How to set boundaries and run your life like a system
• The role of authenticity, values, and reflection in leadership

Show Notes:

• Connect with Nara Daubeney on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Phain Pharma: www.phaim.co.uk
• Learn more about the Leaders Plus: Big Careers, Small Children podcast and explore additional resources at leadersplus.org.
• Follow Leaders Plus on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Bluesky.
• Connect with our CEO, Verena Hefti MBE on LinkedIn.
• Find out more about the work of Leaders Plus by signing up to our Newsletter.

Our multi-award-winning Leaders Plus Fellowships support parents committed to career growth while enjoying family life. Expertly designed to keep parents on the leadership path, our programme tackles gender pay gap issues and empowers parents to thrive. Learn more here: Leaders Plus Fellowship.

More BCSC episodes you might love:

Episode 186: Nathalie Holdstock - How to Thrive as a Shift Worker When You're a Parent of Young Children

Episode 179: Dr Sonia Damle – How to Navigate Shift Work as a Parent & the Benefits of Self-Rostering in the NHS & Beyond

Episode 146 - Dr Jasmin Islam: How to Set Boundaries & Ask for What You Need When Balancing Career & Family

Welcome to the Big Careers Small Children Podcast. My name is Verena Hefti. I believe that no one should have to choose between becoming a CEO and enjoying their young children for much too long.

Amazing people like I'm sure you listening right now have found themselves stuck on the career ladder when they have children and that leads to gender inequality in senior leadership because those people don't progress to senior leadership and the same stale, often male, middle class people leading our organizations.

We must change this together and I hope that many of you listening right now will progress to the most senior leadership roles that you like where you can make the decisions that make our world a better place. Outside of the podcast. I am the CEO and founder of the Social enterprise Leaders Plus.

We exist to help working parents progress their careers to senior leadership in a way that works for you and for your families.

We have free events and resources on leadersplus.org where you can download helpful toolkits such as on returning from maternity leave, share parental leave, securing a promotion, dealing with workload challenges, or managing as a dual career couple.

We also have an award winning fellowship community which is global for working parents who have big dreams for their careers but don't want to sacrifice their family. You'll join an absolutely wonderful group of people, a very tight knit, supportive group of parents who have your back together.

You'll explore what your career aspirations are and you'll get advice from senior leaders who are also working parents about how to achieve those aspirations. You'll get new ideas to combine your hopes for your careers with your hope for your family.

And you are supported by people who are experiencing what you're experiencing yourself. I'm really delighted that a larger majority of our fellows have made tangible changes following the program.

Be that becoming more senior in their roles, working shorter hours, having better flexible working arrangement.

They always impress me so much with the courage that they instill in each other to do what is right for them without apologizing for having a family or apologizing for wanting that top job. Details are on leadersplus.org Fellowship.

Today I'm chatting to Nora Dobony who is a CEO and a surgeon and has four children, which has been a brilliant conversation for me because I'm as I'm recording this, also pregnant with my fourth child. She shares what has worked for her in combining a big career with young children.

She shared what she's learned through the process and also what she thinks is necessary to become a CEO. Enjoy the conversation. Very warm welcome Nara to the podcast.

Let's Start with you introducing who you are, what you do for work and who is in your family.

Thank you Verena, it's absolutely wonderful to be here and thank you for the invitation. Thank you for all you do to try and support all of us who are juggling very many roles, very many hats. So my name is Nara Daubeny.

My background is quite extensive but I currently work as the chief executive officer of a UK based biotech company which is gone from a startup to now a clinical stage company and we work in the area of autoimmunity and in fact as far as I know we're the only UK based private company that has a clinical stage drug for an autoimmune disease, namely type 1 diabetes. So we're immensely proud and excited about that. So that's one of my hats. My background is I'm a surgeon by training.

I trained and still work as an ENT surgeon.

I train in the UK and did most of my training here as well and do part time work at one of the biggest healthcare trusts, not just in the UK but in London.

