Episode 6 - Beyond AI: The Skills That Still Matter – with Celine Floyd, Chief Skills Officer at Cappfinity

What if the future of work lies not just in the tech we adopt—but in the human qualities we choose to preserve?

In this episode of the She Leads Collective Podcast, I’m joined by Celine Floyd—Chief Skills Officer at Cappfinity, Chartered Occupational Psychologist, and board-level leader shaping how organisations think about talent, capability, and the future of work.

We explore what it really means to build a skills-based organisation, why some human behaviours will always matter more than AI, and how leaders can adapt in ways that honour both performance and people.

But this conversation goes beyond strategy—it’s also deeply personal. Celine shares her leadership journey from early potential to boardroom influence, including the challenges of navigating fertility treatment, raising a family, and leading with both ambition and care.

We talk about:

• The mindsets and behaviours that define future-ready leadership
• How to grow visibility and impact while staying grounded
• What Celine wishes more people understood about influence, doubt, and resilience

This is a rich, real conversation about modern leadership—one that blends career, humanity, and the courage to do things differently.

🎧 Listen in for thoughtful insights and bold inspiration.

And to connect with Celine

If you’re a woman leader who’s ever doubted your confidence, explore my programme “Exploding the Confidence Myth” → https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/exploding-the-confidence-myth-tickets-1617750698889?aff=oddtdtcreator

🔗 Connect with me: marygregory.com

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✨ Produced by Mary Gregory Leadership Coaching

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Hello and welcome to She Leads Collective podcast. I'm Mary Gregory and I'm so glad you're here. This podcast is a space for honest conversations about what it really means to lead as a woman today and how we can all show up with more courage, care and clarity. You'll hear from inspiring women, powerful allies and bold truth tellers who are changing the game, not by playing tougher, but by leading smarter, softer and stronger. Hello and welcome to today's episode of the She Leads Collective podcast. What if the future of work lies not just in the technology we adopt, but in the human qualities we choose to preserve? In today's episode, I'm delighted to be joined by Celine Floyd, Chief Skills Officer at Capfinity, Chartered Occupational Psychologist, and a recognised thought leader in building skills-based organisations. Celine sits on the Capfinity board and works with global CEOs and senior people leaders, helping them navigate the shifting world of work. I'm looking forward to exploring with Celine the insights she's gained throughout her career, as well as what a skills-based future really means for organisations and how AI is challenging the game without replacing the qualities that make us human. But today's conversation is also personal to me. I've known Celine since our days together at Penner, where even then her talent and leadership potential were impossible to miss. I'm also looking forward to speaking with her about her own career journey, including the challenges she's faced navigating board level leadership while longing for a family and going through fertility treatment. This promises to be a really rich and real conversation about modern leadership and ambition, both for career and for family. So hello, Celine. Thank you so much for being here with

SPEAKER_00: 1:58

us today. Hi, Mary. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so looking forward to this conversation. So am

SPEAKER_01: 2:04

I, because it's so, so long since we've caught up and this is a great way to do it on a podcast. I know. So you're here to share with our guests your leadership journey. You're a real role model of leadership and you're also going to be talking about skills-based work and skills-based organisations. But let's get going from right at the beginning. Let's go right back. When you were a child, did you imagine yourself being a leader in the corporate world and doing what you're doing now? Or did you have something very different on the agenda?

SPEAKER_00: 2:35

I think growing up I always knew that I loved learning, I loved doing well at school and I loved people, I loved being around people. I'm from a very sociable family so I grew up travelling a lot with a full house all of the time, my parents are very very sociable and so I think I grew up with a love of people and interest in people and naturally I think an interest in business and commercials and how the world works from my perspective. I always wanted to do, I always thought I'd do French in business at university. My dad is French, so I've spoken French my whole life and thought that would be a natural fit for me. Then discovered psychology at university, in A-level, sorry. So that's how I pivoted towards the psychology. But yeah, to answer your question, did I think I would? Probably. I knew that I wanted to travel a lot be doing adventurous exciting things with my work and I knew that I always wanted to enjoy my work in you know being myself whether that was in a business setting I don't know if I had the foresight at that point to know but they're the things that I knew I would do probably. Yes

SPEAKER_01: 3:51

and do you think that's reflected in what you're doing now? I

SPEAKER_00: 3:54

think so yeah I think so I love what I do I feel very privileged to have such variety in my work to be surrounded by people all of the time to be working on on some really complex, really gnarly challenges where there's not an easy answer. And in recent years to have travelled more. I do love travelling and that's been a real joy and a real privilege to see different parts of the world and different cultures,

SPEAKER_01: 4:22

yes. Wonderful, wonderful. And when we worked together at Penner, it was really clear that you had talent and certainly leadership potential. So since we've both left Penner many years ago, Tell us a bit more about your journey and some of the decisions and choices that you've made that have brought you to where you are now.

