The Penta Podcast Channel

Mentorship moments for International Women's Month

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In celebration of International Women's Month and support of Penta's global DE&I efforts, join Senior Associate Lizzie Johnson as she speaks with Penta Managing Directors Ylan Mui from D.C., Louise Ford from London, and Deborah Giam from Singapore about their career experiences and advice for young women in the workforce.

The group discusses how companies can support women (and all of their employees) to build a stronger workforce with opportunities including mentorship, flexibility, and paid leave for caregiving. Deborah, Ylan, and Louise also share stories about impactful mentors they've worked with over the years, and provide tips for authentic and professional networking.

Tune in to hear more from some of Penta's wonderful female leaders.



Speaker 1:

Welcome to this week's episode of what's at State. I'm your host, Lizzie Johnson, a senior associate from Penta's DC office. This week's episode is a special one In honor of International Women's Month. We have a truly international episode featuring three of my awesome colleagues from around the globe. Featuring three of my awesome colleagues from around the globe, Joining the conversation is Deborah Guillaume, a managing director out of our Singapore office, Louise Ford, a deputy managing director out of our London office, and Ilan Moy, a managing director out of our DC office. Today I am thrilled to chat with them about the career experiences that they have had thus far and the advice that they have for young professionals like myself. Welcome to the show, Debra, Louise and Ilan. Hi, so glad to be here. Hi, everybody, so glad to have you guys. So I'd love to start off by asking each of you about your career experiences thus far. And, Ilan, I'll go to you first. Can you describe your career so far and how you ended up at Penta?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's been a super sort of topsy-turvy and not a very straight line to Penta, but I'm so glad that I'm here now. I started off my career as a reporter and I spent most of my career actually doing that. I was someone who, from a very young age, knew what I wanted to do. When I was in high school, I did a summer program at my local newspaper in New Orleans. It was called the Times Picayune, and that just really gave me the bug. Starting in college, I was working at the paper, I was working at my college newspaper, and that eventually led to internships at newspapers across the country, including at the Washington Post.

Speaker 2:

When I got to the Washington Post, I absolutely loved it. I loved living in DC. I love the excitement of being a reporter, and one thing I also really enjoyed was that as a reporter even at a place like the Post you got to do a lot. From the very beginning they just sort of threw you in and said think or swim, figure it out, go report on these stories, and so you had a lot of opportunity to really be entrepreneurial and a lot of opportunity to showcase what you can do even at the beginning of your career. So I ended up staying at the Washington Post for 15 years and spent the majority of my time there covering business and economics and finance.

Speaker 2:

I was there for the great financial crisis in 2008, when the world felt like it was going to implode.

Speaker 2:

Little did we know that another financial crisis was going to be coming down the road.

Speaker 2:

Eventually, though, there's always another crisis around the corner, I guess, but it was a really formative time for me and I really enjoyed my time as a print reporter, but eventually I started doing more and more television, and that's how I ended up at CNBC, where I was an on-air correspondent for about six years, and I learned a lot there as well, and it was a super intense lifestyle. I was there during the Trump administration, reporting on everything from tax reform to tariffs, to January 6th our country and it was amazing and exhausting to have a front row seat to that. So I decided, once that period of time was over, that I needed to change, and I had always admired the work that the folks at Penta had done. I'd known a lot of people who had worked at Penta over the years, and so it felt like a natural place to come to when I was ready to make that transition to the other side of the table. So that's how I ended up here, and I'm so glad that I get to work with folks like you, lizzie.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we're so glad that you you ended up here. Deborah, what about you? Can you tell us about your career so far?

Speaker 3:

My career is very wide and very varied, a little bit like Elaine. I started off as a journalist, mostly in women's magazines, so feature articles and things like that. I moved on to doing a lot of digital work. At that time there were a lot of magazines, there were a lot of publications who were setting up their own websites, so I actually spearheaded quite a number of websites during that time, doing the content strategy and things like that, Then moved into several different other content roles. I did a little bit of content marketing over at Yahoo and then, you know, set up another website with Singtel Digital Media, which unfortunately no longer exists. Actually, a lot of the websites I set up no longer exist, but then it was very interesting times. I also have done a couple of in-house roles as well. So I've done communications in-house for an agriculture company, for a pharmaceutical company and for a hospitality company and along the way also pulled some stints at some public relations agencies. And now here I am at Penta.