And it's a job that I enjoy enormously and I find really enhances the way I'm able to look at and learn about how you deliver healthcare on the front line and probably makes me a better innovator, a better CEO as well. So that's the professional side of things. Family is quite sort of spread all over the world.

I'm an immigrant, daughter of immigrants and an immigrant myself.

My background is I actually was born and raised in a number of countries, Hungary, the Middle east, came here and my parents for a little time, well, for 20 years had been in the US.

I settled down here, married here and I now have four kids who are aged between 12 and 19, two boys and two girls, which I find hard to believe if I'm honest, because you look at them and I think most people who've got sort of teenage or kids in their 20s can attest, you think, how on earth did time fly so so fast? More on that later.

But we have very close relationships with my in laws and my parents as well and I think that has played a big part in the caring role that I myself as well as a husband have had over the last few years. That's been a very important part of looking after family, not just children, but parents as well.

And are you getting to that stage of your life where you have people other than your children that you need to look after as well?

100%.

It's definitely a full circle so when our children were young, my mother played a very important part, particularly around maternity nursing or the equivalent, as anyone who's got very, very young children or newborn will attest. It is a to say all encompassing and full on doesn't quite capture the entirely consuming nature of having a newborn.

And to some degree I think one of the most sort of damaging actually things we've told ourselves, you know, high powered women and men for that matter, is that we're meant to stand on our own two feet. We're meant to be independent, we're meant to do this on our own. I'm a strong believer that that is false.

In fact, actually I think it's very bad for us to internalize that humans were meant to work as a quote unquote village. You know, you're meant to work as a collective. I'm a strong believer that women are meant to be collaborative in raising those very, very young kids.

So I always try and think if, you know, if this was sort of a prehistoric village, there'd be. Everybody would be at some different stage of childbearing or child rearing.

And it's very different if you've got 10, 20 other women that you can just give a baby to and say, hold this lovely child, I need to go to sleep. And we've sort of talked ourselves out of that and that's very, very hard. So yeah, 100%.

And I think that then shifts into a very different situation where you then have to manage the growing the young toddler and the kids going to school etc and very often and it tends to be women, I mean fathers in this as well, but mostly this tends to be women. That's a very difficult time because you're trying to be all things, all the time to everyone and actually the end result is in your head anyway.

You disappoint everyone all of the time. So that's the sort of middle portion.

And of course as things get a little bit later on then you realize that your mother or mother in law is now 20 years older than she was at the first time you did this. And you know, and then it's a circle of life, you're going to have to take care of them.

And we've certainly had to do that in the last couple of years through sort of illness, etc. And yeah, so that's the difficult. It is that constant need to adapt as a mother and a caregiver through those years.

And you know, where you are today is not where you'll be in three months or six Months or a year. And how do you keep ahead of that? And undoubtedly lack a skill, because it is a skill. Some people naturally sort of flow with it easier than others.

But that is something you have to keep evolving at. And you know, how you sort something when they're 2 is not how what they need when they're 6 or 8 or 12 or teenagers, etc.

So just when you think you've got it nailed, then a new challenge presents itself. So, yeah, it's an evolution, I bet.

And I'm sad to inform you that some of our senior leader mentors who are very senior, but their children have actually left their homes. All of them say, well, they even still now worry about them and accompany them to any on occasion, if that's necessary.

From the outside you look, and I hope you don't mind me saying this, I mean it in a positive way, you look like an absolute high flyer. And generally surgeons are, you know, you can only look at the recent reports of women in surgeries. It's a very tough place to be for women.

It's a tough place as it is and you've chosen to have not just two or three children, but four children. And I'm just interested in whether you've had moments where you thought of packing it all in and just deciding on one.

I mean, you can't give your children back, of course, but you could have said, well, actually I'm just going to get three nannies during this period and just survive at work during this critical phase of my training. Or you could have said, well, actually I have had enough. I want to become a housewife, which is a totally fine choice for people who want to do it.

But I'm interested in your journey there.

So I think that's a very good question and not an easy one to answer other than to say, so actually, just generally speaking, obviously, as you know, we're coming off the back of International Women's Day. You know, lots of data is out there.