SPEAKER_00: 4:41

Yeah, so I think it's such an interesting exercise, isn't it? Looking back and seeing those decisions and moments that have led to where you are. I think I left Penner to go on maternity leave back in 2016, 2017 to have my first son, Hugo. And very serendipitously, Nikki, who is one of the co-CEOs of Catfinity, where I work now, actually phoned me. And I remember it really vividly. Mary so I was pushing this little bundle of a baby around in a pram he didn't and still doesn't sleep so it was snowing and I was out pushing this pram and I'd worked with Nikki previously and she rung me and said they were starting out this new arm of the business and did I want to come back was I interested in coming back to Catfinity and helping to lead and that was naturally a very difficult decision for me I'd spent a lot of time and years at Penner and had a whale of a time as you know you're part of that so it wasn't an easy decision but I think what lured me over was my trust in her and my admiration for the work that her and colleagues had done at Catfinity since then and also this appeal of really building something new pretty much from scratch at that time so that was I guess pivotal decision number one that took me back into Catfinity and did a couple of years there then had my second son Dominic so did another maternity leave and then came back and I think if I was to summarise the last few years and really look at it through the lens of what this conversation is around you know leadership and female leadership I think what has served me well over recent years has been an energy and an appetite and an interest in commercial growth, new things, risk-taking, and really pairing that with a natural level of what I think I have around empathy and collaboration and working with people. And it's kind of tricky to answer because, you know, you're trying to think of what did I do that works and that definitely helped. But I think it's And I think actually then just quite naturally my role evolved and I was given more and more responsibility and able to work on different more interesting projects and then was invited onto the catfinity board in october 2023 so i'm coming it'll be two years um in the autumn of doing of doing that so yeah that's a potted history of very potted

SPEAKER_01: 7:28

very potted and i'm so i'm kind of i want to talk there's so many things i want to dip into and talk about here but i'm going to just ask because you mentioned the board what's it what was it like to step from being you know a director within the organisation to now being a Chief Skills Officer sitting on the board. What's that shift been like for you?

SPEAKER_00: 7:48

It's been a real mixture. I feel eternally privileged to be in that room and at that table, sitting alongside peers that I have admired for many, many years. So it was a real joy to be there from a personal perspective, but also from the perspective of being able to actually in influence the direction of the organisation, which I know then has an impact on clients, which I know then has an impact on all the thousands of people that work in those big organisations. So it was a real kind of inflection point in terms of me being able to help realise the legacy that I know I want to work towards, which is making a difference to people at work. That was super exciting. It was interesting going into the room the secret room and closing the door and seeing the reality of what actually happens in there that was a real learning curve and you know it's tricky I know that my colleagues at Catfinity wouldn't mind me sharing that I think I'm just about the youngest on the board I'm the third female there's eight of us and I was the newest person to join the board in quite a long time actually so and also I represent a part of the business which at the time was smaller but growing really quickly so i was astutely aware of there being this combination of variables that i had to tread around very carefully and i did take quite a few months to you know in sponge mode you know how does this work what are the dynamics here how do we get things done how do we And I was very naturally aware that I needed to do that before going in to all comes blazing. It's been a real joy and I've learned so much about how businesses are run.

SPEAKER_01: 9:52

Yes. What do you think are the main things you've learned?