Speaker 1:

That is quite a varied career and I'm so excited to ask more about it throughout this conversation. Louise, can you tell us a little bit about what your experience has been like?

Speaker 4:

So I think this is a bit of a theme here, but I would also say mine has not been a very straightforward route to this Slightly different reasons, I think. So I started off working in media insight, intelligence and research that sort of thing, but as an analyst, and then worked in London, worked in Chicago and kind of media research, and then we had our oldest son and everything kind of changed a little bit. We were keen to have one of us at home um, not necessarily full-time parent, as they say, but, uh, you know someone around we, child care fees, all of those things are problematic. So the next 15 years after that, I was self-employed and kind of pretty much fit my work around the kids so weekends, late nights set up a couple of small, very small businesses in kind of varying fields and then also kept my hand in with a little bit of freelance analysis as well and then probably I think it was back in 2017 started doing some freelance analysis work for what was then Alva. But again, at that point I pretty much assumed that, like my time in the corporate world was kind of done.

Speaker 4:

You know I'd been self-employed for 15 years. I couldn't really see how as much as I had those kind of transferable skills. I kind of thought I knew women who had come back into the workplace having had a long time out and were lost. And I was not like lost in the sense of I was savvy with what was being done, I had client relationships, I had people who were working for me, kind of on a small scale, but I know this is difficult to get back into. And then kind of Covid happened and the businesses that I did run were not feasible in that time. They kind of started to to fold a bit and I got more work on the analyst front and then after Covid, suddenly remote working was a possibility and things changed and I was came back on as a full-time employee and then I think was very lucky to have a boss who kind of spotted sort of skills I had, experience I had that maybe were not the traditional route into, you know, a more senior position, but he could recognize that they were valuable. So then kind of moved from being an analyst into more of a management position to where I am now.

Speaker 4:

And it's been a really kind of surprising journey because, as I say, if you asked me five years ago I would not have thought that I would step foot in an office again. Really I was very much, you know, work from the sofa, working on a Sunday night, that sort of thing, but I love it. You know this is giving me an opportunity I think I hadn't realized I needed and wanted and all of those things. You know, we're still able to come to the office some of the time. We come to the office some of the time we're at home some of the time. So our kids are now that bit older, so it's not so much of a problem there.

Speaker 4:

But I think it's a slightly different journey and one that occasionally gives me that little bit of imposter syndrome and I think I don't necessarily have the robust and necessarily straightforward, obviously relevant experience that everyone else has, but it's. It really makes me see the value of where I am now and having people within a business who understand that your skills are not necessarily what's on paper you know. So yeah, so that's my way.

Speaker 1:

Well, you have no idea, or maybe you can remember, but what it feels like to be in my perspective you know closer to the beginning of my career, it's incredibly comforting and cool to hear about how varied your career paths all can be and you ended up in such a cool place at Penta. So thanks for sharing that everyone. One thing that we talk a lot about at Penta is the importance of a company's stakeholders. One thing that we talk a lot about at Penta is the importance of a company's stakeholders. So I'm curious about what your careers have taught you about the importance of stakeholders before arriving at Penta.

Speaker 3:

I think it's quite an interesting question because, if you think about it, even as a child, you have stakeholders to deal with.

Speaker 3:

That's your parents, your teachers, your siblings, your friends, and the amount of importance each one takes just changes a little bit as you get older, and that's obviously before you start work, and then you realize, ok, actually there are a lot of different people that you need to manage at any given time, and I think that's one of the things that you realize quite quickly when you're working, because there are people that you need to update and inform and there are people who obviously you would need to report to um. So it is part and parcel of working really, um, some of the, the previous jobs that I've had, uh, internal communications was actually a very big part of that, and so I've got two really big stakeholders that I've got the, the, the leaders, who obviously have a message that they want to get out, and we have to make sure that's aligned so that all the internal employees are on the same page and everyone gets the same message. So I think, if you just look at it, you've got different types of stakeholders in your life all across the board.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I agree with you, Deborah. I think that it's. I didn't. Well, I'll say I didn't think of it this way before I came to Penta, but it is such a useful framework in order to sort of analyze the relationships we have and how we manage them.

