zach was 11 he's our youngest he he

asked me for you know if i was going to

die

finish me off

as facebook's vice president for europe

the middle east and africa nikki is one

of the most powerful women working in

tech facebook is this huge company the

prospect of leading so many regions is

there any element of what the [ __ ] am i

doing here you don't climb everest you

get to base camp one and that's your

thing certainly in chaotic moments it's

like what are the things you can control

in order to either get out of the chaos

or to hit the north star

so this meta shift people are

understandably scared do you have any

concerns that we're taking away what it

is to be a human i think it's an

important question i think

three years into your career at facebook

and then you get some awful news

i got the diagnosis that i had

follicular lymphoma which is an

incurable blood cancer so we gathered

the kids on the sunday morning

i couldn't i just couldn't get the words

out

[Music]

and i told my story on world cancer day

so many people sharing having a similar

disease but we're scared to show that

because it was a sign of weakness i mean

it sounds ridiculous but there are still

companies where that sort of behavior is

happening we often don't put the

discipline into our personal lives that

we do in our work lives and often our

work lives are dictated by others

these things aren't mutually exclusive

so without further ado

i'm stephen bartlett and this is the

diary of a ceo i hope nobody's listening

but if you are then please keep this

yourself

[Music]

nicola

you've had

an extremely extraordinary career i've

followed you for many many years for

many many years i think about six or

seven years throughout my career

and i've watched and i've also gone back

and looked at the previous

21 odd years you spent in advertising in

agencies because my background is in

advertising and agencies

my first question is when you think

about

why you why you were able to lead that

career

what are the circumstances of your early

years that went into shaping

who you became and the success you then

saw for the next

30 40 years of your career

well first can i just say i'm so excited

to be here in your dining room and

having um having this conversation with

you and fear of this turning into a

great big loving i've been following you

too

so um yeah i couldn't be more thrilled

to have this conversation

that's a great big question to um to

start with i think

from a very early age

i was always very curious i was always

that kid that was putting their hand up

and just going well hang on what about

can i ask a question

and to be honest it didn't play so well

in school

um the school that i was at at the time

really just wanted like a cookie cutter

that you came in you learnt by ro you

passed your exams and

i i wanted always to just push the

question a little bit understand a

little bit more

and i think that kind of desire for

knowledge that curiosity

wanting to know what might happen has

probably been a part of shaping who i am

do you know where that came from that

curiosity did it come from somewhere did

you have brothers and sisters

yeah i um

so i grew up in manchester i have um

a fantastic family a family of two

brothers parents all connected

grandparents in and out of the house

every single day

and

my mom worked my grandma worked and so

my north star at the time was just kind

of a very busy household people coming

and going but people always there for

one another people supporting

and a belief i think that anything was

possible my parents were caterers

and they used to do functions for

um extraordinary people celebrities

prime ministers

and so i grew up just seeing that even

extraordinary people are just people i

was a grafter i was working as a

waitress

for them and so i saw that and i saw

people and i think if you take the fear

away out of people however successful

they are i think it allows you to think

yourself about what you can learn from

from them and then what you might be

able to apply to yourself

were you a confident child yes i was yes

what evidence do you have of that

if you look back on my school reports

talks too much i think if you're not

confident you probably don't talk too

much asks too many questions

um

i wasn't i wasn't fearful i wasn't

afraid

it's funny because as you say when

you're younger those things are often

looked down upon even the phrasing of

that too many questions

yeah and especially for a woman or a

girl at the time i remember um

yeah there was a really particular

incident when i was

15 it was the

parents evening where you just before as

it was o levels that was the last year

of o levels gcses and

you go in the um dining room and with

both my parents from teacher to teacher

and this was a really important moment

for me as a child where the latin

teacher

literally started to shout at my parents

and told them that if i didn't change my

personality that i was never going to

get on in life can you imagine being

told that at 15

and it hadn't been such a good parents

even i'll be honest but i saw something

in my dad that day that

really has always stuck with me because

he turned around and he turned to her

and he said i want to be really clear he

said

i think it'll be my daughter's

personality that gets her on in life

not what she does with latin

and with that he was like we're off

and so i went with my parents and we

left but i just remember thinking he's

got my back he sees something in me that

she doesn't and it was a real seminal

moment for me as a as a child growing up

what was that latin teacher referring to

when she said when she was talking

negatively about your personality what

was it in your personality she didn't

like she didn't like the questioning she

didn't like me and

really trying to get to grips not just

learning the the language by rote but

actually understanding much more about

what the romans were doing and what you

know what we learnt as a result but that

wasn't her job her job was to teach her

the language not to teach us more on the

history and that side of it and i was

really interested in that and

yeah she didn't like that at that age

what if i'd asked you what you wanted to

be when you grew up what would you have

said to me

that time i would have probably said

an actress

so

yeah i was i was always in the plays i

was doing performances and

i was told at school that i wasn't very

good i wasn't clever i wasn't going to

pass my exams

with hindsight i think there was

probably some anti-semitism that i

experienced at school

and a few particular incidents that

stick out but and so i thought my life

was going to be on the stage

a few particular incidents that stick

out yeah i had um

i'm religious and i observed the sabbath

and

that meant in the winter months that i

would go home early from school

and we had a couple of teachers that

would always insist on starting the new

topics on a friday afternoon

and when my parents and they could have

started the topics and you know who

starts new topics on a friday afternoon

that's not a good thing for anybody you

know it's the end of the week people are

tired

my parents went in um and to ask about

it

and they were told very clearly that if

my parents insisted on taking me out

what you know that was our problem not

theirs

and um

yeah i

i that was one thing that i had that

stuck in my mind and another thing i had

i had an english teacher who

um

used to mark me down

and

my marks were really low i was like two

out and three out of ten and i was in a

good school and these were not my marks

and my parents again my parents

there's a kind of a thing here that they

they were backing me

they actually took my english book to um

one of my brother's teachers and said

what do you think of this work and they

said we don't understand the marks these

are the marks of a of a child that you

know this is an a student

but my confidence was so smashed by

these teachers telling me i wasn't good

i wasn't smart that i you know didn't

think that i would maybe even do a

levels never mind going to university at

that time which was kind of the normal

for that school

and

as it turned out i i left school at that

school at 16 and went on to college

and i got an a in my o level in english

and actually decided to read english for

