Vicky Bond on what it’s really like to lead in animal advocacy

Vicky Bond has done lots of impressive stuff in her career – she started working as a vet and later ended up running a 100+ person organisation, The Humane League (THL), which many of you might be familiar with as one of the key organisations campaigning to get chickens out of cages. She is now the CEO of Madre Brava, an international climate campaigning group focused on food. 

Given Vicky’s extensive leadership and management experience, managing teams ranging from 5 to over 110, I wanted to pick her brains about leadership and management in the animal advocacy movement. I would highly recommend it for people who are leading teams of any size or want to learn more about how to do it well!

Podcast news:

• We now have a Substack where we’ll soon be sharing summaries and key takeaways from all episodes! We’ll also be doing polls where you can vote on the next guests. Sign up here.
• After our last episode with Sjir from Giving What We Can, we’ve had some people take a pledge to donate between 5-10% of their income to effective charities – this is incredible! But I said I would give up to £1000, and most of this is still up for grabs. So if you’re considering pledging, now is a great time as I’ll be donating £50 to Giving What We Can’s effective animal advocacy fund for each person who takes the trial pledge of 1% or full 10% pledge, up to a total of £1000. So, if you sign up via the links below, there is a special tracker that will let me know how many people take it, and I’ll donate accordingly. 
  • The 🔹Trial Pledge
  • The 🔸10% Pledge

Chapters:
00:00:00 - Cold Intro
00:09:38 - Challenges and lessons in being a first-time CEO 
00:20:40 - Vicky's experience running 100+ person THL
00:26:45 - Challenges in running large organisations 
00:39:02 - Misconceptions around running large teams 
00:42:55 - Advice for running 20+ person orgs 
00:46:41 - The downsides of scale 
00:56:04 - What makes a good leader 
01:02:05 - Overcoming self-limiting beliefs and imposter syndrome
01:05:55 - Madre Brava's strategy on protein split ratios

Resources:

• Entangled life: How fungi make our world 
• Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown podcast
• Rich Roll podcast
• Madrebrava.org and LinkedIn
• The secret thoughts of successful women 

With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing!

If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us!

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 5:10 Vicky's background
• 9:38 Challenges in being a first time CEO and leading small teams
• 20:11 Tips for people leading small organisations
• 20:40 Vicky's experience running 100+ person The Humane League
• 26:45 Challenges in running large organisations
• 39:02 Misconceptions around running large teams
• 42:55 Advice for running 20+ person organisations
• 43:35 Moving to Madre Brava
• 46:41 The downsides of scale
• 56:04 What makes a good leader
• 1:02:05 Overcoming self-limiting beliefs and imposter syndrome
• 1:05:55 Madre Brava's strategy on protein split ratios

Transcript

Vicky: 0:00

I think once you get past 20 people, you start getting into a lot more operational stuff a lot more often. And like I said, we need larger organizations to create that history, that institutional change, to bring more money and bring people into the movement, I guess essential. But I think you can start seeing a slower return on investment, so to speak, as you get to a certain size, by virtue of the fact that people create more things, that create more, you know, if you want to stay focused, try you need to do a lot more planning, you need to do all these other things that go alongside it.

James: 0:45

Vicki Bond has done lots of impressive stuff in her career. She started working as a vet and then later ended up running a hundred-plus person organization, the Humane League, which many of you might be familiar with as one of the key organizations campaigning to get chickens out of cages. And she's now the CEO of Madra Brava, an international climate campaigning group focused on food. Given Vicky's extensive leadership and management experience, managing teams ranging from 5 to over 110 people, I want to speak our brains about leadership and management in the animal advocacy movement. And this was a very fun conversation where Vicky shares some candid lessons and tips for people running groups of all sizes. And I would highly recommend it for anyone, whether you are leading teams or you just want to learn more about how to do it well. And some other things related to the podcast that you might be interested to hear about, it's that we now have a sub stack, which you can find the link for below, where we'll soon be sharing summaries and key takeaways from all episodes. We'll also be doing polls where you can vote on the next guests, and you can sign up for this in the show notes below, and yeah, this would be a great help as we expand what we do on the podcast. And after the last episode with Sheer from Giving What We Can, we've had some people take a pledge to donate between 5 to 10% of their income to effective charities, which is incredible. So thank you, those people who did that, I don't know who you are, but this is greatly appreciated. I said I would give up to £1,000, and most of this money is helpful for grabs. So if you're considering pledging to effective charities, now is a great time to do so. As I'll be donating £50 to Giving What We Can't Effective Animal Advocacy Fund for each person who takes the trial pledge, which is 1% of your income, or £100 if you take the full 10% pledge. And this will be up to a total of £1,000. So if you sign up by the links in the show notes below, there'll be a special tracker which will let me know how many people take it and I'll donate accordingly. Without further ado, enjoy the conversation with Vicky. Vicky, thank you for coming on the podcast. How are you doing today?

Vicky: 2:50

I'm good, thank you. I'm I'm glad to be here. I'm looking forward to the conversation.

James: 2:54

Yes, nice to have you on. Question we like to start everyone with is what is something you change your mind on recently and why?

Vicky: 3:01

So I would say most recently it was around it's been around vegan restaurants and then beginning to serve meat again. I very much felt that very sad when a vegan restaurant would start serving meat again. And recently I've reflected on that and realized that if we want real change, actually having plant-based as default with add-on for meat is actually more likely to meet people come in and eat more plant-rich diets than if it's a vegan restaurant, they may be put off drink. I mean, that's why the vegan restaurants end up shifting, right? Because they're not getting enough clientele. And it's a really hard time to be running a restaurant right now. But if the change we want to see is people eating more plant-rich diets, then in fact or you know, restaurants actually having the default as plant-based with add-ons is a way to actually get more people eating more plant-based. So for me, I am not shunning those restaurants anymore.

James: 4:01

Interesting. Did something happen that made you change your mind on this? Do you have like restaurant or friends that are just saying like how hard it is, or yeah, how did this happen?

Vicky: 4:09

Well, I do know people that are running restaurants right now, and it is super hard. But also just thinking about, you know, I think why sometimes vegan restaurants are struggling is because there's more plant-based options. So people can go to different restaurants now that they couldn't go to before. And again, that's wonderful because if you're going with a group of people and they they have more plant-based options. So for me, it's yeah, I've just seen a few here in San Diego shift and actually back home as well. And I've really had to kind of sit with that and think, what do I actually think we need change in the world for? And that's more people eating more of these plant-rich diets. So that's going to happen if the more typical, if you want to call it like that, restaurant is actually making more default plant-based for without arms.

James: 4:51

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I think you're right. It's like it's somewhat the victim of our own success. And that as more and more restaurants have options, then maybe like the niche market they were serving is kind of like goes and go to other places. So yeah.

Speaker 2: 5:02

Exactly. That's exactly battle with.

James: 5:05

Uh well, cool. Well, we'll we won't be talking about meaning restaurants, I think, too much today. The one thing I think I was most excited to talk to you about is I guess your background over the last uh, I don't know what you mean, like fifth fifteen or so years. I'm making that up, but No, that's right. Nailed it. Um from being a vet to a campaigner at uh, I guess I think Compassion First, and then the Humane League in the UK, and then running the Humane League in the UK, the Humane League uh International, or the the full Humane League, and then Madra Brava. So you've had quite a I guess interesting journey from running small groups to much bigger groups and then back to smaller groups again and kind of want to unpick how that all was for you. You were working at the Humane League UK, I think for a relatively short period of time before you became the director or the CEO, I don't know what the exact role is. How was that transition as going into your first senior leadership role or your first uh ED role? Yeah, how'd you find that?

Vicky: 5:59

Yeah, it uh it was exciting and terrifying in equal measures, I would say. I've been doing corporate engagement at Compassion of While Farming and then moved over to the Humane League and kind of we joked about kind of going from the light side to the dark side because THR does a lot more. Does a lot more like heavy-handed campaigning um and naming and shaming of companies. And then the opportunity to start THL UK alongside uh Pourelia, who is our campaigner as well at THL. It was wonderful. Um and but also terrifying.

James: 6:29

Nice and Maze Mark and we'll call the Humane League uh THL and THL UK for the UK branch, so everyone knows we don't have to keep saying uh those words over and over again. And also I I don't actually know, so you actually you helped set up uh THL UK and then kind of quickly became the the director after that, is that right?

Vicky: 6:48

That's right. So there was Prue and I. Prue was campaigning and I was doing the corporate outreach, and then um yeah, then we went on to set up THL UK and we brought in, we hired our first team, it was a team of six. We hired four people in.

James: 7:02

How was it like? So I think you you ran THL UK for several years. What was it like running, I guess, a team of six or so people? And was it kind of what you expected? And yeah, maybe tell us about that in the first initial few years.

Vicky: 7:14

Yeah, it was what I expected. I think one of the things that we we were on a on a roll with like the momentum was growing. We were getting retailers to commit to cage-free at the time, and it was just a very exciting time to be leading an organization with really like hungry people wanting change. It felt very um invigorating, I guess, and and also um it was a steep learning curve for all of us. We were all sort of starting this new organization together. We had their support, obviously, of the of THL, the overarching THL, which couldn't have done it without without them, quite literally. But nevertheless, it was kind of forging our way in the UK, which was great.

