The importance of having fun with Carmen Alfonso Rico
Make Space for Growth Podcast
You can feel the energy in the voice or the video. It is contagious. A breath of fresh air in a world that is almost afraid of joy. That is how I felt coming out of recording the new season of the podcast with Carmen Alfonso Rico. It is not every day that you meet someone who is unapologetic about having fun and enjoying what she is doing. Kicking off with politics Carmen wanted to be the US Secretary of State when she was a little girl. Note she was not a US national or living in the US, but that did not seem to stop her. Serendipity determined she would start her career in...
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Listening to Yourself with Samreen Ghani
Make Space for Growth Podcast
Before the summer break, I reconnected with old colleague Samreen Ghani to talk about her journey and her role as President of Moonbug Studios. It had been a long time since our M&A times together! And we end up finding ourselves in a similar life reflection on "how you measure your life"! The Early Days Samreen did not follow the expected path. Her earliest memory from childhood was spelling the word "doctor", which was exciting for her parents as she grew up. In Pakistan, her expected paths would have been doctor, engineer, lawyer or banker if she wanted to define herself...
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Believing in Serendipity with Rita Vilas-Boas
Make Space for Growth Podcast
Rita Vilas Boas first connected with me on Linkedin. After a lot of online engagement, we finally met in person last year to find out we shared . When she was a little girl, Rita wanted to dismantle things and figure out how things worked, but deep down, she wanted to be part of Fame, and dance on a Taxi roof in the streets of New York. Can you picture it? Different lives Rita studied biotechnology but soon found out about marketing, where she started her career. She threw herself into it and got a job at Loreal. For 20 years, she was a marketer in multinationals and large family...
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Finding your happiness with Sabine Tejerina
Make Space for Growth Podcast
When she was a little girl, Sabine wanted to be a businesswoman. In the middle of the pandemic, faced with economic distress in parts of the world and her day job helping large companies restructure and prepare for the economic downfall of Covid, she went on a life change. She became an entrepreneur and has since then been living the rollercoaster of start-up life. "It's not always the big decisions that impact your life", Clay Christensen Share ownership as a goal The idea for Upstreet started with a focus on rewarding customers for loyalty through company shares. Research shows that...
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A life dedicated to purpose with Daniela Barone Soares
Make Space for Growth Podcast
It is unusual to find someone who wanted to be something as a child that they are today. Daniela started volunteering at age 12 and she always knew her life would be dedicated to making the problems of the world better. These experiences increased her resolve to do something about it, even if she did not know how. A glide path "When you look back, it all seems to make sense" Daniela However, it was not so rational at the time. As Daniela was working in Private Equity, she realized her skillset was truly invaluable in the social sector and realized she could start making a difference in this...
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A life dedicated to purpose with Daniela Barone Soares
Make Space for Growth Podcast
It is unusual to find someone who wanted to be something as a child that they are today. Daniela started volunteering at age 12 and she always knew her life would be dedicated to making the problems of the world better. These experiences increased her resolve to do something about it, even if she did not know how. A glide path "When you look back, it all seems to make sense" Daniela However, it was not so rational at the time. As Daniela was working in Private Equity, she realized her skillset was truly invaluable in the social sector and realized she could start making a difference in this...
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Never waste a good crisis with Inês Santos Silva
Make Space for Growth Podcast
With a love for learning since early age, I have a feeling Inês will be learning for many years to come. She is passionate about innovation, and is not scared about solving a challenge. You just have to look at her resume to see this. I lost count of the number of roles and ventures in her profile. A fast-starter Ines assessed start-ups needed support way before it was cool to talk about accelerator programs. So she designed one. And expanded it to multiple cities. She determined there was a need for social ventures long before social impact was a concept. So she dedicated her efforts...
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Never waste a good crisis with Ines Santos Silva
Make Space for Growth Podcast
With a love for learning since early age, I have a feeling Inês will be learning for many years to come. She is passionate about innovation, and is not scared about solving a challenge. You just have to look at her resume to see this. I lost count of the number of roles and ventures in her profile. A fast-starter Ines assessed start-ups needed support way before it was cool to talk about accelerator programs. So she designed one. And expanded it to multiple cities. She determined there was a need for social ventures long before social impact was a concept. So she dedicated her efforts...