a did a levels got an a

and actually went to university and read

english and you know did an english

degree

i actually went back to my school

and i think about this now and i can't

believe i did it when i got my a and my

place at university i went back

um to the school to that english teacher

and so i rocked up and i said to her

i've come to see you and she was like as

you can imagine quite shocked and she

goes why are you here i said i've come

to tell you that you could have

destroyed my life

and the power that you wielded on others

really could destroy and i said you know

you really came close with that with me

and taking away a dream of mine that

might never have been realized because i

always loved reading and passionate

about books

and

i just needed to tell her that

and i felt better for telling her that

never saw her again

what did she say

she just looked at me shocked and you

know i think back now with the uh the

benefit of age it was quite a shocking

thing to go and tell somebody

that you know their own biases and

prejudices and the power that they wield

could destroy a life

um

you know in comparison with the best of

teachers that it can inspire and lift up

and and to make you something

make you believe in yourself more that

wasn't some of the experiences i had

from some of my teachers

more broadly what does that say about

the

education system because i i mean i feel

a similar way i was

always did bad in school

there was two lessons that i would never

miss which was business and psychology

but other than that i would not attend

so and it wasn't i wasn't a rude kid you

know i went back and i've spoken at the

school multiple times now and when i go

there they say you were a really nice

guy but a useless student and because of

that the sort of implicit message of

of being a useless student um and the

idea that the a grade people are going

to be rich and successful and happy and

then everyone else you're gonna have to

settle for something else you're not

gonna go for a kid that's such an easy

narrative to believe it's almost amazing

when you hear that someone went through

that and they didn't believe that story

at such an impressionable age

is there something that we can do to

remove

i don't know

grades altogether or to stop people like

you who went on to have these phenomenal

careers potentially falling through the

net because of one bad teacher or one

bad grade or believing a narrative about

themselves based on

any of the above so i think it

that's a big question and i think there

is there's a lot in there to unpack but

i think having people believe in you at

a young age

is really important and not everyone is

as fortunate to have a family that is as

loving and as supportive as mine is

and so

people look to people like teachers kids

look to teachers to be those people for

them and on the whole i think teachers

do a phenomenal job i mean a really

truly extraordinary job

but some kids slip through

and i think it's on all of us to think

about what more we can do to be able to

help kids to

really realize and their full potential

because you're right how many more are

out there that could be doing the most

extraordinary things if someone just

says to them i believe in you i got you

i think you could do this

at what point then did you

choose advertising

this one's really simple so i

went through university doing um i

actually did english and theater study

so i was acting and actually had a place

at drama school um

at central school of speech and drama

it's a great school but i you know i

shared that i'm religious and i observed

the sabbath and i quickly realized that

you know a life on the stage is not it's

not very

you know compatible with you know

wanting to observe the sabbath so

i also saw that friends of mine who were

um acting

were pretty miserable because there's so

much luck involved you know they were

trying to get the equity cards they were

working in remote parts of the uk

trying to you know get a break

and i just didn't want to roll the dice

and have so much of my life dependent on

luck and they were great actors and

great actresses

and at the time i had a friend who was a

year older than me guy called neil

marcus who

had got a job in advertising in london

and i was

wow i've never heard of such a job i

didn't know anybody growing up in

manchester that worked in the creative

industries it wasn't a known thing that

and it wasn't a thing in my school from

my careers advice that they gave you

that there were such jobs and yeah i'd

always love the creative industries i

love theater i love you know drama i

love fashion i love film i loved all

these things so

when i heard what he did and that you

know you could get paid to do such a

thing i was like that's the thing i want

to do so that's how i got embarked on it

and then i did my research which back in

the um

the early 90s comprised of going to a

library and getting hold of you know the

the magazines the trade magazines and

working my way through them to

understand the great agencies and so i

applied uh as a graduate trainee to get

on a scheme and i got into uh bottle

bogle hegerty which was the one i wanted

to go to acting drama theater all these

things

in hindsight

has the skills that taught you played a

role in your career

yeah definitely i think all everything

that you do makes you who you are

um and so

i actually think the skills of acting is

something that all kids benefit from

because it gives you confidence it gives

you confidence to make a presentation it

gives you confidence to make a pitch

these are some really vital things when

it comes to

you know working in business

acting also gives you the skills of

working in a team you're relying on each

other who's going to finish the the

lines the you know the the makeup artist

the you know the directors the producers

you're all working as one um to be able

to come together and realize the

potential so yeah definitely all those

things definitely helped

you spent that the next sort of 20 years

from that first sort of grad was it a

grad internship yeah no yeah spent the

next 20 years working in advertising

um

interesting industry to work and you

stayed in there probably a lot longer

than i think i could have because you

know there's lots especially when you're

working agency side there's a lot to

deal with you rose within that industry

very quickly as well

but when you think about that period of

your career what did that really teach

you in terms of yourself leadership

skills

and everything in between what was the

so many things so definitely taught me

leadership skills and

you know you start early on working for

others but then you as you rise through

the ranks then people work for you and i

was always very keen to learn from

others that were doing it and i you know

i spent the first 12 years in

advertising working for bottle bogle and

hegerty so i learnt from some of the

very best crafts people

in the industry both from the business

side and actually the creative side as

well

i remember when i when i left there and

i was taking on my first really senior

position at gray that i actually went to

see someone called stevie spring who was

a woman i hugely admired now as a dear

friend to ask her what i should do what

advice did she have

and she said to me um

nikoi you really need to think about

every aspect of when you're talking to

people not just what you're saying but

how you're saying it and how you're

using your body language and other

things as well because people are going

to judge you they're going to pick up on

everything that you say and i thought

that that was good advice that nobody um

had ever shared before it was also the

first sort of time that i started to get

360 feedback on

and so that i could learn about how

others perceive me because how you think

of yourself in your head is very

different to how other people can

perhaps think about you so it was

actually making sure that i was

developing the muscle of leadership as

well as i was going through uh the

different roles that i have so yeah it

took taught me a huge amount what were

some of your weaknesses in that early

phase of your career that you that you

really had to work hard to overcome you

talked a bit about body language and i'm

not sure if that was a weakness and then