James: 7:52

Are there any memorable times? And I guess there's quite probably early stage kind of scrappy period where maybe you said there's like lots of early big wins and things are a bit more fast-paced. Does anything stick out to you as well?

Vicky: 8:01

I mean, there was loads of like exciting times. I think one of them was Noble Foods. So they're the largest egg producer in the UK, and we'd kind of got the companies to commit, but you know, getting the largest egg producer would be really kind of this is it, solidified. Crew and the team camped outside Noble Food's offices and did this kind of 24-hour camel that really annoyed the company. Um, and they shared offices with other companies. So they were handing out leaflets like, do you know that you share an office with this cruel company? Like they do all this animal cruelty. Do you know that they keep hens in cages? And so the next day they didn't even have their employees come in because we were camping out. Um, and then we got a phone call that, yeah, okay, we will we will commit to going cage-free. And that was just, yeah, it was fantastic. It was like pure campaigning brilliance by Pru and the team. It pushed them in the direction they needed to go. And we were having conversations, you know, but that's that's the beauty of this kind of campaigning, whereas you're having the conversations and like it's time to like do the thing now. Like this needs to um, and so in those moments, it it's really is very rewarding, I think is probably the best phrase.

James: 9:14

Nice. And do you remember if Noble Foods needed much additional campaigning or pushing after that?

Vicky: 9:19

Yeah, they were reporting already and they were following through. So yeah. I haven't actually looked most recently, but I mean the UK is really shifting to entirely cage-free.

James: 9:28

So yeah, yeah, I think it's like 80 odd percent as of quite recently, which is very amazing. Okay, so there's lots of memorable bits. I guess what was I guess hard for you in terms of kind of coming into this new role? I guess maybe not having been uh uh the director or like the top ed honcho, so to speak. Uh yeah, or what did you find hard about that?

Vicky: 9:46

One of the lessons for me in leadership in those early days is recognizing you didn't need to have all the answers. Like being a good leader is not about knowing all the things, it's actually about having people that are better at you at all the things that you can then like lead and empower to do their best work. And I would say that I definitely had still probably do imposter syndrome to some degree. Um, and so that feeling of like I should know all the answers and I should have all the ideas, and that's that's not true at all. And uh really being able to make those hard decisions, and that's where it matters, right? It's like getting all the information, having all the best people around you to kind of to give their ideas and to move things forward and then to know when to make those hard decisions. That was a deep learning curve in those first couple of years, I would say.

James: 10:32

Yeah. Did did something happen that made you learn that? Is it was it advice you got from like your team or from someone else? Or did you, yeah, how did how did you kind of come to actually realizing it's okay to admit you don't have all the answers?

Vicky: 10:43

Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know. Uh I'm trying to think. Well, I think I mean you can't have all the answers. So by yeah, you sort of have to learn in that sense. But I guess there's like uh there's a there's a beginning to is getting comfortable with that, right? Like it's not that I ever thought I would have all the answers. I never thought I would have all the answers. But it's getting comfortable with knowing that that's fine. Like it's like quieting the imposter syndrome voice in your head that's like, why don't you know this? Why, you know, it's like, no, that's not what the point of an ED is.

James: 11:17

I guess then how do you face those difficult decisions then where you you feel like you don't have all the answers, and maybe people in your team do, but I guess yeah, maybe feels like that might have been a challenge, is like making challenging like decisions with kind of imperfect or incomplete information. How did you navigate that?

Vicky: 11:32

I think there is a part of leadership that is intuition, honestly. And I think I have been able to lean into my intuition. And I know that's like a very airy, fairy answer, but like the reality, you kind of have a gut feeling. And I think if you overthink things, that can be a real problem. I think that's another thing. Like I was a big overthinker in the beginning, and just like sitting, and actually, Prue was very, very instrumental in getting me to listen to my gut. She was like, Vicki, I don't have all the proof, but I do have a gut feeling. And it's like, okay, that's too fruit, do it. And like that helped me to learn to trust my gut, actually. Now we're saying that out loud, I realize that is probably one of the things for sure.

James: 12:12

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, there's probably so many things you'd like to have more information on to decide, but ultimately that that's not the world we live in. And maybe whether you like it or not, it's either your intuition or someone else's or some other combination of messy factors. Maybe it's good to just name that that is what you're doing. Is there anything else that sticks out as like challenges for I guess I can know the context is there's probably lots of people who listen to this, and I guess previously myself who have run small organizations, you know, between like, you know, let's say three and twenty people who I'm sure have faced uh a bunch of challenges. And I guess the only thing that comes to mind for you is like kind of key lessons you learned for organizations of that stage where you're like, oh, you wish someone would have told you that when you started DHL. UK.

Vicky: 12:50

What we learned quite quickly is that you need to plan for the organization you want to be and not the organization you necessarily are. Because we grew to like 20 or 28 people or whatever. And I think taking time to take a step back and thinking more broadly about where you're going and what you want to achieve and ensuring you have the infrastructure to do that. I think when you're a startup, you can be very scrappy and it's it's very exciting and you can move things very quickly, and things can get ahead of you quite quickly without you realizing. So I think it's important to have that operational mindset as well. I think we we're often campaigners to get into this. It's just like go, go, go. And without that operational mindset, without thinking about the structure that will enable people to do their best work, you can quite quickly lose efficiency, I would say, without having that broader view of like, where are you heading? What organization do we want to be? How can we be as effective as possible? And that means having some of the boring sides of campaign, which is to have agendas for your meetings and to have one-to-ones that are structured and to build in feedback. And that's the other part I would say. You build your culture, right? You're starting out, and you as a leader, you at the end of the day, you know, culture comes from everyone. But if the top doesn't isn't living the culture, the culture will not exist. So whatever you are doing at the top will trickle down, whether you like that or not. If you are not cognizant of the culture that you're creating in your own personal actions, you will soon see ripple effects through the organization. And the smaller it is, probably in some ways it can be more impactful. Um, and so it's being really, yeah, really cognizant of what you want in a in an organization. So things at THR that we really valued, and I I really value here at Majro Bravo is one of the things that attracted me to this role is like feedback is really important. And that means feedback going up as well as going down. It cannot just be that people that are supervising people are giving feedback. It needs to come the other way. And I think that's how you drive an organization that can be able to take chances and risks because we are feeling like we know we can make mistakes. We all make mistakes, or we know that we need to think outside the box, trade outside our comfort zone. And that will come with things that go well and things that don't go well. And that's okay. And so that's the kind of culture. If you want to be driving that culture, you need to be living it authentically, I would say.

James: 15:16

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think yeah, whether you like it or not, most cultures you're gonna end up emulating the people that people might look to for guidance, whether it's you know the EV or other kind of semi-figures in organization. So yeah, that kind of role modeling, I think it's very, very important.

Speaker 2: 15:29

Yeah.

James: 15:30

Maybe on the growth aspect, you said yeah, you guys started uh maybe it was like two or three people, and then you ended up being around 28. Like uh over what period did that happen? And I'm curious, like when you maybe you started noticing some of these challenges.

Vicky: 15:43

So it was over five years. Um and then actually it's it it went down again because there were people from the open wing alliance part of the organization that then moved to THL International, and so it kind of went down a bit. But I would say after you get past eight people, if you don't have things in place, things all get quite messy, quite critically.

James: 16:03

It's actually lower than I thought. It's interesting. Well, like why a people like given examples of like what happened with you guys that made you think, oh, I wish we had done this thing or that thing.

Vicky: 16:11

Well, I you know, I would say without a project management and tool and things, people end up not knowing what others are doing. You can know kind of if you know, if you think about it, I think Amazon does talk about like you can share a pizza but then be on a pizza, like oh yes, yes. You know, that kind of thing. And there is there is real truth in that because the more people you add, the more interconnections you get. And so when there's like three or four of you, or six of us, like in the beginning, you know, it's Pra and I to start with, super easy, right? You just jump on a call, what are we doing? This is what we're doing. For you know, six people, again, pretty easy, but you get past eight people and you get into kind of 10, 12 people. If you do not have structures in place, people go off and do duplications of things, or they don't know one person's doing another thing, or they're doing this one thing, and they're like, Oh, comms, can you not put it out? And they're like, Well, no, I'm doing something else. Do you know what I mean?

James: 16:59

Like, yeah, yeah. I have a comms calendar, like God.

Vicky: 17:03

Yeah. All the stuff that's like not when you get into campaigning or whatever, you don't think, oh, I'm gonna be really structured and do all these things. I want to be creative all the time. But like you can free up creativity by creating structure. And I think that's very important. So yeah, I think over after eight people, if you do not have some of this stuff in place, you will start to see cracks appearing.

