What is one thing you have learnt in your career that has been important for your growth?

I think as a woman myself (and in my conversations with other women), there’s this expectation that you need to be 100% qualified for the job that you’re going into. But the reality is if you’re 100% qualified for a job, then you’re overqualified for it. You have to be able to take on a new opportunity, know that you can learn what is needed for the job, and feel confident enough in yourself and your skill set to take that on. There’s a lot of people that won’t do that because they fear that they won’t be able to meet that challenge, and so they undersell themselves. 

I’ve had the opportunity to now shift careers multiple times and they’ve always been in the direction of growth. A big eye opener for me has been that if I want to grow in my career and I want to be able to take on that next big challenge, I have to be willing and open to the uncertainty of a new situation where I don’t know everything. My advice to young people is to be okay with the uncertainty and embrace it because it can be a big growth lever. You’d be surprised at how much you are able to take on if you are willing to try.

What has been a formative career/life experience for you?

Early in my career, post business school, as I was trying to grow my career and family at the same time, I lost my first child 20 hours after he was born. It was a perfect pregnancy and we had no idea this was going to happen. That was a real pivotal moment in my life. My family and I had to embrace the hardest thing that will ever be thrown at us–something that stays with us every single day of our life. It made me realize how important it is not to sweat the small stuff.

That incident has helped me to have empathy in the way I like to lead – you just don’t know everyone’s story so give everyone a little bit more rope. I remind myself that I am not a brain surgeon. I am not saving people’s lives on a daily basis, so I just allow everyone to just pause for a second and ground ourselves when something doesn’t go right so we can move forward. We’re going to make mistakes, but you know what? We’ll figure it out. It’s not going to kill us. And I think that that has stuck with me in every single job that I’m in. And if anything, hopefully has added a layer of calming effect to my teams 

I tell my team don’t come with problems. Let’s figure it out, let’s be solution-oriented. At the end of the day, even if we make a few mistakes, we’re learning from them and we’re building on them. We should embrace everything we do because you will go through a lot of tough things in life, and when you look at the bigger picture, the small stuff is just not that big of a deal.

What are some of the things that you look for in people that you hire? What traits make a person really valuable on your team?

I think the number one thing I look for is curiosity. When I’m interviewing people, one of the first questions that I may ask is: Tell me something interesting you’re reading right now. This  gives me a sense of whether they are engaged and they’re driven by something. It doesn’t have to be work-related, it could be something that they’re passionate about. I like to dig deeper to understand why that’s interesting to them. 

I really appreciate diversity in thinking. I love being challenged. I love when sometimes the most junior person on a team will say, “I actually don’t think that’s right.” I genuinely believe that if you don’t have a dialogue and you can’t disagree, you’re never going to find a great solution. So I look for that curiosity because that tells you about the way people think.

I also look for that empathy and grace. As much as I want to give space to people, I want to make sure that they’re giving it to their own team members, their own colleagues. I look for how they treat others. You can treat me really well, but if I see you not treating your colleague well that’s an indicator to me that you are not going to be a player in the sandbox. You are going to be someone that is just looking out for your own self-interest.

What do you do to have fun outside of work and family obligations?

Being in the fitness space, I’ve been really embracing health and wellness and putting myself as a priority. I really enjoy my workouts and having some mental space for myself – whether it’s just listening to music or a podcast. It really keeps me going.

I also genuinely still love to travel. Now we’re giving the kids the opportunity to pick the destination and really enjoying seeing how they pick what they want to do or see and having them engage in the history of a location or language or food. I genuinely look forward to that every year. 

What’s on your travel list this year?

This year we’re going to Brazil! It was chosen by our kids.

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