um was there anything that you you

initially struggled with being in that

agency

um sphere working for someone else yeah

i think um

not trusting my instincts

trying sometimes to be something i

wasn't you know bbh in the 90s was super

cool you know everybody was wearing 501

jeans and white t-shirts and honestly

that wasn't a really good look on me

and so

trying to emulate what others were doing

rather than just trusting me and

actually having the confidence now this

has sounded a weird one because i

already told you that i thought i was a

confident person

but having

and and i've really realized that this

is something that women do more which is

having an exhaustive conversation in

your head before you get your point out

and then the conversation's moved on and

you've missed it or someone else has

made the point and not realizing that i

had a seat at the table because people

were interested in what i had to say and

not to be so fearful not to get those

points out so

that is definitely a skill i owned as we

as i kind of went through my career why

do you think that that issue is more um

more prevalent in women

i think it's a fear of getting it wrong

being seen as being stupid um

yeah i think that i think those are

things that you know we're challenged on

um from a young age and it's something

that

you know if i could go back i would

definitely

speak up more i would share my voice

more i would

you know bring my opinions to the table

i think those i think women do struggle

with that and certainly talking with

women about this issue i you know

especially if i'm talking to younger

women they're nodding away and it's like

just put that imposter syndrome away

it's really not a good thing it doesn't

help any of us

you in that period if i'm correct you

you kind of went through three different

agencies yeah

started at that first one that i cannot

pronounce you went to gray which i can

pronounce

and then kamarama yeah kamarama yeah

um was the third one

why did you move every time what was the

reason for you to move on the first time

i moved was because

i'd been there 12 years

i looked up above me and all the people

that had been my bosses 12 years earlier

were still all my bosses and were always

going to be my bosses so i kind of

reached a point where i really didn't

think i was learning as much as as i

could and should and actually started to

think about maybe there's a life outside

advertising

and then actually it was somebody else

that came to me a guy called gary lace

came

and said look you're at the coolest

agency

on the planet i'm just coming to gray as

a change management kind of mission i

want you to be on that mission with me

and he goes i know people will sort of

laugh because you're at the coolest and

this one isn't but wouldn't it be

amazing if we could do that and i love

that vision because i thought yeah why

would i swap one great agency for

another great agency where's the

learning

um that curiosity thing again right and

and so i went and did that and honestly

that was one of my steepest learning

curves as from a leadership perspective

um and from a business perspective how

we changed that agency around in the

five years um that i was there and then

it was another kind of moment of

serendipity where um had been at gray

for five years it had been independent

and then it sold to wpp so the change

was kind of coming

and i got a call from a guy called ben

bilbaul who was one of the founders of

karmarama and said would you could i

have a cup of coffee

and i said yeah definitely and i always

whenever people ask me that i would

always say yes i was like you never know

interesting things always happen when

you when you meet interesting people

ben's interesting

so i go and meet ben and i was totally

hoodwinked because the other founders of

the agency were there sid and dave

i was like okay what's this and they

said oh we're here to see if you want to

be our fourth partner

i was like oh i didn't see that one

coming at all

and that had very much been a boutique

business a lifestyle business they

wanted to significantly grow it and so

i i joined the agency and

the day i joined there were 12 people

sat round the table and the day i left

there were 250 in five years

didn't it sell to accenture yeah i did

um a couple of years ago it did

so that first that first was it eight

and a half years at that agency that i

can't pronounce tell me the name you can

just say bbh

12 years 12 years later which is a long

time in ad in adland which is a long

time in anything yeah i guess a lot of

people especially i don't know if it's i

don't have the data but these days i

think amongst our generation the thought

of doing 12 years at one place is quite

inconceivable why did you do 12 years

there and

would it not have made more sense to

because there's often this narrative

that if you swing more from job to job

you can get higher faster would it have

not made more sense to just you know do

a couple of years then move on

so there was a lot going on in my life

in that 12 years so i got married i had

three of our four children while i was

there and also i absolutely loved the

agency and the job that i did so i

started off as an account as an account

man but actually i moved into new

business a new business it just gives me

a thrill it always has because you're

meeting new businesses you're learning

about those businesses you're meeting

new people

there's the pitch i love the thrill of

the pitch the chase and all of that and

so it constantly felt like it was a new

job and especially because i had three

maternity leaves during that period as

well

i grew as a person each time i had my

babies

people often don't think that but you

learn new things about yourself and so i

came back each time refreshed and

excited but as i said by the end after

the uh after the 12th year it was like

no this was time time to do something

new

and kamarama the agency where you were

the fourth partner and the owner um

at some point in that journey you get a

call from you get head hunted

by meta

well

facebook because yeah at the time

facebook so it's 2013

and

you know the agency is going brilliantly

and i am also the president of the

institute of practitioners in

advertising it's the trade body for the

ad industry and i'm the first woman in

its almost hundred year history to take

on that role

and my whole mission was about

making the uk the most digital minded

digital first

country because i could see that the

opportunities there for the industry

were going to be huge if we could

capitalize on what was happening in

silicon valley

and so yes i did get a call carolyn

everson came it was another cup of

coffee which she actually said would you

like breakfast so i go for breakfast and

we'd met through an awards thing a year

or so earlier

and it's very american i'll never forget

we're in the ivy i'm surrounded by

literally everybody i know

and she literally comes straight out

i've got my water i'm drinking my water

and she goes nicola i'm here to see if

you're interested in heading up a mia

for facebook and i literally splurted

water out

and i said oh no no i i don't think so

why what are you talking about and she

goes oh

i and she said oh um well people have

suggested your name and i've been

looking for a while and i said well i've

got kamarama and it's going great and i

said i'll tell you what let me think

about it so i went home that night and i

spoke to my husband john he goes are you

nuts

he said and it put it in context it was

just after facebook had floated hadn't

been going so well i was a huge fan of

facebook though but i felt a deep

connection to all the people that we'd

hired at kamarama you know 250 people

that relied on us for their mortgages

and were part of the vision and the

dream there

but i gave it the overnight and i woke

up in the morning and i thought

actually

this one's now got my you know i'm

excited about this i i can start to

imagine

what that could do

because i'd always loved tech i'd always

been interested in it

and this would give me a ringside view

so

i said all right i'm interested and then

fast forward we had a whole recruitment

process and ultimately got the job i've

got to be honest that doesn't sound

that um breakfast at the ivy doesn't

sound like the most well thought through

pitch

[Laughter]