James: 17:24

Of like maybe the various things you added after eight people, what did you find was the most useful, or maybe even like the most underrated? Like obviously, like HR is maybe useful, but like is there anything like you guys did that? Maybe things that was like particularly valuable and does maybe doesn't get enough kind of credit, or maybe it's not very sexy. Maybe it is just HR, I don't know, but it comes in mind.

Vicky: 17:44

As a leader, you're not going to be managing all seven people, and so you've already got a level removal, and so having skip level meetings, so that's where you as a leader meet with people that are managed by people that you manage.

Speaker 2: 17:56

Yeah, yeah.

Vicky: 17:57

That can be a really good way of driving conversations that you wouldn't otherwise get, and you get a broader view of the organization that you wouldn't get. I think that can be really important. I mean, we did this really from the beginning, but like having more I came from Compassionate World Farming as well, where we had, you know, it was a an old more institutionalized organization. They had a lot of those things. And so knowing that you want one-to-ones that have, you know, a lot of detail, like structure to it and things, we brought those in early on, but I've seen that in organizations where they haven't got it. And I think that can be a detriment to really having productive conversations. You can have really free-flowing conversations, which is wonderful, but then some of the detail and some of those more nuanced conversations can get a bit lost if you're not being more like, okay, what intentionality we bring into next week. Always having feedback as a request, you know, backwards to you and to them. Like those are the moments where you capture parts of the conversation that wouldn't happen without that kind of structure, I would say.

James: 18:56

Yeah, I find the feedback thing always interesting because it's like you sometimes you can have it on the agenda. And if you don't kind of purposely get to it every time, it's very easy to avoid and avoid. But I think, yeah, I think having that habit makes it so much easier. And also to do it like outside of the meetings, right? Because ideally, you do that when stuff happens, not just like in your regular one-to-one or whatever. So yeah.

Vicky: 19:14

But I think there's an intentionality to it. So our feedback is um, and we do it here at Marjo Bravo, is like it's both positive. Like what great things have happened this week is and feedback can be uncomfortable and depending on cultures as well. So I think that's where it's interesting. So in the UK, they're we're okay-ish.

James: 19:32

I think not great, not great. I'm sure the US is much more direct.

Vicky: 19:35

It takes a little bit of work to get people comfortable with it. In some cultures, it's even more challenging, in other cultures, it's a bit less challenging. Um, and so when you're working internationally, Madabrava's international, THL is international, you know, you have to bear those things in mind. And so again, how you frame it, like, is it about critical feedback or is it about what's one thing I could have done 10% you could have done 10% better last week? You know, when you frame it like that, I think people are more comfortable in sort of saying, oh, actually, yeah, that could have been like a tiny bit better. It was great, but like there is an area where I think it could have been a bit better that can allow people to feel a bit more comfortable in that feedback as well.

James: 20:10

Yeah, cool. Well, before wrapping up, maybe chapter one of your uh let's say some more charity management time. Is there anything else that takes out as like uh a bit of advice you'd share with others who kind of in this three to twenty person range?

Vicky: 20:22

Pace yourself. I think it can be very exciting to add more and more people, and it is, but there is a degree to which that can create chaos if you don't have what you need to support that. Yeah, pace yourself. That would be my my advice.

James: 20:40

Well, that is a perfect segue. I did not plan that at all, but I guess the next bit is uh about your time at uh the Humane League or THL, which is uh remind me actually how big was it when you joined, Sash, is it now?

Vicky: 20:54

Oh, I don't know. I I think it's like 1100 well, because there's THL, and then there was, you know, there's THL UK and there was THL Japan and THL mics, current places. But like I think of THL, I think there's like 110, 120.

James: 21:07

Yes. So yeah, a pretty big difference, you know, maybe like five times bigger than what you were previously doing at THL UK. So yeah. A pretty big change. You so you went from THL UK to THL US. I guess were you excited about the like the big group challenge? Like how kind of how much were you thinking about, oh, how different is this gonna be before you came into it? Or are you kind of always aware like this is gonna be very hard and I'm kind of like stealing myself for this?

Vicky: 21:30

I was very much anticipating it being quite different, um, culturally quite different as well. The majority of staff are in the US, although it's like maybe like 70%, 30%, I would say probably now. I was thinking, you know, having worked at Compassionate with Farming, which was also a sort of similar size. I was imagining kind of there is just these bigger teams, you're further removed from people, and that would bring bring different challenges, I guess.

James: 21:58

Yeah. And was it what you expected? Like yeah, how did you find that transition into managing a much bigger organization?

Vicky: 22:08

I would say it was what I expected, and it wasn't what I expected, which is I think is probably the case for any job you enter, right? You think you know one thing and then you get there and you're like, oh second, I didn't see this coming. Um I don't think I anticipated the change in culture. We speak the same language, and I thought, and even though, you know, actually one of the memories I have from THL UK was we went to our first US retreat because they brought everyone that was like, you know, the whole of THL together. Yeah. And I've never felt more British, honestly. I think that's changed now. I live in the US, it feels very different. But back then, you know, everyone was whooping and cheering for the UK team and us you're quietly like, oh, this is too much.

James: 22:51

Well, how did you find that I guess managing, I guess, uh in the UK versus in the US? Like what what was different that was like, oh wow, this is like a quite different culture I have to adapt to.

Vicky: 23:01

I mean, there's we have a lot of indirectness in the UK, I would say, do you think? Like in the way that we speak about things.

Speaker 2: 23:08

Yeah.

Vicky: 23:09

And, you know, when something's fine, when it's not fine, you know, all the jokes that you can make about the way British people speak. Yeah. So there's like a level of directness, I think, in the US, which I love. But also there's a level of earnestness, and you know, I'd say the humour's slightly different, and there's a fear of conflict that I hadn't anticipated as much. And I think derives from the US having very few protections for employment. And I mean that, like it just, you know, in the UK we get contracts and everything else. In the US, employment is at will, and I think that drives a different kind of culture. Um, and so you're up against that challenge, where obviously it is scary. I mean, I remember I was like, I don't have a contract. And then, but then you, you know, people don't want contracts either. So when we talked about it, it's like, oh no, but why would I have contract? So it's it's just very different culture. Yeah, it's just very different culture.

James: 24:10

And it's super weird. I didn't realise that was like a universal thing. But then, like, does that mean like how does it work with kind of any kind of conditions you might put on employment, whether it's like your your notice period or super short notice period, two weeks in the US, regardless, really pretty much, unless you stipulate it.

Vicky: 24:29

And but what I think THL did really well was that you have a handbook and you have very clear outlined things like what if you know if there's performance issues, there's a very clear guidelines as to how we're gonna handle that. Like in theory, by law, because it's at will, that means you can just fire people, but that you create a culture where you show that's not what we do, right? That's really important and that's not what we do. And so that's how you do it. But for a lot of people in most US organizations, that's not what is the culture, yeah.

James: 25:00

And how did the lack of conflict or like the willingness maybe to not engage in conflict? I guess that kind of how did that kind of affect things? Was it just like there's like difficult decisions to be made, like as a team that people would avoid because maybe it involved people's employments being terminated? Like, yeah, maybe you can say more about like how this kind of showed up.

Vicky: 25:18

I think the THL worked hard on trying to like instill that we can do feedback and that feedback isn't something to be to be scared of, right? And that like it goes both ways, and I think that's really important. So I think that's something that was really worked on. And the reality is it's about building trust. Like I was a new leader coming in, like they didn't know what to expect. Understandable that that creates a level of like, well, who is this person? What did what she what what's what's her intentions for the organization? So it takes time to build to build that trust, I guess, over time.

James: 25:53

But it seems like it was something that wasn't just affecting kind of you and your immediate people you're talking about, but it was like more generally throughout the organization. So even places that was kind of like unrelated to you, maybe this still happened.

Vicky: 26:04

Uh yeah. I would I would I mean it's a big organization. It goes back to the difference between smaller organizations and large organizations. And smaller organizations, you know each other, you have meetings with each other regularly, you kind of get to know people. Not only is it like a bigger organization, but it's an entirely remote organization. So that also adds a level of like distance that you have to work very hard to try and overcome. And then in the US, you're working on different time zones too, right? So it's not just like you're all in the same time zone. Each state is like its home country. Um, we crossed like 30 states or whatever with the amount of people that we employed. So there's all these differences. There's all these differences going on. It means that you have to be very intentional about how you're working, I would say.

James: 26:46

Maybe more broadly, what do you think were the biggest challenges you face in running THL, or maybe if you can generalize running bigger organizations, maybe it's like this how do you build trust among a very large remote group? Maybe that's the thing, but is there anything else that sticks out to you as like this was something that was like very hard to grapple with?

Vicky: 27:02

I think it's hard leading an organization, a larger organization where people don't know you and they don't have the same purview as you do, right? You have this much broader overview of everything that's going on, and you can try and be transparent about things as much as possible, but there's a limitation. Some things, you know, aren't going to translate that you can put a, you know, set send out to the whole organization. So when you're making those decisions, you're making it based on the most available knowledge you have at that time. And of course, hindsight is 2020 and everything else as well. That's definitely one of the biggest lessons, I would say. Um, but also that, you know, thinking more broadly, I've done this on the other side as well, where it's like, why is this decision being made? This is like not, and and sometimes I think it could fill in a big organization that people don't have the same, the same contact with you personally to understand why the decision's being made, but also have the same view because of because of the larger organization. So yeah.