Speaker 2:

So, before I came to Penta, I frequently dealt with multiple stakeholders, external stakeholders, who are the sources and the people that I'm reporting on. Right, it wouldn't just be the principal or whoever's making the news. It's trying to make sure you hear perspective from all sides so that you understand, maybe the challenges of a proposal or a policy, maybe the possibilities of that proposal or policy, making sure that your story reflects the varied viewpoints, because one thing that we've had to guard against here in the US is making sure that we're not just in a silo and we're not just thinking about things in one way. We're really reflecting all the perspectives that are possible. So those are the external stakeholders, right, but there are also the internal stakeholders that I have to work with.

Speaker 2:

So, as a television reporter, in particular, it's all about teamwork. Right, I'm the person who's standing in front of the camera, but there's somebody who's standing behind that camera, right, making sure that I look my best. There's my producer, who's standing off to the side, who is, you know, reporting with me, helping to coordinate with transmission, helping me every single step of the way. She was really my ride or die. And then there's the folks you don't even see, who were in the control room, who were calling up my graphics, who were calling up the chyrons, who were making sure I stayed at time. There's a whole team effort involved in getting somebody on air, and being able to work with those people, being able to build relationships with them, is all extremely important to making sure that what you see is completely seamless and smooth.

Speaker 2:

So I would say that, you know, I didn't realize it, but I was working with a lot of external and internal stakeholders before I came to Penta and now at Penta, you know, I think that the company really spends a lot of time thinking about our employees. How can we support them and the importance of your workers as a key, one of the four corners, one of the key pillars of our stakeholder community? So, lizzie, I kind of want to turn it back to you and ask you you know, what are ways that Penta has supported you and what are some ways that you see that Penta can support women overall. Things we're doing and things we're not doing yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

I think I have been so thrilled by how my different mentors and managers and teachers at Penta have one given me opportunities to do cool things like host this podcast or lead a lunch with clients and folks that they've invited to come have a discussion or lead a training, and it's really endless, and so early in my career, those opportunities are wonderful. I think Penta also has a great culture of you know standing up for your mentors and your mentees when they're not in the room, which is really wonderful, and making sure that folks have access to opportunities. Another thing that we do really well, I think, is helping young people figure out what they might want to do with their career. So, you know, stakeholder solutions is really cool and the work we do is great, but it's probably not going to be for every single person who tries it and because of the super cool experiences that our different leaders have. You know there's so much to learn just from having coffees and conversations and speaking with folks about what they've been up to throughout their career, and people have been so incredibly generous with their time with introducing me and my peers to other people who might teach us things, and so that's been incredibly, incredibly helpful.

Speaker 1:

I think, like something that we're working on and getting better at is making sure that women and people in general are able to have a schedule that works for the other things going on in their life. You know whether it's children or others that you're taking care of, or you know a certain volunteering or an appointment, or you know whatever it is. I think that's been made so much easier with the digital world as well, and we'll work from home setups, but I think continuing to come from a place of empathy is something that we can keep working on and will help us to be an even better and even stronger company going forward. I'd be curious to hear from you all, too a little bit further into your career than I am, how you feel like your different companies and organizations have made you feel supported in the workplace.

Speaker 4:

So I think it comes down to that flexibility and I think often some of the companies sort of have their hands forced a little bit by, you know, a global pandemic, which sort of shifted working attitudes. But it's about opening up that space for, in my example earlier on, families, for families to be not necessarily taking those traditional roles. It's about giving women the opportunity to work in a different way so they can still raise family if they want to, and this kind of concept of having it all, which I think is a little bit of a you know, no one can, but you can maybe have what's right for you at that time. And that's an important thing I think to focus on. But it's not just about women. It's also about giving those opportunities for men to be at home more, which shifts some of the mindsets around those traditional roles.

Speaker 4:

And I think I've been lucky from being in that position of starting off as a freelance role anyway, which was remote, but then to be kind of allowed back into the workplace is maybe the wrong way of putting it. But suddenly having that opportunity to and I appreciate obviously now there's that kind of there's a lot of discussion around returning to the office and how important it is and it absolutely is, especially for people in the earlier stage of their career. But to be constantly kind of addressing attitudes and what's necessary to keep the best people in the right place, I think is something that's really important for companies to do.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, louise, I feel very passionately about the importance of two things One is flexibility, and the second is paid leave. When we talk about flexibility, first, when COVID hit, the number of women who were in the labor force dropped dramatically in the US, and we know that there is a direct correlation between that and the fact that our child care as well as our work systems completely crumbled during COVID. And women were the ones on the front lines at home, dealing with Zoom school, dealing with the mental and social challenges that their children were facing, dealing with just the logistics of how do we make this all happen, right, and so women were taking on that extra burden at home, and so many of them realized my time is limited, I can't do all of this at home and do what I was doing before at my work. And so so many women left the labor force.