yeah that's that's how it was she should

maybe smooth schmooze you a little bit

first and yeah it was direct it was

directed

yeah i quite like that as well i have to

say

and and that that prospect of becoming

the head of e-m-e-a is that's terrifying

that that would be

terrifying for anyone the prospect

facebook is this huge company it's

hugely socially significant it's now

public company the prospective of

leading so many regions

terrifying you know most people would

would be overcome with imposter syndrome

probably

i it's not how i saw it i just saw it as

a huge opportunity i loved the products

i mean so it started with something that

i absolutely passionately believed in

i was a huge fan of mark zuckerberg and

sheryl sandberg

um

before i had the job and so to have the

privilege of to work for two of the

finest leaders that have ever worked in

business ever

um and to work so closely was

was just an extraordinary opportunity

and

you know it was so early on i mean i

remember you know we we hadn't opened a

lot of the offices back then london only

had a couple of hundred people

working there and so it was really early

it was really scrappy i'm good in that

i'm i'm good in kind of bringing people

together setting out what the objectives

are working towards what the vision

should be and i knew the industry okay

this was my industry these were all the

things that i loved working with some of

the best and the most

smartest of people but when you start

that job it's a public company it's as i

said hugely socially significant

is there any element of what the [ __ ] am

i doing here oh yeah of course

completely and

you know joining

you know i thought i knew digital before

i i started and then i really got to

understand

and those first few months and i think

this is true for anybody that that comes

and joins meta you literally feel like

you're drinking from the fire hose

you've got information coming at you

left right and center you've got to make

decisions quick quick quick on the

decisions and i find that quite

exhilarating and i'm a great writer i

write things down i'm learning i'm

processing in terms of that's how i

retain knowledge

and it just felt energizing i hadn't

felt like that since some of the very

early days in my career and i still feel

like that today i have to be honest

when you think about taking on a new

role um

in your career is there some kind of

framework or principles or

characteristics you're looking for when

you're making that decision we i get

asked this a lot when i meet people that

listen to this podcast or when they dm

about they're at that kind of crossroads

where they're trying to weigh up one of

two options what advice would you give

so i

definitely always

research the business which is obviously

what you would do but then i'm very into

also understanding it better by having

lots of cups of coffee with people that

are in and around the business and it's

it's a two-way thing especially at a

senior level where they're interviewing

me but i'm also interviewing them and

i've got my list of questions and you

know really wanting to understand what

what's motivating what they're looking

for is it what i'm looking for as well

and squaring that

and then writing lists you know the pros

and the cons of why this may or may not

be a good thing and picking up also the

challenges that people have as well so

that you're very clear going in what are

the things that need to be fixed what

are the things that shouldn't be fixed

that are working really well and where

some of the other opportunities are and

then i often go back after a few months

into them and just reflect on what i've

written

uh and see what i've done as a result

and how much does the

family play a role in that decision you

spoke about going and speaking to john

about it

huge i was huge i mean up until this

point i'd largely been uk based i did

europe as well but i'd largely been uk

based i didn't travel a lot john

traveled more

um you know we've got four kids and so

it was very clear to me that if i was

gonna take on this role that it was

gonna mean a lot of travel

and how did i feel i'd also been working

four days a week up until this point

and because that was something i had

done when gabby my our eldest was one i

just didn't feel that i was getting um

being good at anything

and so

that was something that i'd taken on so

it was going to be a really big change

and john and i really sat and talked

about it and he went just go for it he

said this off but he said i'll i'll root

myself more at home so that you can go

and do those things and we made a kind

of thing between ourselves that i'd

always make sure wherever i was in the

world i'd come home for the weekend and

we'd always have the sabbath together

we'd always be there as a family

together but in the week i would travel

so yeah it was um it wasn't just my

decision it was it was a joint decision

i i couldn't have done it unless i'd had

his his full support

on that point of working four days a

week when gabby was was born um what was

behind that decision give me some color

there i felt that

i wasn't being a good wife i didn't feel

i was being a good mum a good kind of

family member good friend just work was

all consuming and i needed just a bit

more time to be able to do the things

that i also that were also important in

my life you get one go at this thing

and so

i worked out that actually i probably

just needed the friday if i had a friday

that i could do the things that i wanted

to do and remember this is pre-tech all

this stuff we didn't have tech at all

our fingertips and everything and so i i

went to talk to my bosses and they're

actually incredibly open about it they

cut my salary by 20

of course but they got me for i did the

same job in essence but did it in four

days through the discipline that i

applied

um and so that's that's where it came

from and honestly it was one of the very

best things that i ever did it did mean

that i took some changes in my career

though i think back now and i didn't

push myself to do a ceo job when i was

in was was in agency life because i felt

that i probably needed to be there five

days in order to do that but i have no

regrets about that because the

experiences that i did as a result of

having that time i think you know

fulfilled me and also make made me who i

am

there's a huge importance for and

you know when i when you said that i was

just thinking about how how self-aware

it is to really tune in to what matters

for you because it's so easy and

tempting sometimes to just

um try and take on more and try and get

the highest

sounding status job you possibly can to

be a ceo even if it's and i i think

about this a lot of my career that

sometimes i just maybe need to pause and

think about what how i feel and what

really really matters to me as opposed

to just being dragged by what i think

i'm supposed to do right yeah i think

that's i think that's true for a lot of

people

i

and i think it's we often don't put the

discipline into our personal lives that

we do in our work lives and often our

work lives are dictated by others here's

the path that you'll climb up

off you go

and actually just stopping and going

what matters to me in my whole life

and i was always really clear my

nostalgia was always my family i would

john and i always wanted to have a big

family four kids

that was really important to to be

around for them as well

i love the fact that like oh you know

our kids are older now and they choose

to hang with us is a real source of

pride and joy for us both

so

being as intentional on the personal

side as as on the work side these things

aren't mutually exclusive you might have

to trade things at different times but

if ultimately the person feels more

fulfilled and happy then surely that's a

good thing right it's very rare for

people to turn down a promotion

which is an interesting concept i

actually remember the day where i

offered our

marketing director

the chance of our head of marketing the