SPEAKER_00: 9:56

Financials, like hugely. I think I've always had an interest in commercials and the financials, the nitty gritty, like the guts of how businesses work. But there was so much terminology, Mary, that I wasn't aware of or didn't realise and have so much more newfound respect for the nuances of financial management and the levers you can push and pull. So definitely learnt a lot around the financial space. And also... I think what's been interesting is, you know, at every point in my career, at every level that I've worked at, there have been a number of opportunities or options on the table whenever you are considering a decision. And obviously, when you're in more junior positions, it's smaller scale. It's what do we do for this client? You know, how do I respond to this email? And my experience is at that board level, it's the same experience. the crux of it is still the same, but it's amplified, right? The decision that you're making, it's higher stakes, the impact is greater, the risks are greater, but that activity of judging that decision that needs to be made and weighing up all of those variables, that's something that feels familiar to me, but the context feels very different. So that's another thing is how do you make those big decisions about what you do as an organization um and also this one has crept up on me actually I think upon first being appointed I felt like it was very easy for me to wave the flag for the rest of the organisation because I had just come from the rest of the organisation and I was in and I felt very representative of the employee workforce and what they know and what they don't know. I think what's really interesting is the longer that you go on in that most senior level position, the more at risk you are of losing that connection with the rest of the workforce because you know things before anybody else. You've been privy to all of those conversations. All the things that I knew about, you know, through my whole career, but to experience them really firsthand has been quite profound, actually. And so I find that I'm having to constantly... think about how others are feeling in the business and talk to you know colleagues still in that position to make sure I've got my finger on the pulse of how everyone's really feeling within the organisation at all times. Gosh yes

SPEAKER_01: 12:39

oh I can really get a sense of the magnitude of it all actually it sounds like you're looking at it from a much bigger higher perspective. Yeah yeah

SPEAKER_00: 12:47

Yeah, but it's, like I say, it's a lot of fun. And I think the key is that we all still really love the organisation and love what we do and the purpose that we're striving for. So I think that connection with mission and purpose organisationally becomes really, really important. Because it's so big and it's hard and you work really hard. So you need that connection to keep you going.

SPEAKER_01: 13:17

Great. And I get there, the cohesion. I'm hearing about the cohesion that there is on that team and the passion and purpose for the business as a whole. Fantastic. So, Celine, you are Chief Skills Officer and your commitment and your passion is all about creating skills-based organisations. So, can you explain for the listener just what exactly a skills-based organisation is?

SPEAKER_00: 13:43

Yes. So a skills-based organisation is an organisation that looks beyond the qualifications that people have or the existing reputation or the role or experience that they've had. So it's looking beyond the cover of the book, if you like, you know, looking beyond those very classic CV lists and pieces you would have to actually who is this person? What are the skills that they have? At Catfinity, we think about cognitive skills, behavioral skills, and technical skills. What are the skills that they have, irrelevant of their experience or their qualifications? Who are they? And how can we leverage those to best effect for us and for them within the organization, whether they're someone coming into our organization or they're someone in the organization?

SPEAKER_01: 14:40

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 14:41

for me, is really at the heart of it. So there are lots of organisations that have been doing it for a really long time. Mary, you know, been doing great work in that area and lots of large enterprise clients now you know look beyond degree qualification for example and that's an example of being more skills based but there has been a real skills movement over the last few years and really the whole world is awakening to this notion and it is um amplified through the riot by the rise in ai right okay Yeah, changing, you know, in so many unknown ways still, how we're going to be working, what the role of a human is, that is also feeding in this lens on skills. Yes,

SPEAKER_01: 15:32

yes. So is that one of the reasons that it's so critical right now because of AI coming to the fore?

UNKNOWN: 15:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 15:38

AI and all the other volatile forces out there in our world at the moment, be it environmental, political, economical, I think we all appreciate that there's so much volatility and uncertainty and ambiguity and it's forcing lots of industries to be agile, to be nimble with their people, to be able to flex their workforce quickly and effectively to respond to that volatility. And you can only really do that if you really genuinely know who you have, right? So it is, at its heart is this need to understand who we have and how companies can move and deploy people to stay successful and to remain competitive. So yeah, multiple forces, but AI is a big one.

SPEAKER_01: 16:38

Wow. And you talk about cognitive, behavioral and technical skills. Is it you're looking for a blend of those or certain skills more important than others? Or does that dispel? I'm asking multiple questions here.