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Creating Space - Launching Season 3
Make Space for Growth Podcast
Today, I am bringing you the launch of Season 3 - Creating Space. In order to tell you more about the upcoming season, I feel I need to go back in time and explain my concept of word of the year. Because Space is my word of the year. For the last 3 years, I have been defining myself a word of the year. Why a word of the year? I already have goals, values, and even a vision board. I found a word goes beyond and through all that. A word gives me a true north. Believe In 2020, my word of the year was . And that belief helped me hold it together - do you remember the year of Covid? I acted...
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A Journey back through the Season
Make Space for Growth Podcast
For the Season Finale, I went around the world and down into my memory to pick the highlights of this season. What I learnt, what I discovered, what I was impressed about. There is no bittersweet taste in getting to the end of a season. In fact, it is exciting to look back and remember all the amazing women that crossed my path. After the hard to forget year of 2020, my goal was to bring to light in 2021, the stories of what are now almost 2 years of this pandemic, but more importantly, how each of us is looking to lift ourselves up, look forward and face life stronger and together. As for...
info_outlineI finally made it to Brazil for Episode 9 of the podcast. In my journey around the world to bring to life stories of brilliant women CEOs, I have been now to 4 continents. I don't expect to stop here. Coming from the farm to the big city to be a businesswoman was her childhood plan, and Adriana has certainly executed on it. She is now on her third entrepreneurial venture. Adriana is the CEO and founder of VAIPE, a company supporting companies' relationships with their employees through data. In a time where the future of work is today, understanding and connecting with your employees has never been so important and VAIPE was there to support them. Adriana and VAIPE embrace change.
No more offices
Adriana was "lucky" to have a few health companies in her customer portfolio. As such, she got early wind of what was about to come. Her customers told her not to expect to be back on-premises for at least a year. Not wanting to leave an empty office for that long, Adriana decided to shut down the offices and move everyone to permanently work from home. The team already had several best practices in terms of remote working, as it was not unusual for either of the 12 members of the team to take days to work from home. As such, the adaptation was smooth and it provided the company with a much-needed cash relief on their rent.
"Only 8% of employees want to have the same schedule as they did pre-Covid19"
Survey Results
Quarentena VAIPE
When the early signs of shut down hit, VAIPE's business was materially affected. This was more marked with customers in the mobility and retail space that were really struggling. While renegotiating contracts and avoiding cancellations, VAIPE also went on the offensive. They took the bold step to launch an initiative to support their customers and non-customers through this time. Through data gathering and networking groups, they were there for their customers when every HR manager was trying to figure out what do to. What did they create?
- The first thing to understand was how the employees perceived the company's response to Covid-19;
- They gathered data on how people were managing work from home and their levels of productivity;
- Thirdly, one of my favourites, they had weekly surveys to measure mental health, with a focus on anxiety and stress. They could go as far as point the teams or groups of employees that were struggling the most.
Oh, and did I mention they did this for free?
A pool of opportunity
As of September, Adriana was happy to report she was just about hitting her targets from the beginning of the year. Whilst the revenue was markedly down in the first month, the company adapted to develop additional products and ways to support their customers while maintaining employee engagement. A culture of bootstrapping and smart contract renegotiations prevented VAIPE from doing any lay-offs.
In fact, looking forward, Adriana sees a huge opportunity in bringing into her company truly the best talent available. For the first time since she started the company, she started hiring irrespective of location and has already hired the first person outside S. Paulo.
Creating change
Personally, Adriana used this time to her advantage. As she ate most often at home she could avoid the usual office take-out and establish healthier eating habits. Without the need to commute every day she started sleeping more. She also had a daily exercise routine, as, she claims, she is "not a nice person" if she does not exercise.
A key step in this healthier lifestyle was to quit smoking. Adriana is in her final stage of this process and happy that she has engaged in this tough change from heavy smoker to non-smoker.
And finally, as a believer in a life of lifetime learning, she also enrolled herself in data science classes. I am not sure I know many people that have engaged in so much change and personal growth through these times!
Everything is going to be ok
Looking back, the company performed well, stayed close to customers and is financially stable. If there is one thing Adriana wished she had done differently would be to be less anxious about the whole outcome.
Adriana's Lockdown List
- Book: How to take smart notes
- Sport: Running
- Technology: Whereby, Hangouts, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp Video, any video app!
- Lesson: I don't need a lot to live
- Word: Best time of my life
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