chance to be the marketing director of

the whole company and i remember them

saying no no thanks

you know as a ceo you take that one of

two ways you think you know

is this is and this is just being

completely honest is this not an

ambitious person do they not like it

here you know but when i when i spoke to

this individual to find out the

reasoning behind their decision i just

had the most amount of respect for them

i respected them so much more because of

that self-awareness to know that they in

that personal life they wanted something

a little bit different and also they

they the person communicated to me that

he didn't feel like he was quite there

yet

and it was just i will never forget that

day because it only ever happened once

and we employed you know more than a

thousand people over the last 10 years

so

um it's just and i don't think it's a

conversation people have enough which is

like

you don't have to accept the next rung

on the ladder just because it's the next

wrong on the ladder and yeah i agree

with that and actually it's something

we've already gone deep in that meta

because what that often means is you

take somebody from doing a job they're

brilliant at and they love and you put

them into a role often as a people

manager because people manager means

success right

where

they they're not as good and so it

doesn't work for anybody then and so we

actually have something which is an

individual contributor where you can

rise up as an individual contributor be

very very senior

but not have to manage loads of people

because that's a totally different and

i'd never heard of that before i thought

i i think it's really a fantastic

concept for keeping and motivating great

talent

it is because much of the reason why

people love their work is because of the

relationship they have with their peers

and when you move them to management

roles those relationships are somewhat

changed yeah often broken so

makes a lot of sense um you get

three years into your career at facebook

and then um you get some awful news

yeah um

so i am

45 then

in november 2016

and living this amazing life right i'm

flying around the kids are thriving

family's great

and

i'm busy and feeling great and i i had

um

had this little lump in my in my groin

tiny like the size of a pee

and honestly wouldn't have thought

anything of it but i have a a really

good girlfriend who is um who's a doctor

and i just mentioned it to her literally

in passing like i wouldn't have gone and

seen a doctor for it

and she has probably nothing if it's

still there

let me know in a few weeks

and it it was so i went to see her

and she she put her hands on me and i

saw in her eyes

um that she

that she wasn't happy about it and i

said what is it she goes i don't know

but you need to see someone i don't know

what it is

and

she sent me um sent me to a doctor who

was turned out to be the wrong doctor

but it was he was a gynecologist

and he said um

he said you're fine you examine me he

goes but i literally had my coat on he

goes but you know what while you're here

he said we should just do a ct scan

i thought okay i was by myself because i

really didn't think it was anything so i

went and had a ct scan which is quite an

intrusive thing if you're not kind of

expecting it

invasive

and

and then i went home didn't think

anything of it

it was a friday

and

got home and put my phone away because i

was busy doing other things

and then i remember i picked up my phone

and there were so many missed calls

from my friend the doctor and also from

this 0207 number

um which i didn't recognize

and

i can still remember the feeling of just

being physically sick

and i went up to see john and i said to

john i think this is going to be very

bad news i'm going to phone lisa while

she's my gp friend while you're with me

and she just said have you spoken to the

doctor i said no she said i'm coming

over

honestly she lives around the corner it

was the longest five minutes of anyone

getting to me

and she told me um

that the scan had shown that i had

tumors

everywhere all over my chest all

underarms everywhere

and they didn't know what it was

and that um

that began the process over the worst

weekend of our lives

um googling everything trying to work it

out because you can't see comfort see

doctors at the weekend nobody's around

had to wait till monday morning

had a whole fiasco of

going to meet a surgeon trying to take

her one of the tumors out but they

wouldn't take it out because they didn't

know which was the one to take out and

it was just very frustrating and

being a person that's very used to

like you you're like knowing what you

want to do getting in control making

things happen like you just couldn't do

anything

you had to wait till monday morning

to

go for a pet scan

to understand it and then over it was

just all just so much information and

also we didn't want the children to know

because we didn't know what it was and

so it was just john and i

sort of isolated

working through all of this

but within a few days it was

i got the diagnosis that i had

something called follicular lymphoma

which is an incurable blood cancer

most people that have this it can take

two to three years to get diagnosed i

got diagnosed in five days

and

it was

it was a shock it was

i'm thinking about it now and i still

can't believe what i'm telling you that

this is something that happened to me

um and is happening to me yeah

how does how does how does the world you

look out upon

look differently through that period of

your life that weekend

because you've gone from flying around

the world you know thinking about a

particular professional challenge and

life is normal and then

boom

i did a lot of crying i cried so much i

mean

it was a physical thing i just remember

it being very physical the feeling

i couldn't sleep i actually lost half a

stone in one weekend

um

and then i just remember thinking on

that monday morning

that that's not me i mean i

catastrophized everything because of

course when you heard the word cancer

and tumors cancer we knew it was bad

before we knew what it actually was

i went to all the worst places in my

mind as to what was going to happen

fast forward i was going to have chemo

then it wasn't going to work then i was

going to die then you know the children

would be left alone it was just horrific

absolutely horrific the games your mind

can play on you or that you allow to

play on yourself

and i remember thinking on that monday

morning

i actually did my hair did my makeup and

said i'm going to face this in the way

that i face everything i'm going to take

it one day at a time

and you know whatever the cards i'm

dealt with i'm going to make sure i live

the most

with what i have

and i'm never ever going to allow myself

to go back to that weekend that i just

had which was just horrific and i didn't

and so i took it on

you know understood what i had and then

had to

start to process that and then start to

tell people because you're right on that

monday i was supposed to be flying to

china

and so i couldn't do that

and so i had to tell my bosses that i

wasn't going to be able to tell them

you know the reason why or what i knew

at that point

and you know i will always be

unbelievably grateful to

sheryl sandberg for

literally just saying we're here for you

whatever you need

um

we've got your back

and that was you know for your boss to

tell you that is

you know the most important thing in the

world i'll never forget that

that conversation with your kids

worst conversation of our lives um

we

gathered that it was about it was a week

later and it was deliberately a week

later because

danny our on number two was just 18 that

weekend and he'd had a big party on the

saturday night

so we didn't want it to spoil it for him

and

so we gathered the kids on the sunday

morning um

all sat round the table

to try and tell them and i actually

i couldn't i just couldn't get the words

out

it was horrific

you know in in a moment you change your

kids you you know they've got this life