So I think we've got the research, we've got the data that shows that in very many fields that I suppose we naturally associate with competitiveness and sort of those more, you know, if I can be relatively stereotypic, more sort of masculine attitudes of not aggression, but certainly pushing forward with intent, there seems to be some sort of magical ceiling of 15%. So I'll tell you some examples. So apparently in engineering it's about 17%. And I only recently learned on a panel that one of their national organizing bodies had declined or maybe if a More triggering word might be prevented them from forming a female only group, which I find interesting, because actually there is power and camaraderie and strength in that. So they're at 17%. So female CEOs are at about the same between 15 and 17%. Female surgeons are just under 15%.

So I think that that's real food for thought as to the why. Because research shows that if you get to 30%, then you don't have to aim any higher.

Naturally, that 30% then turns into 50%, but at this point we're not there. And if we progress at this rate, it's going to take us another 30 or so years to get anywhere close to that. Not even half.

So that begs the question, why is it only that which dovetails into your question, which is what makes those who sort of see it out through to the bitter end stay? And I can't speak for everyone but other than myself to say, I think it has to be something you really, really want to do.

This has to be something that sets fire in your belly and you absolutely love doing. Because no matter what you choose in life, there are bad things in it.

And the really rubbish things that you really don't want to deal with, all the hassle and all of that, and there's plenty of that in no matter what you choose. So I've always thought, well, at least let's do something you really, really love.

Because then the negative things, the hassle, the dross that comes with it, you're able to tolerate that much better. So I think that's the prerequisite is that you really, really have to love it.

Because if you do, then all these trials and tribulations of which there were many, they become obstacles, not barriers. So you can jump over them, but it's not a brick wall. And so it comes down to how am I going to deal with this one?

So I think that's bit one part of the question, I think second bit of it is undoubtedly, and I would probably suggest most people out there who are in similar place would attest as well, you need the support network, you need somebody who's behind you, who supports your decisions. In my case, that was my husband. But it doesn't have to be your spouse.

But I think it's quite difficult to manage this if your spouse is not behind your choices, as I am behind his, of course. So I think the support that that gave as having someone who's your undoubted greatest cheerleader gives you a huge amount of strength.

Not least because when it's four kids and they're very, very small, you need someone who's able to be there and how you solve that, there's many answers to that, as there are people. You know, there's some people who say, actually, my husband stayed at home.

I happen to have a husband who works his fingers to the bone at sort of going out to work. And he's a professor at Imperial, so he's not like he has a huge amount of bandwidth.

But between the two of us, it was always a team that could do it. So that was. That's my sort of journey.

But I think those two things together is one, genuinely love what you're doing and genuinely, really, really want it. And the second is tap into your support network, whatever that may look like.

You know, that could be spies, that could be mum, that could be sister, that could be extended family, whatever works. And we should not be afraid or think it makes us less to say, I need help, this is what I want to do, but I can't do it unless you help me do it.

Because I don't think there's anyone in that scenario who can do it on their own. I certainly couldn't have.

And you mentioned support network a number of times for the listeners who do now have younger children and who think, yeah, great idea, I would like a support network, but my mother lives in Australia and my mother in law in Scotland. What has worked for you to build that support network outside of immediate family that you can pass on?

So that's a really interesting question. So I think that, again, is as many answers as there are people.

So our challenge was that when our kids were very, very small, we didn't actually have anybody near us at all. So both of our sets of parents were relatively far away and would not be able to tell.

So, I mean, I used to sort of joke at times, because I was doing my PhD at that time, is that I literally, and this was actually a joke, I handed my pay slip over to the nanny because once with tax, there was nothing left.

So that's where we had to sort of make that decision with my husband to say, look, are going to be supportive of me doing this PhD, because otherwise I can't kind of do it. So we have to throw some money at the problem, actually, which I also appreciate. Not everyone is in the position that they can do.

And don't get me wrong, that required a lot of sacrifice. It was definitely a massive luxury item that we had to then sort of work around.

So I think it's looking at whatever your levers are, whether it is extra support, whether it is looking for different ways to access some sort of support, whatever you can do. If it's not family, is it friends?

