Friday Conversation with Somaya Ouazzani, founder of Mimoza Fleur

Somaya and I discussed women in law, progression and retention along with a lawyer's life in lockdown including juggling children and clients in challenging times.

You can find out more about Somaya and the brilliant work she is doing here.

Podcast host Hannah Beko is a self-employed lawyer, coach and creator of the Lawyers Business Mastermind™ (the place for entrepreneurial lawyers to grow).

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If you'd like to take part in a #FridayConversation, please do email Hannah@authenticallyspeaking.co.uk. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hello and welcome to another Friday Conversation. I'm here today with Sumaya Wazani who is a specialist legal recruiter based in London and is also a very good friend of mine. I think we met about a year or maybe 18 months ago and we've done a bit of work together over the last year which has been great. Hello Hannah, thank you very much for inviting me. You're very, very welcome. Now tell us all who you are and what you do. So I am the CEO and founder of Mimosa Fleur. We are a boutique search firm based in London. We focus on five specialist areas. That's always been our motto since very inception. We wanted to bring an element of specialism to the recruitment field. We largely focus on retained assignments in the senior exec and partner market. So something that we've been doing a lot of recently is moving senior execs associates into partner roles and lateral partner moves and team builds as well. We do work with junior lawyers as and when the opportunity arises and that's always a very interesting part of our work too. Before moving into recruitment, I practiced as a divorce lawyer in the city for seven years. And I think the difficulties involved in kind of sustaining any real work-life balance was probably for me the sort of the biggest driver to looking for something else. I was also a teaching fellow at UCL for a couple of years, which I really loved and enjoyed. And I'm sure one day I'll go back to it in one way or another. But no, now the motor player is my biggest focus and it's something that I love and it's going very well. Fantastic. Now, I know that you work with both men and women, but you do have an interesting take on the way that you sort of approach your recruitment, don't you? You're very sort of passionate about bringing larger numbers of women into the senior positions and BAME women as well. Yeah, absolutely. So a big part of the work I do, particularly because it's at the sort of more senior end, is diversity and inclusion. So I try to bring that to most people. recruitment agendas. And I think that that was actually, that sort of evolved somewhat organically. So one of the areas that I do a lot of work in is oil and gas disputes, so energy disputes in the international arbitration sphere. And that's a sector that is, you know, the figures of male to female partners are enormously, you know, skewed. And it's very difficult to kind of have any real gender balance for a number of reasons, I think, in that area and when I was doing a team build for a client I was just astonished by how few women there were particularly at the very senior end so that was when diversity and inclusion really hit my agenda and actually most of the clients that I know I'm fortunate enough that most of the clients I work with you know are already thinking about diversity and inclusion whether it's you know gender whether it's you know people that are parents whether it's people that are you know from ethnic minority backgrounds but I'll always do my very best to kind of keep at the forefront of everybody's mind the importance of sort of market mapping in a way that takes into account the different types of very very good lawyers it's just people are different and the way they do things might be different but we've got to sort of appreciate that. No, I think that's brilliant. That's one of the things I think is really personally different about your work and the way you approach things is that, you know, those are your values. Those are the things that are important to you and you make sure you bring them into your work, which is, you know, it's quite rare to see, I think, still. I think the easier thing can be to sort of just take the biggest names or the sort of the biggest brands in the market, as it were, and sort of target those when you're doing an assignment for a client and trying to attract the best possible people. But But that doesn't always actually translate to attracting necessarily the best possible people. And there are many lawyers that can sort of fall off people's radar if you have a slightly one-dimensional approach. And I think having a multi-dimensional approach that does keep diversity inclusion sort of front of mind does really bring a very, very interesting outcome. approach, I think, to recruitment as a whole and actually makes for just much better teams, teams that stay together longer, teams that perform better, teams that are more dynamic, teams that are more appealing to clients. I'm finding more and more that my own clients are being challenged on their diversity and inclusion statistics whenever they're pitching for their own work, particularly if it's in sectors where, for example, they have been historically quite male dominated. So yeah, I think it's something that, you know, more and more people are thinking about and doing and it's, you know, it's just responsible recruitment. No, that's fantastic. That's brilliant. Well, let's just have a chat about your lockdown experience now. So pre lockdown, how much did you work from home? I think you run most of your