James: 27:56

And how did you try to get around that? Was it just through me through being very transparent? Yeah, what did you try to do?

Vicky: 28:00

Yeah, this being yeah, being transparent and you walk a line, right, between creating fear because you can only there's a limitation with how much information you can give, and you can overload people with information and actually it can make situations worse. And I think I definitely learned that as time went along, is like, how do you walk that line between giving information so people have the information, but also not giving so much information that people are like, well, what the heck does that mean?

James: 28:24

Yeah, yeah.

Vicky: 28:25

Um, and uh so yeah, that can be pretty challenging, I would say.

James: 28:29

Nice. Is anything else that takes out as a big challenge from the time?

Vicky: 28:32

I'd say the end of 2022, there was the there was like a mini financial crash. I don't know if you remember it, but um, it had it had an impact on us as an organization. And at that time we've been growing very rapidly, and it was like we would start a new policy team and start all these other things, and we had to like stop hiring, like stop right now and kind of decelerate um and put the brakes on. And when you do that, that then flares up lots of different issues that you have to contend with as a consequence of it. And we definitely, we definitely felt that going into 2023 of just having to make decisions around like what how are we gonna cut back on costs? Is it does this mean that we need to do layoffs? Like all these kind of really hard decisions that have to be made, and while thinking about the the wellness of the of the organization and of the team. I mean, that's essential.

James: 29:24

Why do you think that happened? Was it just kind of not heeding your previous advice of like pace yourself in terms of growth? Or was it just to kind of not being sufficiently ready for like kind of large external events?

Vicky: 29:35

Yeah, I mean, there's only so much stuff you can so much you can ready yourself for something like that, quite frankly. I think I think over time THL has been able to stabilize itself more, but at that time, I just think the way that money had influxed in, it just allowed us for the to have this kind of growth that was and like it was a really um critical things that were being built out in the teams.

Speaker 2: 29:57

Yeah.

Vicky: 29:57

And that's why it was so hard to like stop. Like we have to stop right now. That took a toll on the teams that hadn't hadn't hadn't been able to hire yet, versus, you know, because you have to there's only so big a hiring team. So that takes time. And so that that had repercussions for for a while that we had to work around. It does go back to that kind of more than thinking next year, thinking three years ahead, like having that. But also you don't want to curb your ability. You don't want to curb what you can achieve, right?

Speaker 2: 30:27

Yeah.

Vicky: 30:28

Everything we're doing is so critical to now. We can't be like, oh, but if this happened in three years' time, what would we do? You do need to live a bit in the now, but with also having some protections for the future. And that's that balance, right, between risk and being willing to take risks and taking really like, and knowing when you're taking those risks, right? And understanding, yes, this is a risk I'm willing to take, versus maybe taking risks where you hadn't really realized what the outcome could be. And I think that's about that forward forward focus and living in the now, but also thinking for the future. And it's it's a delicate balance, I would say.

James: 31:03

Yeah, and I guess I guess you can say like THL grew quite a lot. I guess both maybe before you were there and maybe during your time as well. What kind of growing pains manifested uh during that period, or maybe ones you noticed that maybe you you weren't there for, but kind of it arose in your time.

Vicky: 31:19

Well, I would say that um I mean it comes kind of goes back to what I was saying before about like operationally having the support you needed. Yeah when you're growing and bringing in new teams and everything else, it could be really hard on the operational side of the organization, both in terms of the fundraising side of the organization that then needs to raise more funds to keep up with this growth and also with the operational side of the organization. So when you're adding people, you have to think, well, I'm adding all these people, but what does this mean for the more internal side of the organization? And NGOs can be set up to fail a little bit by in the funding world where they want to see like all the money going into the campaigns and the project without having that infrastructure behind it to really support and maximize that impact. And it can have such a detriment in an organization. So even the operations team did a really great job of being able to move as we moved as an organization. But I think there was certainly a period of time where we were kind of understaffed operationally, and then you've got you know you're hiring all these people, and then you need to hire operations staff, and then you have to you have to manage again this delicate balance, right? Of like, where are we putting our focus right now and how are we going to do this?

James: 32:33

There's also the risk of like over-operationalizing, right? In a way where like hiring, like, okay, now we have as many commas people as we do have campaigners, or I shall development team is the same size as our campaign team, so on and so forth, you know, for whatever. Do you feel like that is something that happens? And like, how do you kind of guard against this? Because I guess that also inhibits things in other ways. Because then you have more organizational complexity for the actual output you're kind of putting out. So you also want to not go too far on that either.

Vicky: 32:58

Totally. And I think THL had a really good balance, to be honest, in the sense of when we got where we were, wanted to be. I mean, there's still like I said, it's a constant dance. You are constantly growing here, so grow here, grow here, grow here. Yeah. Yeah, of course you can over-operationalize. I mean, think that's something to be that you have to be super cognizant of again, and thinking like, okay, well, have we got enough campaigners and everything else? Like that, that is essential to our organization, and we have to make sure that we have those. So, yes, you can absolutely, I don't think you want to over-operationalize, but that rarely tends to be a problem, I would say, in particular in the animal rights movement. It's not why I see as the problem. Like money is very scarce, so therefore everyone is shoestringing it to the degree to which they can. So I I haven't seen that be part of the problem, I would say.

James: 33:50

Was there anything else in terms of the ground pain that you kind of noticed in your time?

Vicky: 33:54

Um, I think they were the main ones, honestly, I would say. I think there is a level of working as a remote organization when you're a large organization and really trying to be have intentionality there and communicating. I think there was times where I undercommunicated more than I should have. And I wish I, you know, like I said, hindsight and everything else. I think there's times where we tried to walk that line between what we should, what we can communicate, what we can't, or having meetings. Like you can end up having too many meetings, and then you pull those meetings back, and then people are like, well, I don't know about this, I wasn't involved in this. And it's like, oh, okay. So again, I think, and that's the challenge with a bigger organization. I think with a smaller organization, it's easier to change on a dime. Oh, this isn't working, let's do this. Oh, this is working great, or you know, whatever. In a bigger organization, oh, this isn't working, let's try this. But that means moving all these people to do this thing, and then, oh God, that's not really working either. And then you have to move all these people. You know, it is like driving a speedboat versus driving a, you know, big cruise ship, quite frankly. Um you have to be right looking forward, you have to be looking in the in the immediate, you have to be steering, and you have to know that things aren't going to change nearly as quickly as if it was a smaller organization, which leads you to sometimes not taking the same calculated risks that you might have taken if it was a smaller organization, because you can change things much more quickly. But I think larger organizations provide this like institutional knowledge, this experience can attract people in that you probably wouldn't be able to attract in in a organization. Each of those different sizes of organizations provides a different part to the ecosystem of NGOs, I would say, that's really important.

James: 35:32

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I guess we didn't speak too much on the positives yet, but I guess maybe we'll we can go on that, which is I guess what did you find was like a very fun, like big achievement you guys achieved when you're at THL or other like memorable things you're you're very proud of.

Vicky: 35:45

The fact that the US has got to 40% cage-free was just so monumental. When THL started out, it was like 5% cage-free in the US. And that is so many, many millions and millions of hens every year outside of cages that it's remarkable, quite frankly. Um, and holding those companies accountable and seeing that coming to fruition is is wonderful because when I started out, we were just talking about, you know, when should the date be for cage-free? Um now it's 2025. Um, so so that was that was really good. And I would say, you know, one of the things I love about THL is the Open Wing Alliance and just the the ethos of THL to be an organization that like uplifts other organizations, and that's what the Open Wing Alliance is, right? Bringing money in from the movement to give out to organization to small, very small grassroots organizations working in different countries where there might not be anyone working on corporate engagement, and being able to train and support those groups in being able to do their work. I particularly remember Jolly B. They're like the largest um growing restaurant chain in Asia. Their headquarters are in the Philippines. And um, yeah, getting that win was felt very monumental at the time. I mean, it was it was it was two million hens every year out of cages from that, from that commitment alone. And it's just wonderful to see all the different groups coming together and and protesting in their respective countries and things. Yeah, that's what I I love about the Openwing Alliance. It's really creating change around the world.

James: 37:20

Nice. Yeah, I think the Open Wing Alliance or OWA is like a real like maybe, I don't know, it's an unsung hero, but like a real, I think, in my eyes, a real pivotal part of THL because like you said, it's almost like this whole separate entity, does a bunch of re-granting supports, maybe like tens and tens of amazing groups doing uh cage free work all across the world and with like, yeah, amazing wins, whether it's Charlie BQP or others. So yeah, that seems like yeah, a huge achievement for sure.

Vicky: 37:44

Yeah. And I think THL being the size it is, is able to do that work. It's able to have the size of team that's needed to support that kind of work. It's able to be have the history and the knowledge and the experience to do that kind of work. And that's why, you know, those kind of size of organizations are so important in our movement, I think.