You know, very often we just sort of shared along with our friends, sort of drop offs and pickups and things like that, just to give yourself a little bit more time.

And it's hard because, not to put too fine a point in it, you've got lovely nannies who will be having a fantastic time with your kids whilst you're, you know, slugging your guts out at work and you think, I'd much rather be there. So that's why sort of the sacrifice has to be sort of enough.

And for me the challenge was, and hopefully touch wood I managed to get it right is how do I stay working but still be the mum that I want to be? Which is that, to use a phrase, you know, I always wanted to. I'm my children's true north star. I set the values.

If there is any sort of problems that they might have or if there's any concerns that I'm the one they come to and they know they can come to. So they don't even think, oh, I mustn't disturb mummy because she's working. You know, I'd want them to say, you have to come. So how do you have that?

And that's a moving target. You know, kids are still, you know, you're not out the other end. It's that constant sort of interaction and conversation with your kids.

And for me that solution has been around two main guiding lights.

One is I've always felt for my kids anyway, the number one thing is all kids need is to know that they are loved, that they are loved unconditionally, truly doesn't matter what they do, that the love is always there. And for me that's always had to be explicit.

So they are hugged and kissed and told that they are loved and they told that they are valued so that you have that emotional solid ground to sit on. And the second is to be really, really clear and consistent with what the rules are.

They're not unnecessarily stringent, but neither are they lenient. They're all there for A reason which can be clearly articulated and are consistent across children and across time.

And with those two things together, hopefully then you're raising children that know where they stand at any point and it allows them, gives them that psychological, physical, mental consistency and stability. Then they don't even think about those things because that's a given.

So the brain can work on developing, on learning, on educating and all those things. So probably it comes through that I've worked hard at being a good mother. Not to say I got it right.

Goodness knows I've made more mistakes than I've had hot dinners. But that this has been an active process and a choice as to how to keep those things going.

And to move back to your earlier question, yeah, 100% there were times when you think do I really want to do this? And the answer to that was always yes, I really, really do. And then it came down to okay, if something's not working, how am I going to fix it?

And aside from the nanny, what was the most powerful fix? I like this, the idea of fixing something, I'm sure, I'm sure in practicality it's not always that easy.

But what was the most powerful fix that you had in place by the time that your fourth child arrived, but that took you a while to figure out?

I think what I did is I. This sounds quite ridiculous. I optimized my systems so everything had an sop.

So it's before a lot of the social media, before a lot of the software that we use now. So it was much more analog, you know, it was much more sort of printed diaries and, and now of course it's much, much easier.

But it is about sort of comp. So all the systems would work like the shopping would be really easy, you know, the deliveries would be really easy, the diaries really easy.

So you don't have to have unscheduled interruptions in your day about what am I doing today or who's doing what. So everything is really, really very clear how the week is meant to run and what's meant to happen when.

So I think whilst not a fix it means that the routine and the day to day happens relatively effortlessly and then you can deal with the curveballs. But you know, despite that there are things that we all remember.

You just light hearted illustration is I remember coming home one night and it Was the Easter hat parade very topical? It's coming up and I kind of made some things. I said, look, this is probably really good fun. You can use it as a sort of an art thing.

And the nanny was going to make it with one of the kids. And I came home and I could. There was no Easter hat I could see.

And I thought, oh, my Goodness me, it's 8pm I've only just got home, I'm absolutely on my knees. And I thought, I can't do this now. So I went to bed after eating and I said I was going to get up. So I got up and I designed the hat in my head.

I knew exactly what I was going to do. So I got up at half past five and I thought it was going to take me an hour. Give it a slip. It's hour and a half.

If I'm done at 7, I could still be out the door at 7:30. So I got up at half past 5, remember, with a coffee, and I made a big daffodil, completely ridiculous thing, easy. And then it was done.

And you're like, this is ridiculous. What am I doing? It's 6am and I'm making a daffodil hat.

But yeah, so the system does fall down sometimes, but I think that was it, just to try and get as much of it organized as best as you can so that you make your own life easier.