and in that moment you bring a different

dimension into their lives

john had to um

he had to tell them i couldn't get the

words out

zach was 11 at the time

he's our youngest and

you know he just he

he asked me for you know if i was gonna

die

finish me off

finish me off

how does how does someone respond to

that it took me back to

a conversation i had with my mum when my

mum found a lump in her breast when i

was younger

and

and it was the first thing i thought i

must have been about eleven

must have been about eleven when i got

that phone call

how does how do how does a parent deal

with that conversation with an eleven

year old when they ask that question

there's no right or wrong is there on

these things what i what i said to him

was i hope not

gonna try my best

and

what i promised them that day was that

they could always ask me anything

there was never a question that they

couldn't ask and that we would fight it

as a family together and we would

learn about it together

and it wasn't a secret and there was no

shame

sometimes there's a shame with these

things

especially

it was particularly difficult because

nobody had ever heard of this cancer

and

and the fact that it was incurable so

all that language with cancer that we

knew

of we're going to beat it and cut it out

and do those things

couldn't say those things

it was this was going to be a journey

and this was now going to be a part of

our lives

and

yeah i think probably

probably changes it all a little bit

that day

the word incurable is a is a hard word

to accept especially when you're

you have the type of personality that i

can tell you have

it almost seems like control is when i

hear that word it's like the control is

taken from me because if you know my

natural um when i was reading about your

initial response to receiving that

diagnosis that cut out attack it was

gonna that would be my response

yeah it was i mean that was part of that

weekend where i was just trying to find

a surgeon i kind of felt if i found that

surgeon and they cut it out then that

would be on the path to curing it

because in that moment they didn't know

if it was a they thought it might have

been a breast cancer that had spread so

they were going at it that way but

actually it turned out it was a lymphoma

that happened to be around the lymph

nodes in in the underarms so

um

it was a whole new language and vocab is

to try and understand what it means to

have an incurable cancer

and then

to start to understand that this one

didn't have much research and so all the

questions you want to ask it's okay so

if i have treatment how long is that

going to last for and how long will i be

clear for and you go into a remission

and then it comes back and

that there's just no knowledge and no

information

in the way that you want to have that

knowledge and so

i think i think one of the challenges of

that word incurable is that it's always

with you

and there's not a day that i goes by

where i don't think about the fact that

i do have a blood cancer

um

and that the risks especially through

the last two years that we've had with

covid

have been very challenging for me in the

family

up until the point where better

treatments were available for people

like me

in these moments both professionally and

personally there's uh

um

there's sometimes a desire to be

strong on the outside

brave face

yes and

no

i was very

lucky

i didn't i never made this a secret and

and in many ways i couldn't have

suddenly disappeared from work because

people knew i was having tests

and so i i told

i told my team straight away

and and people are wonderful you know

people like we're here for you what can

we do what do you need

i was like i don't know

at the moment

and this cancer

as i said is quite different in as much

as i didn't even have treatment for 18

months because

what what is understood is the fact that

because there's we can't cure it

and because there could be new

treatments

then the doctors do this thing called

watch and wait where literally they

watch and they wait and they they see

what's happening or as patients call it

watch and worry

and you have scans and you have blood

tests and then there'll come a point

maybe

that you'll need treatment and my point

came

18 months after that first diagnosis

where i was just unlucky that it grew

around my kidney area some people can go

several years without needing treatment

but they said i could have it would it

would give me kidney failure and so

they deemed that i should i should get

the treatment there that was a blow and

the only reason that was a blow that

moment was because i thought i was going

to get two years that's a kind of the

average after if you get an early

diagnosis and i got 18 months so

that was a blow um and then i had six

months of chemotherapy and 18 months of

immunotherapy treatment as well and it

was you know i i did well not everyone

does as well as me it it put the cancer

into a form of remission they call it no

evidence of disease

but you know

no chemo is fun that's for sure

what kind did you get any psychological

support throughout this process because

we talk a lot about the physical

symptoms but the

the mental um

the mental difficulties i mean

are just

quite honestly like

unimaginable i just all of the words

you've used and the context of the

family and

all of these things your team members

was there some kind of psychological

support that you sought out in therapy

or other

actually there wasn't but i also think

it was because i was so open

you know you talked about did i put on a

brave face i think the hardest thing i

did was when i told my story more

publicly

and i did it in two parts the first part

was when i stood up we used to do an

end-of-year conference in emea where

everybody flew in

and i stood and told my story to

everybody and that was one of the

hardest things i've done with the story

of the diagnosis

and i i wept on the stage i mean i

literally had tears coming um down my

eyes as i did it in front of everybody

that worked with me

and

people just inundated with me with hugs

and you know that thing of don't hug me

when i'm crying it's gonna make me cry

more

that that happened but people were so so

supportive

and then again when i when i told my

story on world cancer day um

in the february

i was just inundated with support and

love from people people i didn't even

know

and so many people sharing the story of

having a similar disease or incurable

disease that they've not gone public on

for a variety of reasons

whether it was fear of

it was largely to do with work actually

largely to do with they won't get that

promotion if people think they're weak

physically

and so they live with this extra burden

of having an inc a disease and putting

on a brave face

hiding doctor's appointments i never had

to do any of that and so

i felt strong mentally the whole way

through this

i got my head around the cards

that have been dealt with to me and as i

said i was never going to go back to

that weekend and so i made sure that i

protected myself through the things that

i did through the things that i could

take control on

um in in order to get that but i know

that's not true for everyone and i

certainly know

that through one of the things that we

did was to grow this group on facebook

called living with follicular lymphoma

it's almost 10 000 people now which i

kind of pinch myself because it's it's

the largest gathering of people that

have ever existed with follicular

lymphoma and could only have happened

because of facebook

but the mental challenge and the anguish

that people in the group talk about

every single day

that haunts me and and that sort of

drives me to do the work that i do in

terms of trying to find a cure it haunts

you yeah because people

i know how blessed i am i'm blessed with

my with the job that i have with my

family with my faith with my community

all those pillars that support me and

and make me who i am

and i know how lucky i am to have that

and

[Music]