James: 38:03

Does anything else stick out as benefits of like why have uh big groups? Because I guess there's always a trade-off. It's like, you know, should you have is it better to have like, you know, five, like 10, 10 person groups or like 100 person group, and like what else leans you towards this, like it's better to have like the odd, like quite big one, maybe for this reason of like institutional knowledge and blah blah blah. What what else sticks out?

Vicky: 38:24

I think those are the main, like the institutionalized the the ability to bring new people in. So I I don't know if the typical general public is so attracted to the small scrappy organizations, but when they come in and see this very professional, it's probably more mainstream, I would describe, organized, and they're more likely to engage to be with. And then hopefully we bring them into the movement and then they also engage with the smaller scrappy ones as well, and doing some of the more out there work. But like to bring those people in, I think you need organizations like THL, like Mercy for Animals, that allows for that.

James: 39:02

Like what misconceptions people have about running a big group, you know, like what do you kind of wish people knew? I'm sure people often gripe at you being like, oh, why didn't Vicky do this? Or like it's so obvious. And like what do you wish? Like, what would what do you say to them or what do you wish like they they knew that would maybe alleviate some of this uh stress?

Vicky: 39:21

I was very fortunate to do that job in many ways. And uh I think to sit here and say, oh, people should have thought this or that, it would be wrong. I like it's totally understandable. Everyone is welcome to their perspective, and at the same time, it was a hard job. Uh, I don't think I recognized going in how much it would weigh on me that we had a $20 million budget and how fortunate. I mean, I I knew how fortunate we were, but like that that would weigh on me on a daily basis that like we need to be as effective as possible. That like, you know, starting THL UK, I would go to the Christmas fairs and I would make a load of vegan Jaffa cakes and knit a load of stuff to make money for like for THL UK. Like we're talking about that, like raising this money like on these stalls. I would go around the country and do this. So I take that money very, very seriously. And to have this vast organization with all this money, I took that very seriously. And I think if you're if you know, you don't go into this work unless you care. So, you know, caring about that and knowing that you have a serious responsibility to maximize the effectiveness of that money and to do the most you can for animals, it does weigh on you.

James: 40:32

Yeah, and so it seems like it's like actually like the responsibility of like I am in a way like a very uh important position. It's like, how do I use all the funds effectively? And that was the main thing is kind of like how do I actually make the most of this this.

Vicky: 40:44

Yes, and also you're employing so many people. There's so many people that are reliant on, you know, the people matter. And I think I really missed that ability to know everyone very well. I think that was a real challenge for me, going from knowing everyone very well to like having a lot more removed space, you know, between managements of like teams of teams of teams. I really like to get to know my team well. And so there's limits that you can do that in a larger organization. You can spend your whole time getting to know people, but you're not going to be overly effective. So Yeah.

James: 41:14

I guess you can't skip level and meet everyone in a hundred person organizations. So you have to, you know, call it somewhere and yeah, which is maybe a sad thing to realize.

Vicky: 41:23

Yeah, it was, honestly. It was, yeah.

James: 41:26

I've never run a team bigger than 10 people, so I can only imagine, you know, it's it's not not just like 10 times more stressful, maybe like, you know, exponentially more stressful. But like I how how did it weigh on you? And kind of like how did you cope with this kind of level of responsibility of like, I have a hundred people that I want to make sure that they do good stuff and make sure they have, you know, a a job and also achieve all this good stuff for animals with the money that donors have given you. Like, how did you kind of uh like strike a balance of I guess like trying to achieve good stuff, but also like not have that weigh on you too much?

Vicky: 41:57

I mean you just have good people around you, right? Like that's the essential thing. And people at THL, you know, the team were amazing, and I think it's not all on your shoulders. Like I think that would be another piece of advice. It's like as a leader, it can feel like that, but that's not the reality. Like we're all in this together.

James: 42:14

And in that case, you mean like the senior leadership team, like maybe you're like the five people closest to you, whatever.

Vicky: 42:20

Yeah, I mean the senior leadership team, but all of us, like at the end of the day, like at the same time, it's all our responsibility and it's all and yes, the senior leadership team has that special or has that elevated purview for sure, right? But I think it's important to remember like it's a team, it's not a one, it's not you and and the team, it's a team. Um, and so that's that's an important part of how you can sort of allow yourself to be like it's not all on, it's not all on me, so to speak.

James: 42:51

Yeah, yeah, I think it's a useful thing to have in mind. Is there any any bits of advice for people who are running, I guess, bigger groups, maybe maybe not as big as 100 people, there's not that many groups that size, maybe like 20 plus. Like what would you recommend for them who are kind of at the kind of slightly growing to expanding size?

Vicky: 43:07

Yeah, I mean, I think have a good support network. I think really it's essential that you have a good team around you. In some ways, if you're a small team and you you don't have a good team, yeah, it has an impact. But if you're a bigger team, it also has an impact. So it's kind of the same advice all the way through, but at the same time, if you have a strong senior leadership team that you can trust, they are worth their weight as gold, I would say, because that is how you can really make the most impact.

James: 43:34

So now you are at a much smaller group. You're the is it CEO? Is that the role you have?

Vicky: 43:41

Yes.

James: 43:42

I was like executive director, sometimes people swap. Uh you're the CEO of MantraPrama, which is a smaller group. How many people are you guys now?

Vicky: 43:49

We're at 10, I think, right now.

James: 43:52

Nice, nice size, just a bit bigger than a pizza sharing size, but still pretty close.

Speaker 2: 43:57

Yeah, yeah.

James: 43:58

I guess what made you want to, I guess, leave THL and maybe pursue an opportunity in like a small team, whereas I'm sure you could have also found other great opportunities that maybe work with a bigger team, for example.

Vicky: 44:08

Yeah, I mean, I think it goes back to what I was talking about kind of personal preferences or how you want to lead in the world. But I think for me, I really missed knowing my team really well. I miss I kind of would say I'm more of the kind of like the coaching, strategizing direction. And while I'm comfortable and I'm happy to become this figurehead, uh, you know, doing promotions, I'm here on a podcast, of course. So I'm happy doing this stuff, it's great, but it's not where I get my joy. And I think in a larger organization, you're spending a lot of that time on the road doing that kind of work. In a smaller organization, the pace, the agility, wearing multiple hats and kind of maintaining those close personal connections with each team member is kind of more in my style. And so that's kind of why I made that intentional decision to to move to a smaller organization again.

James: 45:04

Nice. So uh it sounds like you probably uh it feels like this current role is like fits with kind of like your maybe particular skill sets or preferences a bit more than maybe running a hundred plus person teams, is that right?

Vicky: 45:16

Yeah, I think with my preferences for sure. I think um that kind of strategic thinking and growing and how are we gonna do this and what should yeah, that for me. I mean, you do obviously do that in a larger organization as well. Goodness you do, but there's other there's other sides to it, I think. And you know, less people, there's less operational stuff going on, right? By by virtue of there being less people. Um, and so yeah, so there's a bit more of the kind of doing the multiple hats that I can wear.

James: 45:43

So you don't plan on expanding Major Ravan to the to the like the 30, 40, 50 plus range or happy where you guys are at?

Vicky: 45:49

Well, yeah, I mean we are kind of growing slowly. Uh, I think we probably wouldn't get past sort of 20 odd people if we were gonna that that was one of the things we in my in my interview. It's like the vision is to have this organization that actually uh like elevates other organizations by creating these kind of um groups across the divide, across civil society that are all caring about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, reducing livestock, but cover health, animal welfare, environmental, climate, and food in general. And so the point of Major Brava is to really create this narrative shift by bringing other groups together to make us as powerful as possible rather than us having this huge organization, we can create, we can create change within a smaller, smaller organization that brings people together.

James: 46:40

Yeah, that makes sense. And yeah, how do you think about what is like the right size for an organization? You said maybe like Majra Brava is maybe like 20, is like isn't it in your mind? How how do you come up with that? Or like how how would one find this answer for their own organization?

Vicky: 46:52

I think once you get past 20 people, you start getting into a lot more operational stuff a lot more often. And like I said, we need larger organizations to create that history, that institutional change, to bring more money and bring people into the into the movement, like it's essential. But I think you can start seeing a slower return on investment, so to speak, as you get to a certain size, by virtue of the fact that people create more things, that create more, you know, if you want to stay focused, try you need to do a lot more planning, you need to do all these other things that go alongside it. And so the more people you have, the more your your time. It doesn't, it doesn't go time direct, you know, it does not a direct line of increased people means in you know, doubling the amount of work that comes out, eventually that starts tailing off. You see that like it doesn't increase at the same rate. And so you'll feel that. You will feel that as in an organization for sure.

James: 47:49

Yeah, yeah. And you think 20 is like when you started feeling that?

Vicky: 47:52

I think, I think, yeah, once you get 20, 25, get into the 30s and up, I think you start to you start to see a lot more of your time spent trying to plan and do other things and yeah, operational support and HR things and everything else. More internal facing with more people, yeah.