Yeah, I absolutely agree. I have to laugh because it's so illustrative as I have three children and I'm pregnant with the fourth.

And as we're recording this, I can hear in the background that my partner has brought the kids home and I forgot to tell him that I have a podcast recording and I can hear them on the sound. But we'll get the editor to make it all sound beautiful. But it's quite funny that that's happening.

Every now and then. You're like. And it's not until it happens that you go, oh, hang on a minute. I can't remember reminding him or her or, you know, whatever.

Absolutely, that's very true. And you've become a CEO, and that's quite a rare thing generally for women and for mother.

And it's also a rare thing for anybody who is female to get investment. The stats are absolutely ridiculous.

And obviously I'm assuming for an organization like yours that needs stuff to produce those medications, you need to have an investment. And I'm just interested in if you can sell the CRO.

So I have an agenda here, which is I want more of our community to become CEOs in the long term to exactly change, change this situation. I'm just thinking from your perspective, why has it been worth going down that route of setting up leading a company?

So I think one of the things that comes out sometimes of some of the research, and I don't really like not talking about it, but I don't like emphasizing it because I think one can talk oneself into failure, is this idea of self limiting beliefs, which I think is a thing. But it almost leads people to start thinking that women need fixing because it's always around accelerators and mentorship, which is great.

But a lot of people say we don't need fixing, we don't need any more sort of work, shopping or anything like that, just give us funding. And I think that's probably resonates with most women who are looking and looking to fundraise and leading organizations.

But tapping back into that, there is absolutely no reason why someone shouldn't go for that role because either they don't see themselves in there or they think it's difficult, or they think it'd be really hard for me to do because complete sentence will be difficult for me to raise, it'll be difficult for me to make it, etc. If we just cast off any of these shackles and accept that these are difficult roles.

You know, surgery is difficult, you know, being a CEO is difficult, being a leading engineer is difficult. That doesn't make them less worth doing, it makes them more worth doing. And it's difficult for everyone.

So it's difficult whether you're a boy or a girl, it doesn't matter. They are difficult things and they're difficult things to do.

Well, so if we just say yes, it's difficult and then just ignore that because if that's the thing that leads in your head, then you'll never go for it. But that would be the case for anything that's a challenge in your life.

So I go back to my original thing is you do something that really you love and the love and the passion kind of almost blinds you to the difficulty. Not that you don't know it's that of course you do, but it doesn't bind you.

Difficulty, I'll rephrase, but blinds you to the self limiting nature of the difficulty. So you can see the difficulty for what it is and then go right, how am I going to deal with it?

You know, how do I overcome it as opposed to it's so difficult, I'm not even going to have a go so that's the kind of mindset.

At the moment you have what many people would describe as a portfolio career. You also have teenagers. Everyone who has teenagers tells me they need you at the moment when they need you.

And there's a lot less flexibility to when they need your attention. How do you deal with that?

So the need changes because when they're small, you know, they've got great capacity to do really silly things like try and jump off things and you know, various ingenious ways of trying to kill themselves unintentionally. So you have to physically, you know, the physicality of the care is probably the greatest thing.

You know, when they're very small, of course they're literally dependent on you because you're feeding them, you're cleaning them, you're picking them up and all of those things as they get a little bit older, then it's a little bit more around just managing their life. And they kind of, for the most part do what you've scheduled them to do, go to school, get picked up, go to an after school club, etc.

The whole thing around the teenage years is of course to say, look, you've got more autonomy and you've got more choice.

And the thing that we've tried to map to that bit of their life is that you have got more autonomy provided you keep choosing the right things, make the right choices. And if you don't, some of that autonomy will be scaled back.

And of course you scaffold them relatively early on and then you scaffold them a little bit less as time goes on. And we all make bad choices, adults make bad choices.

And when that bad choice happens, you can kind of course correct and say this was a bad choice because. But that kind of allows you to have a two way dialogue and a discussion with your kids. And undoubtedly they need you when they need you.

Those points, you have to focus on that the immediacy is more around that moment in time as opposed to that exact point in time. You know what I mean?