SPEAKER_00: 16:53

Great question. It's a great question. We talk about this a lot. So yeah. At Catfinity, we have a particular interest in behavioral. It's where we've done most of our work over the last 20 years. What we are really waving the flag of is a greater appreciation of behavior and what's really exciting is that many people and business leaders are really waking up to this now so if you think historically you would think that skills are synonymous with technical skills the things that you can learn the things that you get qualifications around and they are still very very important but again with the rise of ai we don't know which technical skills are going to be obsolete and they're changing really quickly So what's happening in the sector is a greater focus on the behavioural. So how can this person interact with others? How do they think? How do they feel? How do they lead? How do they deliver? How do they execute? So all of those kind of very human doing and feeling skills. And I think what's exciting is all the research that's happening now in what are the combinations of skills that best set someone up for success, depending on what success looks like, but whether that's success as a leader, or success as a success as a you know working with AI or working alongside AI or success in the climate change arena so you know and I think what we're doing is getting a laser focus on skill frameworks clustered of skills that come together that we know make someone better able to do something than others and then that's what organizations are folding into their infrastructure right so So the idea essentially is that a big driver is internal mobility. So if there is a function or a particular role that for one reason or another is not going to exist sometime soon, it's really getting behind the idea that it doesn't mean that that person or that group of people don't hold any value anymore. It's that our world is changing and they've got more potential than we have been able to see yet. And we know that in humans, like potential is so limitless. And so that's why I find the whole space so inspiring because it's,

SPEAKER_01: 19:30

Yeah. It does sound really inspiring and very exciting. And one of the questions I have is that a lot of people feel very threatened by AI because they think it's going to put them out of a job. But what I'm hearing is that the human elements of what makes us human, like the feelings, the behaviours, the way we relate to each other, those things are very hard to be replicated by AI. Is that an accurate observation,

SPEAKER_00: 19:54

do you think? Absolutely. So I think there's, and actually we're about to publish actually a paper on this very topic, which is those very human skills that are difficult to replicate and or are crucial for really maximising the value of AI and maintaining our humanity, you know, as a species. And they are things that AI can't touch and they're the things that you described. There's also particular skills that make people really well able to use AI. Yes. And so the human in that equation, I was at an event last night, actually, and one of the panelists said it's not human versus AI, it's human plus AI equals. And I think that's got to be the way forward. So I think it is scary. I think it feels huge. It feels like we're at a really important inflection point in our, you know, as I say, from a species perspective. Yes, I'm a big believer in there is still a huge role for the human in this. And It requires us all to understand that everyone has potential. That's the mantra that I am really living by. And it feels really exciting to see other people signing up to that. Yes,

SPEAKER_01: 21:15

it's a fantastic mantra to live by. Everybody does have potential. They say, what is it, 80% of our potential goes unused in our lifetime. So there are limitless elements of it.

SPEAKER_00: 21:27

And I don't in this conversation necessarily want to get into the nitty gritty of how to do skills-based work, but one of the things that has worried me for a little while, and you'll see me posting about on LinkedIn is, lots of organizations thinking that if I get you Mary for example to list for me what your skills are and then plug them into a HR system that I am then becoming skills based and my worry with that is we're actually only getting as you say maybe 20-30% of actually what your skills are because most people find it hard to either a know what their skills are or articulate their skills and So I think there's a big upskilling piece to do with people to get them really comfortable in thinking about themselves and realising that the career that they've had or the work that they've had or the success that they've had to date does not... dictate what happens to them in their next role or in their next 10 years of their career like very genuinely it doesn't have to dictate that and so if you can imagine then a world where people are moving around within organizations in a much freer way than we have ever seen before which feels exciting

SPEAKER_01: 22:49

as well fantastic does it does feel exciting and very fluid as well much more flexibility yeah than

SPEAKER_02: 22:54

before

SPEAKER_01: 22:55

yeah lots of change to happen or transformation time before then though um i'd like to come to your career now then uh because you know you've grown your career when i last saw you in penna you haven't got a family you left to go and have your first son so you've raised two boys whilst navigating your career can you share how you've gone about balancing that ambition in your career with and becoming a leader and a board level leader with your family can you tell us a bit more about that