James: 48:11

What's one thing you've changed your mind on on management and leadership kind of uh over this period? Is there anything maybe coming in or throughout you you kind of you tried out, but actually you've now come to the conclusion that actually you should be doing something else?

Vicky: 48:21

You know, following your gut means a lot. And like actually, when if you don't do that, I think you often get into problems. So really getting used to feeling things and feeling I've got this feeling this is the right thing to do.

James: 48:36

Yeah, yeah.

Vicky: 48:36

And just trusting that is super important.

James: 48:39

Like, is there any way you tried to develop or improve your intuition, or is this like partially through talking to people or just experience? Or like how how did you like how how could one improve this uh if they want to?

Vicky: 48:50

One of the things that stops us listening to our intuition is trusting ourselves, learning to trust yourself, learning to forgive yourself when mistakes happen, and not just like forgive yourself, but also like what lessons did you learn here?

Speaker 2: 49:03

Yeah.

Vicky: 49:03

Like taking the time to think, like, oh, actually, if I just I probably wouldn't have made that decision. You know, those kind of things, if you don't take the time to do the look back on things when they go well and when they go badly, both of those things are crucial. You won't start to lean into your intuition as much, I don't think, because you won't be learning as you go. Yeah, we did that a lot at THL and THL UK, and I think it's very helpful in helping to build, build that intuition as you go, because you start to recognize, oh, there was I had that feeling, and actually it turned out to be good. Oh, and I had that feeling. I didn't listen to it, and I probably shouldn't have.

James: 49:43

And this is like structured retrospectives on like maybe your hunch was like, Oh, I think we should go after this target for a campaign, or we should do this, and maybe six months down the line you'd reevaluate. Is that the kind of stuff you're talking about?

Vicky: 49:53

Yeah, I'm talking about that, or even like we should hire this role. Well, didn't think closely enough about that, or what we need right now is XYZ, and not always looking for the facts. Like, like I said, I think Prue greatly helped me when she's like, but I don't have all the facts.

Speaker 2: 50:10

Yeah, yeah.

Vicky: 50:12

And it was like, no, you're right. Why am I obsessed? I'm I trained as a scientist, I blame that, honestly. Yeah, yeah. But but there has to be a level of curiosity and trust that comes into campaigning, a lot of it, in fact. And I think you will learn over time what your intu your intuition by being a bit analytical of it at the f at the beginning, I would say.

James: 50:35

Yeah, makes sense. And maybe either from your experience or from seeing other people, what do you think makes a good leader, especially for people uh running animal advocacy organizations?

Vicky: 50:45

I mean, as a leader, your your role is to empower people. I mean, that's what I think is essential, is to help people be their best selves in their in their work and and in what they're doing. And to, I think it's important to lead with empathy. I think it's very important to remember that we're all human and we all have lives and things can happen. And I think that's really important. And caring about people matters. Being able to make hard decisions is essential, and I think that can be where people want to be liked a lot. And the reality is, I mean, it's a cliche, right? But like it's it's about it's not about being liked, it's about respect, it's about being able to trust people and to know that there's going to be honest, uh honesty and authenticity. I think that's really important and transparency wherever possible as a leader is is really key too. And if you're working in a remote, remote environment, being more intentional about that as well. Yeah, things are easily lost when you're you're not seeing people every day.

James: 51:47

Yeah, I yeah, I think the remote stuff is very challenging. I think it's uh somewhat of a shame that I think basically all the major groups in our movement are remote, and I think that probably has some drawbacks to like this co cohesion and trust and everything. I guess like how I guess to what extent do you think that that that's a big issue, or kind of how have you found what what you found works quite well for kind of building trust and good relationships despite being all remote?

Vicky: 52:11

Well, having moments when you come together and be in person, so those retreats really matter.

James: 52:15

Yeah.

Vicky: 52:16

Having those those in-person times and making the most of them, but recognizing obviously that can be quite overwhelming when you're thrust into 100 plus people for three days or whatever it might be. And so giving enough space, I mean, I think one of the things we learn over time was not to pack the agenda because you're like, oh my god, they've got all this time, we're we're together and like we're never together. Like actually, you get so much more by having more spare time than you do by having a really packed agenda. And that was something we learned. Kind of a couple of years in where it was like a feedback was like, I was just exhausted by the last day, I couldn't do anything. And it's like, oh, hang on, this is this is not having, this is not achieving what we're hoping to achieve if that's how people feel. We have something we put in place at THR UK called FICA, which is based off the Swedish.

James: 53:06

Oh, yes, I know about this.

Vicky: 53:07

Yeah, so it's basically, I mean, Sweden have it going on, really, don't they? They take uh they take like a 2.30 break uh every day where they sit and have cake and tea together and they chat, and it's just delightful. It's delightful. So we went to Sweden um and uh worked with um Urensrat, and this is where we learnt about FICA and we brought that to CHO UK. So we'd have these kind of what you would call also like talks around the water cooler or whatever I think they call it in the US. Yeah. But like those moments where we had like 30 minutes or you know, once or twice a week, um, where people can just sit and it's the whole team. Yeah. Yeah. That works much better in the UK when we're on the same time zone. In the US, it was so much harder with different time zones, so there wasn't like that structured amount in the day. That made it really, really tricky to be honest. It didn't really work so well. Yeah. But in the same time zone, it works. It works.

James: 54:00

And I guess that's just your immediate team, not the whole organization, right?

Vicky: 54:03

Because otherwise, yeah at DHO UK, it was the whole org. People could just drop in and do whatever. Um, and then like at THL, we had them over different days, so you could drop into the ones. But I think again, if you get a bigger organization, people get a bit more nervous because they don't know who they're going to be talking to. And so that's again one of those things you have to kind of overcome.

James: 54:20

Yeah, yeah. Also, if you jump on a call and it's like 40 people there, it's like, oh, you can't. Yeah, no, that was like a high bar of speech.

Vicky: 54:26

Yeah, that can make it really tricky. And so some of the things we did in the beginning was like have an icebreaker question that sort of kicked off the conversation, which can be nice, like help people not feel quite so intimidated going into the conversation as well.

Speaker 2: 54:38

Yeah.

Vicky: 54:38

Um, but yeah, so meeting in person, having those kind of moments that you intentionally create time where you're not having to chat about work, you're just chatting. And then obviously making sure there's moments in team meetings and everything else where there's connection. Because it's about creating connection, essentially, but also it's about solving hard problems together and things. That can be a great way of building trust. Yeah. And so it doesn't have to be all this kind of, oh, let's keep it light. It can be really hard. But if you as a team can then get through that really hard problem together and come out the other side, that can be a real team building experience as well.

James: 55:15

Speaking of hard problems, um, we're doing this mass lobby day tomorrow. So we're gonna bring like 80 to 100 people uh to parliament to meet with their MPs, and we have like 2025 meetings set up, we feel pretty good. But anyway, yeah, so we were printing off like 300 pieces of paper to help, you know, like these leaflets for people to um learn about the issue. And we were in the aim office, Ambitious Impact, and the printer broke, and this is like me and my partner Ellie. So we spent like an hour like fiddling with the smallest screws of the printer, like really stressed. It's kind of an expensive printer, we're kind of like sweating. We're like, like, are we gonna like have we broken? Like, is this gonna be like the days in two days? Like, this is our last chance. But we we got through it and we're like, wow, that was a really amazing experience, like solving a problem together, that's solving this big didn't feel like a big challenge, maybe saying it now, but at the time it was like this is a big deal.

Speaker 2: 56:00

Yeah, it does, it really bonds you. Yeah, yeah.

James: 56:03

So things outside of work, I'm curious, like what has helped you? Do you think like help be a better leader internally, or just like helped you generally in your career, where it can be like it can be related to leadership or not?

Vicky: 56:15

I think meditation. I mean, I know that's very like cheesy because everyone says meditation now, but I do mean it. Yeah, yeah. I do find it extremely it's been extremely impactful. I started, I hadn't meditated before, and and when I started THO UK, I went to a silent meditation retreat. So I'd heard that like if you're gonna learn meditation, silent retreat's good. And then if you want to do it properly, you should do 10 days. So I just went and did a 10 days retreat.

James: 56:42

With like like no experience and no prior meditation.

Vicky: 56:45

No.

James: 56:45

Wow.

Vicky: 56:46

Most people thought there was no way I could be quiet for 10 days, including quite frankly.

James: 56:51

How did you do? You managed?

Vicky: 56:53

Well, on day three, I thought I might be losing my mind. Um, say it was pretty tough.

James: 56:59

Yeah, I've done one of those as well. I can yeah. I think I was like counting down the hours from like day one or day two. It's pretty intense.

Vicky: 57:06

But I think if you get over day three hump, personally for me, like there's a day three hump where you're like, oh, I can't do this. Another week left. And then also day uh seven was really is really hard for me because I just did a silent retreat this year as well. I did a second one um in January in Joshua Tree here, which was pretty cool. Yeah. So anyway, so I learned meditation that for me really helped with the chatter in my brain. Um, so I am an overthinker. I'm less of an overthinker now than I was, but that really would impact my sleep very detrimentally.