Like a baby needs feeding now, there's no question around that, you know, no matter what you're doing, that baby's getting fed right now, this second.

Whereas if you've got a teenager that sort of needs you now because of a bullying or some online stuff or whatever, that's something that is much more nuanced and they need you now.

But you also need to form a strategy around it because you're just sitting them down going, well, let's talk about the, you know, the issue you've got at school, they're not going to do that.

So it's more saying if you have that conversation with the kids or the two flow anyway and that goes, then that allows you opens that window to say, okay, so this is the problem. And then you see it as a slightly longer game. We're not just going to sit down and solve this. Okay, this is an issue now.

It's going to be at my area of focus with you, number one child or two child or whatever for the next couple of weeks. That's what I say in my head.

And then every time we chat or have a good story and I go, oh, by the way, you know that thing, what's happened about that? So that you can start sort of gather. So they do need you when they need you.

But it's not so much that short sharp spell of immediacy, it's more a slower burn over probably a longer period of time, but does need your focus and needs your intellectual and analytical focus.

Because they don't yet have the tools to solve some of these complex problems, you know, and some of them are anything that you know that's hard for adults to solve, social media, you know, bullying, inappropriate signs that some people might be showing them, etc. So some of them are very, very challenging things and certainly not, not suitable for immediate, immediate solving. That makes sense.

They're starting to enter the world of adults which is also the world of complex challenges that aren't simple.

Exactly.

You are a leader in a biotech firm. Obviously you know pharma very well.

What's your gut instinct? What needs to change to have more women and especially also more mothers continuing to get to those exec director, CEO positions in those areas.

That's a very, very complex question. So, and I think lots of people were talking about that. So I think that's a multi pronged approach.

Some of it is us, but some of it is a societal thing. So I'll give you an example that raised its head recently, which I actually think is a very good idea.

So you might remember some time ago there was a campaign, a government initiated campaign that said this girl can.

And it was around getting more women and girls to stay in sports because the study showed that actually a lot of girls drop sports very, very quickly so they don't stay in it. And part of it was body image, part of it was what would they think?

And it was a very, very clever ad because it showed normal women and girls doing normal sports. So it wasn't all idealized and airbrushed. And it was very powerful because it showed the strength and the benefit and the fun in all of that.

I would suggest we need something like that for women in these very, very exciting, difficult.

Don't want to necessarily use the word high powered because it's not about the high power, but it is about that being at the front edge of these STEM innovation positions.

So I would suggest, if any government policymakers are listening, that having a campaign like that, you know, if you were to see on a billboard, this lady I listened to at India House, one of the engineers and she's met a Fellow of the Royal Society, was another one. So if you saw these people and there was someone who was a nuclear physicist who works at Cambridge, you know, these are amazing women.

If you saw them and then had just a teeny tiny bio, you'd look them up. Little QR code, look them up. That would change the mindset not just of girls, but of boys and not just of women, but also of men.

And then there is that visibility because nobody, obviously EDI is taking a hit. And part of it is because, and I think most people can get behind this, there shouldn't be any diversity without meritocracy. Nobody wants to be.

I certainly wouldn't want to be hired as a tick box exercise, but at the same time I don't not want to be hired because of being female. So it just should be as much of a level playing field as possible.

So that's one thing, I think there's a visibility point and the other thing is that really makes a difference is I actually think more women in finance and investing, because that kind of puts a different flavor on it.

And to anybody who sort of is looking at doing that, I would suggest that if you're a mum, that you're trying to do all of these things and manage all of your time and you know, you're going to be very resilient, you're going to be very adaptable, you're going to be very flexible and persistent and quite strong overall. So those are all really, really good sort of strengths to bring to it. At that point. You probably find people will have different opinions.

You know, there's all sorts of questions around, how do you lead? What's a female leader? How do you do that? Which I think is for a different time, for a different conversation necessarily, but that can be it.

And the word albeit overused I think is really apt for this one is just you've got to be authentic, you've got to be you as the saying goes, everyone else is taken. So you've got to know who you are and be able to communicate that very clearly.