SPEAKER_00: 23:27

yeah i Absolutely. Obviously a topic very close to my heart. I feel very passionate about people being able to have children, have families and then maintain an area of passion or interest from a work perspective. I think before diving in, it's probably helpful to... because I think for me in my own personal journey, I initially, my husband and I struggled to have the boys and I'm very happy to talk very openly about that because I think it was a real formative experience in terms of how I now do the juggle in terms of having two still small children, they're five and seven, and being at that board level full-time work, I think I had spent most of my life thinking that I could control most things, Mary, that if I put my mind to it, if I threw enough energy and positivity into it, you know, it would happen. And there's nothing like infertility to whack that out of you. And so they were very difficult years and obviously we are still feeling so blessed to have them now but I think what it has helped me with and other things has helped me with is this overall understanding that I cannot do everything and I cannot do everything necessarily to the level that I want to. Things won't always go to plan. The juggle won't always work perfectly. I could be in a meeting and get a phone call from the school. I could be with the boys in the evening and get a phone call from one of my co-CEOs, you know, goes both directions. And that's okay. And that's life. And that's the chaos of it. And I think for me personally, really leaning into that unpredictable and chaos and kind of almost letting myself off the hook of needing to be in control of everything has been really profound. And I often ponder how I would find the juggle now had I not had that real awakening experience of realizing that not everything goes to plan. So how much do you live your life by being good enough?

SPEAKER_01: 25:45

Is that a mantra

SPEAKER_00: 25:46

for you? I've had to learn how to do that. Absolutely. And you will know this very from working with me. Yeah, energetic. I'm quite impatient. I like to see things happen, action, execution. And I've had to learn that you can't always achieve that, especially at most senior levels where things are complicated and you need to reflect and you need to consult and get people's opinions. So, yeah, being good enough on all bases. I don't think I've mastered it yet. but I'm definitely much better at it than I was because I have to be because I can't do it all perfectly, you know? And I think, yeah, go on.

SPEAKER_01: 26:37

I suppose what I was going to say is there may well be people listening to us today and to you who may be in their career are wanting children and navigating infertility as you did. What would your advice be to them?

SPEAKER_00: 26:50

So I think in terms of navigating infertility, I think it is incredibly hard. In the end, what really... saved my husband and I and I don't it actually the analogy came to us actually on holiday we were on holiday we'd been through I think at that point two rounds of IVF and neither had worked we were a bit of a juncture in terms of what to do and we were walking up this incredibly steep set of steps we were in Ibiza it was endless and it was searing heat and I was trying to get up these steps and I couldn't bring myself to look at the top because I didn't want to know how many steps there were it was the middle of the day we were walking up and My husband and I kind of cottoned onto that as an analogy for the whole infertility experience, because you don't know what the end is. You don't know where the end is. You don't know how far away you are from it. And you don't know what it looks like. But all you can do is keep putting a foot on the next step and trying to stay very present with that. So I think that would be one bit of advice. I think the other would be to find joy in your life where you can, you know, do the things that you do find joy in. joyful and make you happy. And I think the third thing is, again, to acknowledge how big an experience it is to go through. I was very lucky at Penner, colleagues that you know, Mary, who were very understanding of my situation and gave me the freedom to say how I wanted my work to work with that. I don't think all leaders are as progressive, sadly. Yeah. So having a supportive work environment, supportive boss really helps. Yes, absolutely. That really does help. And, you know, taking the time that you need. You know, I didn't, as I say, I did not do it perfectly. There were definitely days at work where I probably shouldn't have been working. Yes. I wanted to do X meeting or go on Y trip. And that personally probably in a way was helpful because it kept me busy. So I think different people will respond and deal with it in different ways, but they're the things that helped

SPEAKER_01: 29:06

me. And what kept you going, not just through the infertility challenges, but also in terms of what I hear is a real sort of blending of having an ambition to be successful in your career and a real longing to have a family So what was the self-belief that kept you going? I

SPEAKER_00: 29:25

think self-belief is something I've always had. I think partly probably genetically, but absolutely physically. from the way that my parents brought my brother and I up. There's another piece of the puzzle here, which is that when I was very young, I had to have some quite significant eye surgery, Mary. And I've spoken to my parents about this and they've in my memory they have corroborated which is that they were very much like it's it's a it's you know it's not a big deal carry on you can do what you want you know the world is your voice anything you set your mind to and that has just been on a megaphone to me all through my childhood and I think that has also really set me in good steads I think the belief that I have the capability. to do really good work even when I'm going through a personal challenge was really again really important to me personally because I knew enough about myself that my output and my contribution would still be really high yes if I was going through some things in my personal life so that was a good bolster of confidence and just a general interest in work I think you know I love I Penner I loved who I worked with I loved the work I love the company and later, you know, and it was when we merged with LHH. So I think it was just a great place to be and I was loving the work. And I think that's the other thing. I think it must be harder, of course, if you're in a job or a work that you're not enjoying. I do acknowledge that.