James: 57:43

Oh, really? As in like you'd be kind of like stewing on big decisions and not kind of not able to sleep because reminders is very active.

Vicky: 57:48

Yeah, just worrying all the time, I would say. Yeah.

James: 57:51

Yeah. I feel like I've had that a little bit. I'm sure you had that much worse. Uh I guess when you have more responsibility, I'm sure it's amps up.

Vicky: 58:00

I would say that the meditation has really helped in quieting the chatter and giving me, you know, everyone thinks meditation is about not having thoughts in your head. I wish that were true, but sadly it's not. But it's just about recognizing when thoughts come back and then coming back to the breath. And it's just very powerful. And it has, I recognized maybe two years into meditation. You certainly don't feel it for the first year. I personally don't feel anything different for the first year, but it's when you look, you look back, you kind of there was something that happened where I ended up getting, I don't know, I can't remember. Some something that happened that would have not in work life, it was in real, like in my personal life, that would have completely just like destroyed me. I'd just been like, I can't believe I made this mistake, I can't believe I did this, like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And instead, I was just like, oh, okay. Well. And then I was like, wow, that is progress.

James: 58:54

Wow. That is pretty amazing.

Vicky: 58:57

Yeah. And so I feel like these days I I think from years, God, it's been years now. I can't believe it's been so many years of meditating every day. It has definitely had a really, really positive impact. And I think um, you know, I did a mindful leadership course and they talked about meditation there and how you show up to meetings. And I mean, that is another piece of advice, really, is like you, you know, we talked about culture, but how you show up to a meeting impacts everyone around you. You don't feel different in yourself, right? Oh, I certainly didn't. I was like, I'm just me. But then suddenly you have this other hierarchy that is viewed very differently by other people. And it can be very hard, it can be quite, it's quite isolating in many ways, but also it can be hard to remember that. You like have to be mindful of that. So, like not speaking up first in meetings, sitting back and get because otherwise, once you've made your point, everyone thinks, Oh god, I should probably just agree with that, which is not what you want. Like, that's not what you want. But like it's human nature for people to be therefore anxious about sharing if they're going to go against what you've Said. So kind of remembering that that hierarchy exists and sitting back and listening. I mean, that's another thing that makes a good leader essential is listening. I completely missed that out, but um that is really essential in leadership. Good leaders go last, as they say, and that's really important, I think. So yeah, so meditation I think allows you to take stock of yourself, to turn up in meetings better, like more grounded, even if you just spend 30 seconds before you go into a meeting just grounding yourself.

Speaker 2: 1:00:30

Yeah.

Vicky: 1:00:31

Um, I had a friend say, I meditate all the time. I'm just like, you know, meditation is a practice that you do every minute of the day. And I was like, Well, I I wish I could say that was the same for me, but it's certainly not. But there is something in that, right? It's that just that present being present, being mindful, catching yourself in those moments that matter. So yeah.

James: 1:00:52

Do you try to bring it into work at all? Because at Mobius, we start every meeting with a minute of mindfulness. I wonder if you've if you tried to do that at two. You have done that, yeah.

Vicky: 1:00:59

Absolutely, yeah. I've done that in the past. Different people have different comfort levels with that, I find. So in the early days, no, the more you talk about this, the more you remember over time, right? It comes back to haven't really thought about these things. But um, is in remote settings is sitting with the discomfort of people not speaking for a while. Like in a room, somehow that feels more comfortable, but online when everyone's quiet and you want to just fill the space, it's like, no, like take a step back and like, and I'll often be very intentional saying, like, I'm gonna give everyone a minute to think about that. So we're gonna sit in this awkward silence for a minute in case anyone comes up with anything else. And often that's when things come up, right? When you give people a minute to like think and and have that space, but it can feel very awkward. So naming it can be helpful, I think, in allowing people to have that space to think a minute before beforehand.

James: 1:01:48

I guess you want some people who aren't the most talkative to kind of have input and you by by de facto you just have to say, like, anyone when anyone else wants to spoke? Like, we'll just wait a minute for you, and then this is like forces, otherwise it never happens, which is definitely a shame.

Vicky: 1:02:00

Yeah, definitely. And you those voices are so important. So yeah, it's it's essential.

James: 1:02:05

Before we may round up this pretty wide-ranging and fun chat about leadership and management and everything in between. Uh, is anything else you want to say that maybe you didn't cover like like interesting lessons you learned, like lessons for other people, or does that anything that maybe maybe is now come to your memory that you wanted to mention previously?

Vicky: 1:02:28

Don't let let self-limiting thoughts get the better of you, I guess. Like I remember when I started THL UK, I went and did cliff jumping, and I was like, if I can jump off this cliff, it was very high. Then I can do this. Do you know what I mean? Like doing sometimes setting it doing stuff outside of your comfort zone in real life can allow you to find more ease to do stuff out of your comfort zone, I think, in your working life, because you're pushing yourself outside those those boundaries. Um, and just remembering that growth doesn't come unless you step outside of that comfort zone. So try not to listen to the self-doubt and and push yourself forward. I think that's really important.

James: 1:03:08

Nice, that's cool. Actually, maybe I did have one question you you meant jogged my memory. As on imposter syndrome. I guess you're mentioning you had that maybe quite a lot early on, and I'm kind of curious, yeah, like how have you managed to kind of deal with it or get over it or quite in that voice?

Vicky: 1:03:22

Yeah. So yeah, I would say definitely. I see it on the.

James: 1:03:26

Besides cliff jumping.

Vicky: 1:03:27

Yeah, besides cliff jumping, which I don't necessarily recommend. There's a good book on imposter syndrome that helped. It was called The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women. It is not just for women, by the way, this book. I I don't love the title for many reasons, but uh it helps identify different ways that imposter syndrome can show up. And I think self-awareness is the first step in overcoming anything. And then I'd say meditation helped because it kind of quietens the chatter that can happen and allows you to process things more effectively than if you just aren't sleeping, for instance. And then I would say more broadly, um it's just pushing yourself a little bit outside your comfort zone. And every time you push yourself outside your comfort zone and it goes well, which it will, inevitably, things will go well, things won't go well. That's just like a little bit of encouragement, right? That like, oh no, I do know something. Yeah, yeah. Maybe I am okay at doing this, that can help you. And I I feel like in the NGO world, I've seen a lot of people with imposter syndrome. I feel like very, very sensitive people come into this, into this space, sometimes with bad experiences, in part previous roles. And again, I think that's a part important part of being a leader is just like being there to listen, support, and guide, and try to recognize when imposter syndrome is playing a role and maybe bring that up because I think some people don't realize that they're suffering from imposter syndrome. And you can see as a leader or as a manager that that's kind of what's happening, and bolstering them and and giving a lot of encouragement, I think is essential in being able to kind of overcome that. And I was really lucky to have Dave uh Kerman Heidi as like a mentor at THL and he was our chairperson of the board and just real support in like giving me more confidence, I would say.

James: 1:05:22

Nice. That's great. Yeah, I find that uh even when sometimes go well, people can still be like, oh, oh, like they don't dwell on the successes, they quickly move on, or they kind of maybe try to explain that away. So I think yeah, having some sort of positive reinforcement or like forcing yourself to dwell on the on the achievements, I think is quite important.

Speaker 2: 1:05:39

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

James: 1:05:41

After I tried to close the session the first time, we had some more interesting stuff to discuss, so we are closing it uh a second time. Um but yeah, lots of, I mean, it's kind of good to make the most of your kind of varied and cool experience. On to Majra Brava. So you've been running Major Brava for the last how long is it now, Vicky?

Vicky: 1:06:00

Um since March, however long that's been.

James: 1:06:02

Nice. Relatively new. Yeah, some months. Uh and me for people who don't know what Major Brava is and what you guys do, do you want to explain that maybe in a nutshell?

Vicky: 1:06:11

Yeah, so Majra Brava's focus is to create a world where there's 100% sustainable, healthy, and affordable food for all. And what that means in practice is that we're making a bold shift to more plants and food, primarily through working with multinational food retailers. So getting them to work on their protein offerings, helping them provide their customers with more plant-rich proteins and reducing the number of animal-based proteins in their supply chains. And also convening groups across civil society to speak up together with a unified voice of bringing health groups, environmental groups, climate groups, etc., animal welfare groups together as one voice to make this change.

James: 1:06:51

Yeah. So, like very tangibly, that would be involving, let's say, campaigning against uh a supermarket like Aldi or Lidl and saying, hey, you currently serve 20% of your uh all your proteins as plans. I want to be 40% by this date. Is that basically like the thing in a nutshell?

Vicky: 1:07:06

Essentially, yeah, yeah.

James: 1:07:08

Nice, nice. And why do you think this is important to work on? Like, I guess why did you move to this from doing, you know, cage-free and direct animal welfare and corporate welfare work? Like, why do you think this is valuable to augment the rest of the movement with?