Those are some of the things that we can do as individuals, but then can also be done around society and potentially across government.

I couldn't agree more.

I really like this idea of a campaign and I've recorded now more than 200 episodes and we'll release this episode as part of a CEO series, which we've done a number of times. And thank you so much for being part of sharing your story.

Everybody's story is slightly different, but just sharing that actually you are there in this position and you're still standing and you're making a difference through that. I think that's an incredibly important piece of the puzzle.

We've done research and it showed that 6% of working parents said their motivation to get to senior leadership would increase if there were more role models in their sector. To me, that was surprising because I always was laughing a little bit at all these efforts by big companies to create role models.

I thought it was just a tick box exercise, but actually it does make a difference. So we definitely need to keep doing it.

Yeah, 100. 100. And it's once also very. I think it was Madeleine Albright that said there's a special place in hell for women who don't help other women.

And so I think part of that, as you journey through a find your tribe, find people of which there are many men and women, incidentally. And I think that's probably one thing I didn't say.

I think some of my strongest advocates at work, mainly because they all have just on the balance of probabilities and the odds have been men who supported the next generation of surgeons, men or women. So they, as long as you did what you were meant to do and perform as you're meant to perform, then they were supportive.

So I've had immense support from seniors. And it's an interesting thing because I role modeled them even though they weren't women. There was a few women, but there were 99% of them were men.

That didn't kind of matter. I sort of thought, I want to be like you. And the gender thing didn't matter.

I thought actually you're compassionate, you're kind, you support, you help. That's what I want to be. So I think that's the other thing. I think we don't necessarily need to see that role modeling in another woman.

It helps, of course it does, but it does.

It doesn't have to be that way it's more around the human thing and the human side of things and say, and we've got great, great advocates for more women in biotech. So recently with International Women's Day, Dan Mahoney, who's the chair of the BIA was amazing.

You know, he's been a real to say ally probably doesn't quite encompass it enough. So there are, and there's lots of people that are like that.

So I think seek them out and, and surround with yourself with those even if they're very busy, even if it's just a coffee or something. You know, most people do want to give back and they do want to support. So there is stuff out there. So get that.

Because to your earlier question, that will give you the strength, that will give you the support and at times when perhaps you're a little bit faltering may just be enough to keep you on the straight and narrow and keep you supported.

Absolutely.

And on that note, anyone who does want that practical group of people who have your corner, it is worth checking out the Leaders plus Fellowship, which are social enterprise runs, because it does exactly that. It brings together people who want to progress their careers and who happen to have children, men and women.

We are operating in a system that isn't quite designed for people who have care and responsibilities and actually sometimes that can be hard and it's a really good thing to surround yourself with like minded people.

And also we have senior leader mentors who share their experience, who perhaps have children who've grown up, who really want to give back to people from Iran. So again I have an agenda which is to get more people into those CEO roles.

And one question I'm interested in is what qualities do you now need to exhibit as a CEO that you didn't have to exhibit in a more junior role where the box didn't stop with you?

Yeah, that's a very interesting question.

And probably I have to say I think there isn't a great difference in the sense that I personally, and I think this is a generalization thing, always thought that to some degree the buck does always stop with you for what you're doing. So you can't say, oh, someone else will pick that up or that's not my bit, you know, someone else can do it.

So I think giving it to say 100% doesn't really quite encapsulate what I'm trying to say.

But to give it that dedication and that focus, to give the best that you can deliver at any given time, I think holds true and in some respects, you need to have that even when you're a junior, because if you don't, then no one can see you in the CEO role because you're not really taking all the responsibility you need to be taking in order for you to perform at a CEO level. So you almost have to do that. Not just to say, go above and beyond.

Doesn't quite really paint the picture, but you have to do everything that you can do in the bit that you can influence. And that is how leaders are made, whether you'll get to see or whatever else. And that's the bit that gets you.

I mean, if you're thinking like that the whole time, then you're sort of preparing.