SPEAKER_01: 31:12

Yeah. Yeah. So the passion for your work definitely comes through. So we've talked about you being in a room with C-suite leaders. What's one insight about leadership? you wish that people had access to?

SPEAKER_00: 31:26

Yeah, one insight. I think the other lesson that I have learnt, not the hard way, but it's taken many years, is, and this is quite a well-known one, so I'm sorry it's not more revelationary, but it is to be your authentic self.

SPEAKER_01: 31:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 31:50

So there's lots of elements of myself, like where I'm from in the UK, my accent, like, you know, even some degree, like in some instances, being half French, like I feel like I spent many years choosing which sides of myself to put into the room because I knew what sides would serve me best. And that's a great skill to have. I mean, you don't- It's quite strategic. It sounds like you're quite strategic then. Yeah, it's important. I'm not dismissing that as a skill because I think you need to read a room and you need to know how to work that room, you do, and to dial up and down certain pieces of yourself to make that connection work. But I think, and maybe it is because I'm now 20 years plus and I'm kind of doing what I wanted to do, I feel much more confident now in really owning exactly who I am, where my strengths are and where my strengths aren't. I've had some brilliant colleagues in recent years say, Celine, you're not good at this or you're not the best person for that. But if we put you here, that's where you'll fly. And I'm so grateful for people- have been brave enough to tell me that or call me out on that. And I think I take all of those gifts and they're in like a sleigh behind me now. And they just fill me with joy, all these nuggets of feedback. And I don't worry in the same way that I used to do about getting something wrong or getting that kind of feedback. Because I think, well, yeah, but you're really good at this, Celine. So, you know, not everyone is. So I think it's that, that kind of authentic confidence would be.

SPEAKER_01: 33:33

Fantastic. Fantastic. And what advice would you give to women who are wanting to grow their influence and improve their impact?

SPEAKER_00: 33:42

So I think a couple of things. I think... Influencing, you need to take the time to connect with the people that you're wanting to influence on a very human level. And I think that takes time. I think it takes vulnerability. And I think it takes an interest in them and who they are and what they're trying to do and what their agenda is. is and i think you dismiss someone's agenda at your peril i think even if you don't agree with it you need to understand that agenda and try your goddamn hardest to help them with their agenda and to you know show that what you're trying to do is going to help them it's just you know and how it how it works i think again it's tricky because The best way to increase span of influence will depend on who you are as a person and leaning into your strengths. Things that have always served me well is keeping up connections where I can. So kind of maintaining relationships over years, be it through like texts or on LinkedIn or through people that you have in common, like that has helped me. And also to kind of see that network growing.

SPEAKER_01: 35:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 35:03

And I think most of my career, despite being a chartered psychologist, has actually been in sales and getting clients and working with clients. And I think, again, something I've learned from an influence perspective is you need to be able to soften that drive for sale. to build a very genuine relationship with someone. And I've done that because I enjoy making those natural relationships, but then it was just an interesting moment for me where I realized that those deep relationships was actually, it sounds really obvious, but yeah, actually, you know, you then get these relationships where you're working together. So yeah, in terms of span of influence, I think it's genuine relationships, authentic, and you do need to be quite strategic and quite tactical you know and I think for women especially it can sometimes feel quite disingenuous to target somebody or to go to somebody and say hello this is who I am and this is what I need from you and in return I'm going to give you xyz but you need to do that you need to you know your stakeholder map and is as important if not more important than your to-do list on the other side of your computer or the things that you've got to get done or you're accountable for like put that up your list like that's your most important bit of paper for helping you get what you need to get done and actually make a difference

SPEAKER_01: 36:50

yeah that's a fantastic piece of advice thank you and in terms of your you know you're a minority on the board i know there's three women on the on the catfinity board but what's that like Like being in the room, I mean, you don't have to digress anything that's confidential, but what's that like being in the minority in that context? Do the same rules apply that you've just shared? I

SPEAKER_00: 37:11

think so. I think we are lucky in that... catfinity has got two co-founders alex and nikki man and a woman and so and nikki is an absolute force of nature so she is a brilliant inspirational female leader i think we're surrounded by respectful men who respect our voices i think in a board setting it's actually interestingly feels less prominent and less prevalent than it has done earlier in my career actually. I think the transition from middle manager up to board is the toughest and I think that's well documented in the research and I think it you know it coincides with having children. I mean as an aside I just wanted to say actually that the experience of having babies and maternity leave, the big lesson there is it can feel like your world is stopping spinning from a career perspective In my personal experience, I had both times the feeling of, oh, actually, everything's changed, but nothing at all has changed. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. And that is genuinely how it felt. Everything seemed totally different both times. Both times were a year. But actually, all the fundamentals were the same. And you get up to speed so much quicker than you ever think you'll get up to speed.

