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It's happening! The one-year anniversary of Femme Lead is here! On August 27th, 2020 we shared the first episodes of the podcast on female leadership and role models!

Now, one year later, we decided to share with you a special interview, hosted by Brittany Arthur, Design Thinking Expert, and Host of Business Karaoke Podcast interviewing Femme Lead's Host, Alexandra Ciobotaru.

Stay tuned for season 3 and follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook & Youtube!

Check Linktree: https://linktr.ee/FemmeLeadPodcast 

We hope you enjoy this episode!

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Agile | Agile Coach | Nuuday | Agile Mindset | IT Transformation | Find your Calling | Career Development | Experiment | The Agile Way 

Signe Hjorth Hansen is the last guest of Femme Lead Podcast season 2! Signe is an Agile Coach for the tech & telecom company Nuuday in Denmark and a board member in the organization Women in Tech Denmark. Signe's career started with a graduate program in the company Cisco and continued as a business manager before moving into the telecommunication space for the last 4 years at TDC/Nuuday.  

Nuuday is a family of 9 brands in Denmark that includes YouSee, Telmore, eesy, Hiper, YouTv, Blockbuster, TDC Erhverv, NetDesign, and Related. The core of Nuuday is TV, broadband, network, telephony, and entertainment delivered across all brands.

An agile coach is a person who is responsible for creating and improving Agile processes within a team or a company. Signe graduated with a master's in Engineering, Operation, and Innovation Management from the Danish Technical University and her career path at Nuuday included the role of service solution architect and commercial manager before becoming an agile coach.

In this episode, we will discuss the day-to-day activities of an agile coach, and the overall understanding of how IT transformation happens with the help of the Agile framework. Signe Hjorth Hansen also shares how she used the Agile mindset to reflect on her career and how she started making decisions using the framework for her professional development. 

We cover:

• How does one become an Agile Coach, and what will it mean for the organization?
• How do you use Agile as a mindset for change and experiment in your development?
• How to find your purpose and calling?

Key takeaways:

• Being an Agile Coach means you need to be comfortable with being proactive, build mental strength, and constantly experiment with different scenarios.
• The people who flourish in the Agile setup take control over their development: Do you like to work freely in a structured environment? You have a specific role, but the tasks differ depending on the project and team you collaborate with.
• Find out what DRIVES you. People will always tell you what you do and who you should become, but they are not you in the end. Understand what drives you. 

Connect with Signe via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/signe-hjorth-hansen-38279721/ 

Read more about the Agile Principles: https://www.agilealliance.org/agile101/

 Read more about OKRs (Objectives and Key Results): https://www.whatmatters.com/faqs/okr-meaning-definition-example/


Episode Timeline:

02:10 What does it mean to be an Agile Coach? 

03:07 What are the keywords of the Agile setup?

04:50 How did Denmark's largest digital service provider decide to go Agile? 

09:28 How do you define Agile? 

13:15 What is the day-to-day role of an Agile Coach? 

15:24 Why Agile matter?

20:20 How do you use Agile for career development?

23:30 What changed when applying the Agile mindset to your career? 

28:25 Planning your Career Roadmap 

29:20 Finding your Calling / Purpose

32:20 How did you realize what was NOT working for you?

34:45 What advice do you have for young women looking to find their calling? 

38:35 Being Agile means adopting Servant Leadership.

41:13 The story of Women in Tech Denmark

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Growth Marketing | BitPanda  | Growth Machine | Leadership | Product-Led Growth | Well-being | Career | Uber | Revolut | Marketing Executive | Teamwork | Sabbatical 

Irina Scarlat is the Chief Growth Officer at Bitpanda and an Uber & Revolut Alumna. She joins Femme Lead Podcast to discuss her amazing trajectory in the marketing space, how she tackled becoming a global manager, and how she helped build the growth machine that Revolut is known for. Additionally, we explore well-being and balancing career and family life in a real conversation that “you cannot have it all” and how to prioritize your time.

Irina Scarlat is an entrepreneur at heart, product marketer & team builder, with more than 12 years of business experience, 10 of them in tech. She currently leads the growth department for Bitpanda, an Austrian financial services company that allows its users to trade with cryptocurrencies, stocks, and precious metals. 