business from home, if I'm not wrong. Yeah, so I have two days in the city and then the rest of the time is spent working from home. And I'm the sort of person that really enjoys that setup. I can, you know, I can just crack on with it. It makes no difference to me where I am. And I've always found that I can get a lot more done and manage my time better. And there's much less interruptions. You can more easily factor in time for a workout or for a walk or just to do some of the, you know, the life admin that, you know, you wouldn't get to do if you were commuting an hour each way so the working from home aspect has actually always been something that Mimosa Fleur has been a big advocate of as well because I think by adopting and supporting agile working policies whether that's you know a part-time inverted comma structure or working from home model or both you also end up feeding into the diversity and inclusion discourse as well and I think that you're able to have more dynamic teams and more multifaceted teams really. Yes, absolutely. I mean, it's something I'm a big, big believer of that, you know, the more we accept flexible working and remote working and all those sorts of things will help with the equality argument as well, certainly. So in that sense, lockdown wasn't a big shock to the system. Well, it wasn't a big shock to the system in the sense that I was staying at home. And I'm also quite a home bunny, if I'm being completely honest with everybody. But it has been difficult balancing childcare. um, that's not easy. Um, and both, you know, both my husband and I have, have pretty full on jobs. So it, you know, we've tried to do kind of a shift system, but because we're both so client facing, it's really difficult. Um, and I think to that extent, it was a bit of a shock. There's nothing nice than on a Monday morning, just shipping everybody out the house and having the entire house to myself to just do everything I need to get done. Um, and that's not the case now. So some adjustments needed to be made. And I think you know making sure you've got a good structure to the day really helps too yeah it's interesting actually because just before we started recording we were just talking about the mental load of women which seems to be being reported on a lot at the moment um you know even before obviously lockdown there was the idea that women might be working full-time in their career but mentally they're still worried about the home life and the children and the shopping and all that sort of thing um and that has obviously continued into lockdown for many people from what what we're reading what we're hearing and you know sort of what you've just mentioned mentioned as well absolutely in fact actually i'm already sort of that mental load is is coming in right now i can slowly see my son's coming into the room i'm thinking oh my goodness me i can't wait a minute you know i'm gonna have to uh go upstairs into the bathroom to um Oh no, it's all, it's the same for everybody. So what have been your, other people can't see, but Samir has got her video on and she's pushing, metaphorically pushing them out the door as we speak. What have been your highs and lows of lockdown, apart from right now while you're trying to record this and trying to shut the door as well? The weather has been generally amazing, actually. We have been so lucky. And that's great because it means every single day without fail, my son and I will go on a really long walk, you know, and that will kill two hours of the day. And, you know, we're lucky enough that we live in a very green area. So, you know, we've made the most of that. And that's been something that we didn't do enough of before. So that was definitely a high. I think the low is just the not knowing when things will resume to normal. You know, it does take quite a lot of energy to every single day keep super, super positive. And, you know, that's fine. But I think there comes a point where for every one of us, we just need to know when it's going to end or when at least we can start to expect some sort of normality. And of course, not being able to see our families, that's been really tough. that's been really difficult and you don't sort of realize how difficult that is until you know you're in these sorts of situations and but just thinking about another positive though it does make you realize that life does not have to be so incredibly fast-paced all of the time that you don't have to squeeze every single minute out of your day to feel like you've had a really productive day I think that's a really difficult one for many of us and I think it has just shown us all to just slow down a little bit I think another highlight has been it has been so wonderful to see so many dads around with their kids you know that and I don't mean that in a sort of sexist way or you know a disrespecting or disparaging way but you know law and you know the legal industry hasn't evolved sufficiently enough yet to enable men as much as women and to be involved with childcare and being around at home. And I think, you know, there's nothing more warming than seeing, you know, kids just having the time of their life in the park with their dads who ordinarily they wouldn't have seen until, you know, late in the evening at once upon a time. And I think out of all of this, what I'm certainly expecting many of my clients to do, although certainly that aren't already thinking about it, is really giving some time and credence to working from home policies and agile working policies because everybody's been able to prove that it works, it works well, we've all got the intellect and self-discipline to manage it and there's no reason why with sufficient