SPEAKER_01: 38:44

So

SPEAKER_00: 38:44

that's my little point of

SPEAKER_01: 38:46

reassurance. But also on that note, do you feel on returning from maternity leave, you get up to speed more quickly? But how does the experience of becoming a mother or becoming a parent, because this applies to men too, how does that impact what you can contribute to the workplace? I

SPEAKER_00: 39:04

think... Very practically, you can't expend your time solely on work in the same way that you did before. So you have a very practical time constraint. And that's another big lesson. You know, it's not time equals outcome or success. It's contribution and, you know, output irrelevance of how many hours you're doing. So I think getting your head around that new equation is is helpful and I think you need to really dig deep on your self-belief and your confidence of who you are and what you can contribute because you have to say no to things that you would have never imagined saying no to before at work. And you need to have the confidence that that is going to be okay and you're still good at your job and you're still going to have a really good career here.

SPEAKER_02: 40:00

It's

SPEAKER_00: 40:01

not going to fall apart because you say no to this after work drink or something. Saying that, I don't want to be evangelical in the sense of you can just do what you want. I think it does come with sacrifices, both directions. And I know that I need to go on... x trip somewhere or i need to go to that event which goes into the evening and whilst i'm sad i won't get home to do bedtime that's something that i you know that's that's the heart in front of the line that i you know that's behind the line that i can't cross if you like and i think you just it takes practice to recognize the things that are really important and actually the things that are nice to have

SPEAKER_02: 40:48

yes

SPEAKER_00: 40:48

and i think you need to consciously be reflecting on that, right? And being experimental. Again, back to this notion of you don't have to get it all right at the beginning, like from the beginning. So you might miss an event and then next week you might hear everyone talking about it and you might think, damn it, I should have gone to that. That would have been really good to go to. Next time I'll go. And likewise, you might go to an early breakfast meeting and think this is a waste of my time. I'd rather be taking my boys to school. So you, you know, you learn as you go along.

SPEAKER_01: 41:21

Yes. Yeah, I hear that really strongly. Celine, you have passed on some real golden nuggets, I think, for all of our listeners today. So thank you so much on so many different realms. I'm kind of looking at my questions that I've asked you. And there's so many different areas that some real nuggets come through. What's your kind of parting shot? What's the final thing that you'd like to share with our listeners today when it comes to thinking about being a leader?

SPEAKER_00: 41:48

I think that don't underestimate the power that you have when you are a senior person within an organization i've seen that with clients for many many years and obviously in more recent years from a more personal position i still get surprised by people referencing something that i said months after i said it or mirroring a certain behavior yes and i think if you're in if you're striving a if you're striving for a leadership position don't underestimate the scrutiny that that comes with and b if you're in that leadership position treat that power with real care and kindness and you know if you can really revel in the privilege that that gives you to impact people's lives in a personal and professional way and it's it's the hugest of gifts is how i feel but it's it's tough like it's a tough gig being a senior leader is tough and i find holding on and really treasuring that gift to be the thing that makes the hard times really worth it

SPEAKER_01: 43:08

Fantastic. And what a role model you are. You've been a fantastic role model for us today. And they say example is the greatest form of influence. So you're certainly a great form of influence today as well. Thank you so much for joining me.

SPEAKER_00: 43:22

Pleasure. Oh, we could have filled a day, couldn't we? We

SPEAKER_01: 43:24

could have done. I'm not sure the listener would have appreciated that, but we would

SPEAKER_00: 43:28

have certainly enjoyed it. It's so lovely to see you again. And thank you for the invite.

SPEAKER_01: 43:33

Oh, thank you, Celine. thank you so much for listening to the she leads collective podcast if this episode resonated with you follow the show or share it with a friend and leave a quick review below or leave us a comment change happens through conversation so let's keep this one going listen out for the next episode and join me as we keep lifting the lid on the stories that matter take care and keep leading with heart