She previously spent 3 years with Revolut, where she joined as Country Manager for Romania in early 2018 and grew the local market from 20k to almost 1.5M users. She then built Revolut’s growth machine, led the growth teams in CEE and, later on, their Global Growth department, shaping Revolut’s growth journey from 1M to 15M users globally.  

Before joining Bitpanda and Revolut, Irina has been leading the marketing efforts of Uber in Romania, shaping the local strategy, and working on strategic regional projects & initiatives. During her time at Uber, she launched 3 cities, scaled the market to 1M users, and built the marketing team from scratch. 

Irina Scarlat is a global citizen that has been living, studying & working in seven cities across Europe and the United States, she speaks four foreign languages and she’s also the mom of a hyperactive toddler. 

Follow Irina Scarlat on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/irina-nicoleta-scarlat-30a4b28/


Episode Timeline:

02:50 What is growth marketing? 

03:45 What do you see are the trends in growth marketing?

05:20 How will the field of marketing evolve? 

07:50 What is the proudest moment from working to grow Uber’s marketing efforts?

11:15 What is the main learning from the period at Uber?

14:10 Learn to focus on what moves the needle

15:10 What is your advice for prioritizing?  

17:00 Revolut career path: Initial KPIs.

18:10 Reaching hyper-growth through Community-Driven Growth.

20:25 What advice can you share for those who look at global roles?

24:03 What changed dramatically when you took over a global role?

27:00 Challenging situations: Approach & Advice.

29:50 How to manage stressful situations?

32:50 How do career & well-being work together? 

36:33 Did you feel stress about family life & career expectations? 

39:48 How to prioritize time between career & family?

40:55 What was the biggest surprise of your career?

42:10 What do you wish you knew 5 years ago?  

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Advertising | Creativity | Cannes Lions | Creative Industry | Digital Creators | Best Ads | Publicis | Ad World | Creatives |  

In this episode, we discuss advertising and working with the best creatives. Our guest is no other than Sandra Bold, Cannes Lions Jury member and Digital Creative Director at Publicis Milan. Sandra Bold is far from the typical path of working on a traditional career path, having graduated in architecture and deciding to work with ads instead to showcase the talent that lies within her. 

Sandra Bold joins Femme Lead Podcast to discuss her path, challenges, and what does it mean to work in the creative industries. A typical 9 to 5 is not what you'll find here, and Sandra doesn't shy away from mentioning the industry's hardships, from working long hours to striving to be the best at your craft. 

Sandra Bold started her ad career in Bucharest, Romania where she quickly grew from junior to senior positions. During her career, she kept on winning awards to make her parents less pissed off about her dropping architecture. Among the awards, you will find Cannes Lions, Eurobest, One show, Golden drum, and titles like Copywriter of the year (2016), Top 6 creatives to watch (2017), Pitch 100 Superwomen (2018).

Check out Sandra’s website: http://www.sandrabold.com/ 

Follow Sandra on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandra-bold-22080a44/ 

Campaigns mentioned:

‘Bittersweet Pies’ by Paul Romania: https://www.adforum.com/creative-work/ad/player/34526090/bittersweet-pies/paul 

Ads by Heineken: https://www.adsoftheworld.com/taxonomy/brand/heineken 

‘Be a follower’ by Diesel: https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/diesel-campaign-mocks-influencers/

Episode timeline: 

02:28 How does a day look like working in the creative industries?

04:40 How does wellbeing play in the day-to-day life of a creative?

10:20 What is Cannes Lions, and how did you join as a Jury member?

13:40 How is the field of advertising evolving?

17:20 What are some essential points of stakeholder management? 

18:35 How to build confidence?  

21:12 How do you measure the success of work?

22:00 What other business setup should you prepare when presenting?

24:30 What made you decide to join the advertising field?

28:50 Challenging situation and how to approach it? 

31:49 Tackling wellbeing in the creative industries.

34:20 What to consider when changing roles & countries? 

38:15 What do you wish you knew at the beginning of your career?

39:40 Ladies Steps - What is the deal with gender equality?

43:30 What is your favorite ad campaign? 