i read every day that so many are not

the group acts as a support for them

because

you don't want to talk to somebody else

that's got a different cancer it's not

helpful

you know

i had that in the early days a lot of

people with breast cancer wanted to tell

me their story and it's actually

thank you but it's not that helpful i

need to know people that are

two years ahead of me on this journey

who've got follicular lymphoma that i

had the treatments i had will have

that that's the best help and support

possible

was there ever a decision you made about

whether to

continue with work because

this is i know this is a question you've

kind of been asked before about whether

you you know some would assume that if

if they were to get that diagnosis they

might retract from work

and and just stay home

what was your thinking around that

it honestly never occurred to me and

i think i'd been very intentional in my

life about the things that mattered to

me in the things that i wanted i love

what i do i absolutely love my job it is

a lot of who i am

it is something that gives me huge

energy good and you know helps me on my

own journey in learning so it never

occurred to me that if i was well enough

um that i that i would carry on working

and work out you know i was asked you

know take the time off whatever you need

to do i was like oh no no i don't want

any time off i want to do i want to keep

things as normal as possible because i i

feel pretty blessed with the with the

life that i have and if i'm well i'll i

want to do the job and i thank god i

have been well and even through the

chemotherapy i was able to work which is

can often be a surprise because there's

different types of chemotherapy and

thankfully the one i had is not didn't

react as severely to me as some people

have with theirs i didn't lose my hair

for example

which i know is a hugely traumatic thing

especially for women and so

i was able to work but to do it in

different ways

on that day when you get that message

from the doctors that um

there's no evidence of disease

and that you're

follicular

lymphoma

is in

remission yeah how is that day how do

you do you remember the day i do and

honestly it was a bit of an anti-climax

because it only meant for now and so i

sort of

i'd gone into that meeting going

either way manage your own expectations

so you're not disappointed

and so if i didn't build myself up to go

it's going to be good it's going to be

good news i was like it's this is just

going to be what it will be and you'll

deal with it and i think that really

helped in terms of the management of the

expectation and so when he told me that

i was like that's good and he goes well

aren't you more happy i was like no that

that is good news but there's still a

journey ahead and you know i want to

find i want to be

part of the team that finds a cure for

this thing so that other people don't

have to go through these meetings like

you and i are going to have to have

must be a nice conversation to have you

with your kids though it was good news

um

you'd sort of get halfway through

they've done a scan to say it was going

well

and so they sort of drip fed that

information and but i didn't allow

myself that euphoria of yay i didn't do

that moment i i

and that is quite a weird thing if i

think back on it now because

of the nature of the person that i am i

am quite celebratory i am kind of

that person but i that one was a more

muted

certainly was more muted to me it

doesn't entirely surprise me that was

your reaction because you talked about

um it being a process of like

expectation management and one would

assume that if you can control your

response to

good news it also helps you control your

response to bad news in the same way it

seems

to me i've done that in the past as

almost a defense mechanism yeah it is

it's a protection it definitely is a

protection thing because if i was going

in there going i hope it's good news i

hope it's good news and it's not i'm

just going to be flawed right

and so i already knew what the worst

thing could be i i've got an incurable

blood cancer that's not going away

but it would just be

you know let's see where this next part

of this journey takes me

how did that news impact the way that

you saw your life and uh because

for me the pandemic and watching what

happened happened to the world and

seeing how that there was this tectonic

plate underneath all of us that i'd

never realized called our health

that i as a young person had never even

realized could was there or could move

and that if it did move in fact my whole

life sat upon it my career my

relationships my family everything my

goals my ambitions my future was all sat

on this thing called health and one day

it shakes and you didn't know it was

there

how does that change your view of your

life and the decisions you make

yeah and in many ways our family had a

trial run on the pandemic because going

through chemo you have to be super

careful i mean we had the masks and the

sanitizer at the door back in 2018 for

anyone that came into the house i didn't

go to the theater i didn't go out didn't

go on planes etc

so i had to be super super careful

because my immune system was shot to

pieces

but actually

i didn't make a lot of major changes you

know a lot of people that get a

diagnosis like this do look their life

in in that moment and go well

getting divorced

spending all that off to vegas i i

didn't do any of those things because

i think i'd been very intentional about

the about the life

that i have

and been very

purposeful about some of the choices

that you know we've made together as a

family and so

no i there was none of those kind of

crazy things

did it change how you allocate your time

at all did it yes i did um so i took

control of some of the things i could

control and so there was enough evidence

knocking around about lifestyles and

diets and things like that especially

with the disease which is about the

immune system about reducing

inflammation within the body and so i

had a shocking diet i was really not

very good at exercise i.e i did none

whatsoever and so i did build that into

my life so yeah they were i guess some

pretty big changes then that i did make

you talk about being intentional

about your life what does that mean to

you and why is that important yeah i

i actually practice something called

vision writing which is um

you write as though it's a year from now

and you set out looking back on the year

you've just had what you're going to

achieve

and all the research says if you write

stuff down then you and you share it

with people you're more likely to do it

and i do it around my personal life i do

it around work and then i do it around

community

and

i take people on the journey with me you

know to help to work out what it's gonna

write it down and then i then i share it

and that's really helped me to be really

thoughtful about what i want to do in

the next year and certainly with the

family it's involved a huge amount of

travel we absolutely love traveling and

seeing different places and exploring

and it's we sit together and we kind of

go what do you want to do this year what

are the things and when the kids were

smaller

you know that some of the things that

they wanted to do were kind of little

things i remember there was one where um

i think sam just wanted to go and have a

chinese meal i'm like yep we'll have a

chinese meal

and his brothers and sisters laughing at

him for going you know