Vicky: 1:07:20

Well, I think this is a critical time for change, generally. Well, retailers contribute huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions and everything is interconnected. So livestock contributes more greenhouse gases than trains, planes, and automobiles combined. And so when we look more holistically at the interconnectedness, we're not just talking about greenhouse gas emissions, honestly. We're talking about the fact that we all eat too much meat for our health, that we need fewer animals, like chickens being raised, so that we can have higher welfare systems, that we need to reduce pollutions in our local like areas and communities, like rivers and things, and that we need to free up land. We're losing biodiversity in the world at a staggering rate. Um, and some of that, much of that is coming from the destruction of the rainforest. And people think about beef from the rainforest, but actually the destruction is being created through soy being produced to feed factory farms here in Europe and the US is huge. This is all interconnected and it is about all these different things. And for me, if we're going to achieve things like the better chicken commitment, we are going to need to have less chickens. And so we need to be working on that too, in a way that, you know, we've sort of seen that working just with trying to get people to change their diets on a one-to-one basis hasn't been hugely impactful to the degree we would hope. And so having this more institutional change is how we can make big impact for animals and for the environment and for climate and for people and all at once. Um, yeah, I mean, this is a no-brainer.

James: 1:08:53

Can you say more about how it's, I guess, like the tie-in with animal welfare? You know, obviously there's like the basic case where, you know, if companies make these protein splits, they have to offer more plants and less animal protein. That means they'll be serving less animals in their supply chain. But I guess it's like it's they're not those animals won't necessarily be a higher welfare unless I guess the other groups are doing their work. And also there's like these tricky things where it's like if it's implemented poorly, there could still be this beef, the chicken, or fish swap if the retailer's like sole focus is greenhouse gas emissions. So I guess like, how are you how much a problem balancing those things? And yeah, like how does it all work together?

Vicky: 1:09:31

Great question. So our North Star is the Eat um uh Lancet report that just came out, the second version in you know this month. Um, and it's very clear about planetary boundaries and about how to live within planetary boundaries. And that is not just looking at beef, that is looking at all meat across the divide. And when we look at Europe, where we're working with retailers, that means a reduction across all things. It does not just mean reduction in meat.

James: 1:09:56

So wait, so you mean like a reduction in all species? Is that what you mean?

Vicky: 1:09:59

Exactly. We're talking about like not just red meat that needs to be reduced. When we're working with retailers to get these protein split commitments, we're talking about all meat and they're aware of it's all meat. And I think a good example, we're seeing this already happening now in the Netherlands, where the majority of retailers, vast majority, like 95% of the retailers, have committed to to this protein split change. And they're already doing things like not putting promotions on meat. And it's not just red meat, it's promotions of all meat, right? So these kind of things are going to see this shift. And why does that mean in terms of, you know, of course, the obvious reduction in animals is good for animals, obviously. But beyond that, the reduction will allow for better chicken commitment where there's you know higher, you need a greater stocking density, which means you need space on the farms, for instance, and it reduces that population on the farm, which reduces pollution by by by virtue if there's less animals. You know, we know that the BCC better commitment, the challenge has been on the breed sticking point. And if we look to the retailers in uh Norway, they actually change the breed. They've reduced the number of animals in their supply chain by virtue of the fact that the animals are dying less before they get to actually being slaughtered, but also because the quality of meat is better, they can have fewer birds, and then they're also growing grain from more locally, they're not having to import soy because these birds don't need soy to the same degree, and these fast-growing birds do need the soy. And so as we see this, you know, we're pushing retailers to look at their emissions, we're including where's the feed coming for these animals? And if you're going to increase chicken, you're gonna increase the feed coming from typically the Amazon. Um, and that is not gonna help you with your greenhouse gas emissions. So it is, you know, this work is holistic, it is interconnected and it all matters. And we need retailers to be moving on the BCC, but we need them to be moving on greenhouse gases together. And a sustainable system includes all those factors. It means sustainable for people, it means sustainable for animals, and it means sustainable for the planet.

James: 1:12:06

Yeah. Yeah, I think that makes sense what you said about um, at least in the UK, so there's been a flurry of very impressive work by the likes of THL UK and Open Cages and others to get retailers to um basically move to 20% more space for all boiler chickens, meat chickens, which is amazing. But yes, now there's been like some sudden flurry of them trying to build more farms and like kind of struggling with that. And I think I guess what you're kind of saying is you know, if these retailers did agree to gradually reduce the number of anod protein and chicken they were selling, it'd be easier for them to be these commitments without it being such like um struggle to build new stuff. So yeah, that makes sense.

Vicky: 1:12:39

Yeah.

James: 1:12:40

Or I guess this campaigning against retailers' point. I guess I'm kind of curious to hear. Seems like it's going way way better than I even thought in the Netherlands. 95% of supermarkets have agreed to do this. Can you say more about that or like other major wins you guys have had?

Vicky: 1:12:52

Yeah, so that that's happened in the Netherlands, and now we're working in Germany. So uh Lidl International has made a protein split commitment, and obviously they're a huge discounter in in Europe, and to have their commitment is amazing. We've just got a new director in the UK, um, and we're working in Spain as well come January. And so we'll we're really targeting those, the biggest retailers in Europe to make these protein split commitments. Um, and we're seeing traction in Germany to start with, where we've been working the longest.

James: 1:13:22

Do you think it helps hertz when you have multiple groups campaigning against retailers for different asks? I I think of like people doing it on retail on cage-free, then BCC, and there's now protein splits. I'm sure there's other stuff that we're not even aware of. Do you think this is all good because it adds like pressure to do good things, or it's kind of like confusing with the retailers, or they kind of pick something that is like vaguely then?

Vicky: 1:13:42

Well, I think this comes back to what we were talking about where it's like interconnected. So I think it can be tricky if you're pushing on chicken and pigs and beef and you know, whatever fish, whatever. If you have all those things at once, I can see that that's very those are very different supply chains in that sense. But if we're looking at greenhouse gas emissions and that impacts all animals, and we're asking this, plus it it actually like fits nicely with like reducing the number of marines means you can make more higher welfare. I see it as complementary and not as uh as something that's competing.

James: 1:14:16

Nice. That makes sense. What is one bit of news you are grateful to hear recently?

Vicky: 1:14:20

One bit of news that I'm really pleased about hearing, I would say we just did a survey of doctors in um across Europe, uh healthcare professionals, and nine out of ten of them believe that we eat too much meat. And that was just like very reassuring to me because I think in the past, I've even experienced it personally, that hasn't been necessarily the views of the medical profession. And I think that's shifting as people are beginning to see that the diets are really impacting the health of people. Um, and so yeah, so that was very uplifting. And I think also here in the US mission barns now being sold up in San Francisco, like it's just very exciting times for that kind of cultivated meat in a in a way that's bringing more plants to people's diets as at the same time as like taste, and and will eventually, you know, I think they're really working hard on the affordability side. So for me, that's kind of the future is here in that sense.

James: 1:15:16

That's cool. Yeah, I didn't know about the the doctor study, so that's very exciting to hear 9 out of 10. So it's cool. What are some media recommendations you might have to listener? This can be books, podcasts, whatever.

Vicky: 1:15:26

I really love this book that I'm reading currently, which is on fungus, the enchanting world of fungus.

James: 1:15:34

Nice.

Vicky: 1:15:34

It's just incredible to see the interconnect. We just wouldn't exist without fungus. We just wouldn't exist without it. It's like everywhere, it's just creating connections between us all, and it's amazing. And so that book I absolutely love. That's cool. Um, I think podcast-wise, I'm really enjoying uh Rich Roll recently. I think he's been putting out some I can end up listening to a lot of like self-helpy things, and what I love about it is it's like it's more like an easy listen, and then you kind of you learn as you go, but it's like really conversational. So I really appreciate that. I would say my kind of out there podcast that I'm loving right now is Do you know Mayam Bielik? She was in Big Bang Theory, she's a neuroscientist as well, um, actress, and she has a podcast called The Breakdown, and it's just like very interesting. It mixes science with spirituality and just like looking at the universe and physics, and and I find it fascinating. I just she's just had so many fascinating people on there. So I love that podcast.

James: 1:16:34

That's cool. That's uh a lot of different big topics and the university or mine. So that's cool. I'll I will check it out. I've not heard of this. Um finally, how can people follow you or Madra Brava's work?

Vicky: 1:16:47

Yep, you can find us. Uh our website is madrabrava.org, nice and easy. Um, and then uh LinkedIn is actually the place to see us most active. Um, so you can go to Madra Brava's LinkedIn. You can also find me on LinkedIn, happy to connect. Um, so there would be the two main places I think to look look out for our work.

James: 1:17:04

Cool. Yeah, as you said, you don't maybe love being a figurehead, so there's not much more about you that where people can follow you. Nice. With that, I guess thank you so much, Vicky, for coming on. This has been very fun. Lots of interesting, I guess, personal stories and I think useful lessons for people. So I think, yeah, thanks for your time and all the work you guys are doing.

Vicky: 1:17:23

Thank you, James. It's been lovely. Really appreciate the time.