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Social Entrepreneurship | Social Change | Impact Business | Blue Lobster | Fishing | Disruptors | Business Acumen | Innovation | Digitalisation |

Nima Tisdall is a well-known entrepreneur in Denmark. Together with her co-founder Christine Hebert, they founded Blue Lobster, a platform for sustainable fishermen to sell their catches at a fair price.

In 2020, Nima Tisdall became the European Laureate for the Obama Foundation Leaders' Program, and in 2021 Nima was listed as one of Forbes 30 under 30.

In this episode, we sit down with Nima to discuss her path to entrepreneurship, how Blue Lobster became a profitable business and what challenges the co-founders encountered along the way. We deep dive into building a support system, building confidence, and keep on going even if the journey is not always easy.

At the beginning of 2020, Blue Lobster got a new round of funding and started planning for a B2B model that will serve restaurants with fresh fish. Soon after the pandemic hit, the company started selling to private customers. Within three weeks, the team stopped this plan as it was not playing to the company's strengths, including technological developments.

Blue Lobster's pillars are:

- Low Impact by working directly with fishermen using low impact techniques.

- Fairness by pay the fishermen 2 to 4 times more than what they would usually get.

- Fresh by delivering the freshest seafood on the market directly from the harbor.

Follow Nima Tisdall on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nimatisdall/

Check out Blue Lobster: https://bluelobster.app/

Episode Timeline:

01:38 Nima Tisdall, Obama Foundation European Leader Laureate

03:20 What is Blue Lobster's current setup? 

05:21 What were the challenges of digitalizing the fishing industry? 

07:05 How did you decide to look at the problem Blue Lobster solves? 

08:52 How did you choose to start Blue Lobster?

09:55 What was the feedback Blue Lobster received from the competition? 

13:30 What was the reaction from Blue Lobster to threads? 

16:15 What advice do you have for young women who want to start a business?

20:30 The importance of support systems. 

27:00 The development of Blue Lobster from idea to business. 

32:10 The pivot during 2020.

37:05 What advice do you have when building a team with a co-founder? 

41:18 What is something you wish you knew five years ago? 

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CFO Career Story | Leadership Advice | Top Management | Women in Leadership | Finance Career | Lufthansa | Lead with Impact |

In this episode, we converse with Simone Menne, former CFO of Lufthansa AG and Boehringer Ingelheim. Simone Menne is a member of the supervisory board and non-executive director in various companies including BMW AG, Deutsche Post DHL, Johnson Controls International and runs an art gallery in Kiel.

We discuss with Simone her impressive career, what are her pieces of advice for people looking into top management positions and what does she believe about the new workforce generation. 

Career Path: From 1999 to 2004 Simone Menne was responsible for commercial administration and human resources, initially for the Southwestern Europe region until 2001, and later for Europe as a whole. From 2004 to 2010 Menne was in charge of finance and accounting at Lufthansa Technik. In 2010, Menne switched to the former LH subsidiary British Midland as CFO and accompanied their sale to the International Airlines Group. In 2012, Simone Menne was appointed Chief Financial Officer of Deutsche Lufthansa, becoming the first female CFO of a DAX group (most important German stock index ).

Key points:

📍The importance of quota for women in leadership: The world is diverse in business, customers are diverse. It would help if you had a diverse team to do the right things for a sustainable future for companies and take on different perspectives. 

📍Role Models: Having a career-mom and strong female role models inspires women and will increase their self-esteem. You will continue to build your self-esteem as you grow older, and that will also boost confidence and trust in others. Representation is key. 

📍Career Advice: We touch upon starting up knowing that being ‘bold’ is a decision and becomes a requirement as you progress in your career. 

Follow Simone Menne on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simone-menne/

Check out Simone Menne's website: https://www.simonemenne.de/

Check out Simone's podcast - Die Boss [in German]: https://www.stern.de/wirtschaft/die-boss/


Episode Timeline:

02:30 Simone's Podcast Die Boss and promoting female role models. What is the mission behind Die Boss?

04:55 Why is it important to embrace diversity?

10:05 Who were your mentors? Who influenced your career

12:50 What do you tell women who do not have the confidence to “go for it”?

18:01 Looking back, would you have done anything differently?

21:25 Career path: what do you see as the key accomplishments in your life? 