you underplayed that one yeah you

couldn't ask anything from what you are

doing you know different personalities

of the children coming through but i

think i think

that that has made a difference

i read about some advice that sheryl

sandberg had given you around that time

um about

not

uh engaging in secondary worrying

yeah

what is that well that the secondary

worrying is what i was talking about

which is well i'm going to have chemo

it's not going to work

i'm going to die

john's going to marry a wicked woman

children are going to be miserable boom

i'm exhausted and it's miserable and

depressing and

that that's just

giving the power away and and she was

right i mean it was such good advice

just to kind of

to say that don't don't allow yourself

to do that and i think

you know i think that is something that

people do with bad news you know you

take yourself into a into a different

place of all the things that that could

go wrong but i think people do that in

in all aspects of life if you go for a

job interview and you know you start to

worry about not getting it well that's

not going to be very helpful is it in

terms of how you're going to present

yourself

so yeah

because you're right impacts performance

but also that mental

torture yeah

which you're choosing you know to

inflict upon yourself just makes the

whole process miserable doesn't it yeah

and we will do that oh yeah

it's easier said than done

but there's i often you know people ask

me about um advice for like moments of

chaos the only advice i've ever been

able to conjure really is

um trying to plant yourself as much as

you possibly can in the present moment

and and that which you can control yeah

totally i'm absolutely i i heard a great

um

speech years ago from a guy who'd

climbed everest who basically said you

don't climb everest you get to base camp

one and that's your thing and then you

work out how you get to two and you

never climb everest you go from point to

point and certainly in chaotic moments

it's like what are the things you can

control and what are your small

milestones that you need to get to in

order to either get out of the chaos or

to hit the the north star do you see

that in great leaders within within

facebook slash mata oh yeah definitely i

mean you know having you know mark

zuckerberg pivoting the whole company as

he as he did last year

um changing the name of the company and

going this is what we've done for the

last 17 years here's where the new thing

is going to be

this is where we're going to go that's

bold that's extraordinary so few leaders

do something like that i mean it's one

of the reasons that i love what i do is

get to learn and be inspired by him

what's he like

he's incredible absolutely incredible

leader

he sees things

that others don't necessarily see

and he's always right

in those things in terms of what he

plants in terms of where the north stars

are no question and then he's really

clear he gives very clear

direction as to what's important what

what matters where the trade-offs are

going to be

and what he expects of people and i

think having that clarity

of you know

the things that we're going to measure

the company against or the individual

against

those are really important things and

you know growing up in agencies as we

both did those were things that didn't

really exist it was all done on

touchy-feely how's that person doing

and if you weren't

you know if you weren't kind of in that

crowd then it was hard for people

whereas working matter you've got really

clear objectives as to what you need and

should do and the fact that everybody

has them

means that we can point towards the

north star and in this case the building

our part in the building of the

metaverse

when you talk about he you know he has

this very high conviction and he can see

things that a lot of people can't see um

and then it's proven right what are the

key

moments of sort of self-disruption where

you think he was really right right he

was exceptionally high conviction to the

point that it probably didn't make sense

to a lot of people

but it but it was uh proven to be

correct it was mobile the first yeah it

was i think mobile is the first time

that we that strength of leadership and

that pivot

really came through and in the actions

that he had because

lots of leaders talk stuff but then

don't follow through with the action and

the fact that you know back in 2012 2013

mark turned around and said you know

facebook was was built late so it was

built on on desktop it wasn't mobile

first we need to shift the company to

mobile and so the product guys were

still coming in with desktop

innovations and he stopped them and you

know for two weeks he didn't have any

meetings because nobody had any mobile

applications to share with him of how

this was going to work and so by

being really clear as to what the

expectations were

people were able to move very quickly in

terms of what the deliverables and we've

seen it time and time again since then

so you know the the shift of video the

shift to stories and now the shift to

reels that we're going through the short

form video now is another one of these

pivotal moments that we that we've seen

in big companies it's hard to get i mean

you know

it's hard to get that agility and

innovation often to keep up with a

changing world for many reasons i mean

people have come to work they're

qualified in one thing they've done it

their whole life

so it's it's understandable why there

might be friction and reluctancy to go

from being like a you know a developer

on uh desktop to mobile like that's not

what i do i don't know it so

there's so much friction and resistance

how does how does mark in facebook and

how does the company overcome that you

talked about being very very clear what

does that mean in practical terms does

that mean like

you will be fired if you don't or does

it mean

no i think it's more about the culture

that's created that allows people to

fail

um and dem and talks about that with

openness and vulnerability if we try

this and it didn't work but if if we're

not setting ambitious goals then we then

we we wouldn't not be failing we have to

fail as a tech company to get to those

bigger north stars but the key thing is

is to make sure that we're taking the

learnings from those failures and then

applying it and telling the stories of

those things as well so you create a

safe environment for people to go well

i'm going to do this thing and i'm going

to go all in because this is my

hypothesis of why it will work and then

if it doesn't to have the

self-reflection to go why didn't what

can we learn what's the debriefing that

needs to happen and we take learnings

from so many different places you know

um the military is a great one that you

know when operations don't all

operations good and bad they debrief

directly after that's kind of a muscle

that we also have as well and that just

keeps making us better

on that on that switch from

web to mobile let's say um i'd read that

market basically said i'm not taking and

you kind of alluded to it a little bit

there but i'm not taking any meetings

until people start bringing me

mobile products to look at

is that is that true

yeah because that for me is one of those

that's a very practical thing where a

leader goes i'm so high conviction that

i'm no longer going to take meetings

about the old thing absolutely and

that's that for me is an example of of

what i was talking about like in a very

practical sense that's

that's a