What do you do and what is it about your job that gets you out of bed in the morning?
I'm Head of People, Operations and Talent at Primer. At Primer, we have a huge vision, an incredibly ambitious team, and within POPS, we have an exciting opportunity to redefine what the working experience looks like and build a company completely in our own vision. The scale of this opportunity, our inspiring team and the fact that we are doing something so game-changing in payments is what gets me out of bed every morning.
How did you get to where you are today?
It's certainly not been straightforward, and I never would've imagined I'd be where I am today. My career has quite literally been a jungle gym, exposing me to all different people, functions, work and opportunities all over the world. However, I've always had a thread of service in everything that I did - I love working with super smart, ambitious people and supporting them in their journey. I've felt that I was best placed to facilitate other people's success - for me, the most fulfilling thing I could do is help others to learn and grow, and realise their full potential.
What is the most important lesson you have learned along the way?
You need to learn how to think fast and slow - when to be efficient and move quickly, and when to step back, place more weight on a situation and take more time to make decisions.
What's your pitch to CEOs in the identity space? What do you suggest they START /
STOP / CONTINUE doing and why?
For me, I would never predicate anything on things that are not in my control - my gender, race, background, etc. These are all constants - for me, it's important to realise in what instances you do have control in your life, work, etc. Then the question becomes - what are you going to do about it? How far are you willing to go to make things happen. Everyone, no matter background, race, gender, etc will have challenges, advantages and disadvantages. For me, success lies in what you do despite the challenges everyone will inevitably face. Success isn't something that comes easy and struggling is a very natural part of the process.
In one sentence, why does diversity matter to you?
I'm in the business of people and organisation building, so the more diverse the team, the better! Diversity matters because it means that you can leverage and benefit from the dynamic perspective of a broad spectrum of people - this makes life and business so much more interesting.
What book/film/piece of art would you recommend to your fellow members? Why?
Powerful, Patty McCord - it offers an approach to team and company building that is very aligned with ours at Primer. Read if you want to learn about how to develop a hyper pragmatic and efficient mindset that really serves your people and sets you up for long term succes.
Vital Lies and simple truths, Daniel Goleman - Helps us to identify the numerous ways we deceive ourselves on a regular basis. This is important particularly when you're running an organisation - peoples actions and views of the world are so often based on incorrect input and therefore our perception of reality is skewed, which prevents us from a. really knowing and improving ourselves and b. experiencing the beauty of life.
Thinking fast and slow, Daniel Kahneman - Helps to assess our thoughts and decision making processes. This has been instrumental for me in understanding how I think, react, and act.
Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - as humans we suffer from our inability to learn from past events. We so often forget very recent and violent history, which leaves us in a dangerous position to repeat it. For me, its always a good idea to re-visit every so often so that we do in fact remember and do everything within our power not to repeat.
What advice would you give to the teenage 'you'?
If you put all your effort into working hard and making good decisions - the score/outcome will take care of itself. And be patient - we overestimate what we can do in a day, and underestimate what we can do in a week.
Where can we find you on social media / the Web?
Find me on LinkedIn