26:05 What is your advice to graduates?

29:50 Characteristics of younger generations in the workforce.

34:30 Prior to becoming CFO, what were the lessons that helped you reach this milestone in your career?

38:00 Challenges in navigating your career path: How do you advise listeners to navigate difficult situations?

41:05 How do you think the corona-crisis affected the way the traveling industry?

44:12 How do you see the world has changed in the airline industry?

50:00 What do you wish you knew at the beginning of your career? 

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Impact Investing | Venture Fund | Innovation | Healthcare Solutions | Women in Science | Business with Impact | World Impact | 

In this episode, we discuss impact investing: how to change the world through healthcare by creating impact businesses. My guest is Dr. Nina Rawal, the founder of Emerging Health Ventures, in Stockholm, Sweden.  We cover how can we all individually contribute to changing the world for the better, and what are the steps to follow if you are interested in investing in healthcare, as the emerging topic to ensure safety for our society. 

She headed the life science investment team at Industrifonden, a 500 million EUR venture capital fund. Previous experience also includes the role of Vice President, Strategy and Ventures at Gambro AB, and management consulting at Boston Consulting Group in Stockholm and New York. She serves on the boards of a non-profit hospital and health care organization. She holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Neurobiology, and a Masters in Biomedicine, both from the Karolinska Institute, including research work done at Columbia University in New York.

Recognition for her work includes the selection as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and a '40 under 40 - European Young Leader' by Friends of Europe/Europanova.

Follow Dr. Nina Rawal via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nina-rawal-3803a41/

Emerging Health Ventures: http://emheve.com/


Recommendations:

“Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World”, Book by Anand Giridharadas, 2018

“The man in the arena”, Speech by Theodore Roosevelt, 1910

Episode Timeline:

02:45 What is impact investing?

09:38 What can we do to stay up-to-date with what is happening around the world?

14:37 How do you become an impact investor? 

15:45 How do you enter the impact investing space? 

19:40 How do you measure impact?

21:30 How can we know what to look for in emerging markets?

25:00 How do you tackle affordability around the world?

29:00 What is your stance on creating impact with ROI?

33:00 The path to business from life science professional.

37:00 What are some pieces of advice for those who are interested in your career path?

40:00 What are some of the challenges of working in the venture space?

44:30 What do you wish you knew at the beginning of your career? 

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Diversity & Inclusion | Leadership | 100Women @Davos | Women who impact | Representation | Women in Board Positions | Africa Women CEOs Network | 

Today’s episode is about diversity & inclusion in leadership. My guest is the amazing Dr. Anino Emuwa, a powerhouse, founder, international public speaker, and advocate for gender-balanced business leadership. 

She was named one of the top 125 Diversity and Including experts to follow on LinkedIn & she has spoken at prestigious conferences and institutions including Forbes, University of Cambridge, London School of Economics, France’s National Assembly, and TechPark Davos to name a few.

An executive strategist, she works with high-achieving women CEOs and founders and she is a coach and mentor for several global organizations. She is the founder of several communities of women including 100 Women@Davos and the Africa Women CEOs Network.

As the Managing Director of the strategy and financial advisory firm, Avandis Consulting in France contributes to UN SDG5 Target 5.5 on ensuring the equal participation of women in leadership. 

In our interview, we discuss the setup for diversity & inclusion in companies and how can we promote diversity in leadership. Representation is key for innovation, and the latest research papers show us that we still have a long way to go to represent diversity. Dr. Anino Emuwa sits down with us to go through the challenges of bringing more women to leadership, how to tackle diversity & inclusion in organizations, and what steps we can all take to get closer to the goal of having more inclusive leadership teams?

Follow Dr. Anino Emuwa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-anino-emuwa/ 

Follow Dr. Anino Emuwa on Clubhouse @anino 

Learn more about Avandis Consulting: https://avandisconsulting.com/ 

Episode Timeline: 

02:30 What does diversity and inclusion mean? 

04:25 How do you see the field of D&I evolving?

08:40 What do you think about pushing for quotas when there could be more competent people? 

12:00 Who should be responsible for moving the needle in the direction of change? 

15:00 How can we bring together parties who think D&I is a buzzword and it will die out? What is your stance on this?