I'll give you a sort of CEO, but I'll give you that sort of more surgical example of that as you're training and you're going along the person that you. There's always someone senior to you until you become consultant.

And when you're the consultant, you're the one that carries the can for pretty much everything. So when you're junior, you kind of take it for granted that it isn't new. But for my part, I've always thought, well, what if it is me?

And I've always been very reflective around examining situations where, well, if it was me, I couldn't handle it. I needed to call someone to help. And being reflective around those points allowed me to.

To grow each time a challenge that I couldn't overcome myself presented itself. So I was consistently pushing myself to say, how can I be better because I'm not perfect. No one's ever the finished article. I still do that now.

This is not like you get to some pinnacle and it stops. It doesn't stop. It's still there. So.

And I do that now as a CEO, as a surgeon, I'll get to a point and I'll think, I'm not 100% sure that I'm doing this 100% the way it should be done.

So very often where I go for the team, you know, I'll phone a friend and I've got lots of really amazing advisors that I can talk to and say, listen, can I just run something past you? And that's the thing. So be really good around examining bits where you can be better.

This is what I try and do and surround yourself with people that are able to give you that advice when you need it. And then you sort of take that, internalize it, work it through as a worked example, and rinse and repeat.

And that allows for A continuous improvement and learning. So trying to always push yourself to a point where actually the buck really stops with me. But also being reflective and saying, I know I have limits.

I'm not perfect, I'm not the finished article, I never will be, I don't think. And then examine those and then go for people and rely on people who are better than you because there's always someone better than you.

That's very true. On the topic of advice I'm interested in, obviously your children.

In 10 years time or so, they might be out of your house and they might even be starting to think about how they might combine big demanding careers with children. Is there anything that you would say to them that you haven't said on this podcast yet?

Yes, I think the answer is it's not an either or. I think that is self limiting. And there is this sort of very unhelpful phrase of having it all. Not even sure I know what that means.

But if it means family and career, then you can have both of those things. But just how that plays out is very individual. And it's not perfect. And it doesn't have to be.

That's really important actually, you know, it doesn't have to be. And guilt is baked into motherhood. We're guilty about all the things and we need to let go of that.

And particularly if you're very high flying and high achieving that when you first start having kids and the whole thing goes sideways because the house is this and the kids are that and the career, that's just fine. There's no race, there's not a competition. We're on this for a finite amount of time.

And the things that really matter are things like love, family, career for most people. And so there's plenty of time. There's plenty of time.

And trying to live in that moment because by the way, the days are long, but the years are very short.

And all of a sudden you blink and you think it was but yesterday that I was sitting bleary eyed and I thought I'd never sleep again for the rest of my life. So just enjoy the ride. And it's not going to be perfect. And that is perfect. The imperfection, the messiness, that is how it's meant to be.

And it's not a race. It's your speed and it's your life. And nothing personally is the greater gift than having a family and a kid.

It's the best thing that I think I've ever done. So don't sweat the small stuff. Don't Aim for perfection and live in the moment.

What a wonderful final word for our podcast. Thank you so much Nara. If someone would like to find out more about your thinking or your verb, where should they head?

So easiest is always I'm afraid I'm going to go social media and LinkedIn. I am very good at trying to get through all my messages but it sometimes takes me some time so feel free to reach out.

Forgive me if I don't reply very fast, but I will do. And yeah, very happy to help when I can.

Or if I'm not the right person because I'm not going to be the right person for everything or everybody, then direct you to someone who is.

I really appreciate you listening. Thank you so much and I always love to hear from our listeners.

If you want to connect with me on LinkedIn, just go to Ferina Hefti and I'd be delighted to hear your feedback and your suggestions or just have you say hi.

Likewise, if you do feel passionately about gender equality and you want to support a female led podcast, then please do leave a review on and share it with a friend. Just because at the moment podcasting is still a very very male dominated environment. Most of the top charting podcasts are led by men.

I really love all the people who've joined from the podcast our fellowship program and if you want to do the same then please head over to leadersplus.org Fellowship in operation order to get access to a community of support to help you combine ambitious career with young children together with people who have your back. See you next week.