commitment we shouldn't all be willing for it to continue. Definitely and in a way that supports men and women equally which again helps with the equality argument because men have enjoyed well I say enjoyed I'm sure they have enjoyed being at home with their children and spending more time. Sure yeah I think it's really important I think and I know actually clients of mine that have in the past doubted whether or not working from home works they have now been sort of catapulted into that situation you know And they've seen that it works and they've seen that their teams are, you know, can be trusted and that the teams are well balanced and well calibrated to make that sort of thing work. You just need to make sure you've got a sensible infrastructure, a suitable infrastructure. But if you've recruited correctly for your team, you know, you should have a brilliant team wherever you are. yeah definitely i absolutely agree so what have you learned about yourself your family your business our industry over lockdown that you think would be useful for others um what have i learned about i think i've learned that from a sort of a business perspective and i don't just necessarily mean mimosa flora the recruitment sector i mean sort of business as a whole how important it is to always be thinking ahead And although I very much doubt there is any business on the planet that had had a kind of a COVID-19 pandemic contingency plan, I do think it's really important to always be thinking a step ahead. And I think this situation has taught so many of us and so many businesses the importance of resilience. I think our generation, the generations after us, perhaps even the generation before us, we've lost the resilience. And we're so used to having this sort of society where everything is on tap, everything is at our fingertip and whatever we need, whenever we need it, however we need it. And so we don't need to really be resilient anymore. And I think this has taught all of us to really, really dig deep and find that grit that will get all of us moving again. And I think from a recruitment perspective specifically, it's I think taught me and many others how important it is to have camaraderie whether you're, you know, the owner of a business or whether you're working within a business that there has to be collaboration, collaboration of ideas and planning and strategy and authenticity. I think, you know, sharing when you're nervous, sharing when you're concerned, sharing when you've got question marks about how things will recover, when they'll recover, if they'll recover, because, you know, it's not going to be a surprise to anybody that equipment industry has taken an absolute thumping. you know things have have gone through the through the through the floor for every single recruitment sector whether you're recruiting you know managing directors of large hotel chains or whether you're recruiting you know paralegals in very very small recruitment for legal firms in you know the outskirts everybody's been impacted perhaps with exception to those that are recruiting in sort of the medical industry but yeah definitely i love your point there about collaboration and and you know whether you're sole sole in business or whatever it is you're doing I think there has been a big change in these times of of being more honest and open with each other the authenticity you use which you know is one of my favorite words you know this this being honest with people you know I've mentioned it a few times before in this series I'm sure that I've been on the other side of transactions with with somebody and you know at some point you know they might just say oh I'm really sorry I missed that because I had a toddler to feed or my toddlers drop nail polish on the carpet or whatever and Now, you would never normally have those sorts of conversations with people that you're in business with or on the other side or whatever. And it has just forced us in a lot of ways, but I don't think it's a bad thing to have more of that collaboration and working together and honesty and authenticity, as you say. Definitely. And actually, I think just on the authenticity point, it's taught so many of us to be more tolerant as well. I've had many conversations where I've literally been taking my toddler to the toilet whilst on a telephone call. And you might think well how invested were you in that call or how distracted might you have been you know were you sort of really giving back all of your time and attention but actually I think we're all just becoming a lot more tolerant and you know three months ago you know I wouldn't have dreamed of having my son even enter the room when I was having a conversation you know I'd sooner have put him in the buggy and gone on you know a 5k walk to be able to have a really long conversation that have that happen and I think now we're all realizing that that's just putting an enormous amount of pressure on us unnecessarily and I think a lot of people, particularly those sort of in more senior positions and particularly sort of head honchos and leaders of organisations and law firms are going to realise what an absolutely stellar job a lot of mothers and, you know, busy professionals have been doing all of this time, balancing all of those plates, juggling all of those balls without complaining, without moaning, without talking about how tired they are and how stressful it is and just doing a darn sight fantastic job with I don't think I can add any more after that. You know, I think that was absolutely perfect and a fantastic way to end it. And I agree with you 100%. So thank you so much for joining me today. It's been great to catch up with you. Thank you so much, Hannah.