17:12 What is your role at 100 Women@Davos? 

19:56 How does your day-to-day look like? 

23:23 How do you measure the success of your endeavors? How can we measure D&I impact?

25:50 How should you tackle your promotion in management in real life?

29:50 How does one enter the D&I space? If you are passionate about the subject, how can you get started in impacting the world by following such a mission?

31:50 What are some lessons you learned along the way about career development?

34:50 What are the challenges of building your own consulting practice? 

36:30 What pieces of advice do you follow in your entrepreneurial journey? 

38:30 What are some pieces of advice that want to follow your career path?

41:00 How is the story of joining the D&I space? 

42:40 What do you wish you knew at the beginning of your career? 

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In this episode, we converse with Andreea Potra, President of Girl Up Romania, an organization that aims to help young women & girls by sharing content in a way that adolescents can understand their human rights. We discuss the mission of empowering young women and girls, what can civil society do to support their mission and how can each individual contribute to a more equal world where women & girls are protected and empowered. 

Girl Up Romania is a branch of Girl Up International, a youth organization founded by the United Nations: https://girlup.org/ 

Girl Up Romania published a book called "Oriunde, Oricand, Oricui." (Anywhere, Anytime, Anyone) meant to shed light on sexual harassment issues in Romania & share testimonials of survivals of sexual harassment to discuss this crucially important topic in the Romanian Parliament.


You can order the book below (in Romanian) via Curtea Veche Publishing: https://www.curteaveche.ro/p/oriunde-oricand-oricui-girl-up-romania

You can support Girl Up Romania on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/girlupromania

You can Follow Girl Up Romania on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/girlup.romania/?hl=en 

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Neuroscience | Entrepreneurship | Neuroimaging | Exploration | Innovation | Neuroscience of entrepreneurship | Creativity | Ideas Management | Brain Power |

In this episode, our guest is Emily Clements who is completing a Ph.D. in Neuroimaging,  a collaboration between the Entrepreneurship Institute and Neuroimaging Department at King’s College London, aiming to uncover if there is something different in the brain of those who think entrepreneurial.  

The questions she will address with her research are (1) How do entrepreneurs' cognition (thinking) differ from non-entrepreneurs? (2) Do these differences in cognition correlate with the individual’s experience and differences in brain structure/function? (3) Can interventions develop this cognition? 

Aiming to uncover these findings, Emily shares valuable input on what makes an entrepreneur, what happens in the brain when we decide to take risks, and whether we see the path of entrepreneurship as specific to a certain type of person, with similar traits?
 
Findings from Emily’s research point out that entrepreneurship is more about mitigating risks rather than taking risks. 

Key takeaway:

"Develop self-awareness of who you are, how you think. Know your limits on what you can do. You have many strengths, but it is also important to recognize your limits. Often, people do not spend time thinking about who they are, considering their strengths & weaknesses. 

From a neuroscience perspective, for everyone, you can be a lot more successful in your career if you start to recognize who you are and how you think. It doesn’t mean you cannot develop other skills, but this is a more personalized approach to what is needed: what is success to you? "

You can follow Emily Clements on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-clements-852285125/

Check out Emily's community on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frontalthoughts/


Episode Timeline:

01:24 What is neuroscience? 

02:30 The research of neuroscience of entrepreneurship.

03:30 What are some clear findings from the research on entrepreneurship & neuroscience?

06:50 Entrepreneurial mind & teamwork: opinion.

09:40 Decision making & entrepreneurship: opinion.

10:50 Is there a difference between men & women when it comes to taking risks?

15:00 How should we tackle the focus on gender differences in sharing data? 

18:25 What would you advise people who are afraid to start their businesses?

21:55 What are the stages of decision-making? 

24:58 Does it take 21 days to break a habit?

26:20 How important is rest for the wellbeing of our brain?

28:50 Entrepreneurship & well-being: findings. 

33:40 What is the main finding of the research on the neuroscience of entrepreneurship?

37:00 How did you decide to start a career in neuroimaging? 

40:18 What is the best piece of advice received in your professional journey?

41:30 What is the most rewarding activity of being a neuroscientist?

43:00 What is your stance on bringing more women into STEM fields?