Speaker 2:

Post-covid, what we've seen is that workplaces have been forced, as you said, louise, to become more flexible.

Speaker 2:

They saw the challenges that families were facing firsthand, and so they've adopted their policies to the point where now there's emerging research that shows that one of the reasons that women have not only regained their status in the labor force but actually surpassed the labor force participation that they had pre-COVID or during the COVID years is because of that flexibility, because of the ability to work remotely, work from home, work three days a week in the office, work four days, work one day right.

Speaker 2:

So companies are adapting and realizing that providing that flexibility not only helps them retain and attract more female employees, but creates a better environment for all of their employees, including maybe dads or others who want to lean in at home. The second point that's related to that is the importance of paid leave for caregiving, and paid leave that is not just for a mother or a woman, but a paid leave that's also for a father or a man, so that there is equal incentive for both partners to be able to take on that primary caregiving role, whether it's for a child or for someone who is elderly or someone who just needs your attention. If it's just directed at the woman, that creates an incentive for the woman to step back and they lose that valuable time in the workplace and, honestly, men lose valuable time at home with the people who need them. So I think that flexibility and paid leave for both parties, both genders, is incredibly important to creating a more equitable workplace.

Speaker 3:

I don't have anything to add on top of that. I think both Yolande and Louise made perfectly great points with that and I'm nodding my head along and yeah, absolutely, I think whatever both of you said, it's just it has really changed, I think, the way women have come back into the workforce.

Speaker 1:

On that note, I'd love to take a quick break and when we come back we're going to talk about why female mentorship is so important. I'm Lizzie Johnson here with Debra, Ilan and Louise, and you're listening to what's at State.

Speaker 5:

Penta is the world's first comprehensive stakeholder solutions firm. We are a one-stop shop for the intelligence and strategy leaders need to assess a company's reputation and make decisions that improve their positioning as executives in the C-suite must account for a growing set of engaged stakeholders, all with distinct, fast-changing demands. Penta provides real-time intelligence and strategy solutions. We work with clients solving complex global challenges across a variety of industries. Our clients span technology, financial services, energy, healthcare and more. To learn more about how Penta can support your company, check out our website at pentagroupco, our Twitter at PentaGRP or find us on LinkedIn at Penta Group.

Speaker 1:

I'm Lizzie Johnson, senior Associate here at Penta, and you're listening to what's at State. Today I'm here with Debra, ilan and Louise in honor of International Women's Month. We're talking about why female mentorship is so important to women advancing in their career. I want to ask each of you but Louise, I'll start with you, who is a female mentor that you've had that really stuck out to you.

Speaker 4:

So I had to think of this. Obviously, having been self-employed for a long time, it was a different kind of thing. But I think back to much earlier in my career, when I was working in Chicago. There was my manager. There was a woman called Heidi Sullivan who was amazing, and actually when I was talking to a colleague who'd also worked with her about kind of mentioning Heidi on this, he said to me I think all you need to just say is that she's a legend, and that's true. She was someone who was just known for being fantastic. She demonstrated excellence all the time. She was funny, she was engaging, she showed empathy, she kind of.

Speaker 4:

This is a huge generalisation, but I think there used to be this kind of idea that for women to succeed in the workplace they had to become tougher, more hard nosed and, you know, match up with these sort of stereotypes of what male leaders were like. And I worked with a few of those people, certainly, and Heidi was just. She was not like that. She was tough and she was strong and she was all the things you needed to be to be a leader. But she was also. She was. There was no heartlessness about her. She was warm, engaging, everything and she made people feel valued. She understood everyone who worked for her. She understood their strengths, what they needed to improve on.

Speaker 4:

She was someone who she was always about change, about improvement, and she really shook up the part of the business that I worked in that was quite old fashioned at that point, stuck in old ways of doing things. We were still referring to kind of websites and online blogs and online kind of media as new media, which kind of dates it somehow, and people just didn't. Some people who were working there didn't have that attitude of why we needed to shift. It was was we've been doing this for decades and decades and decades.

Speaker 4:

We know what we're doing and Heidi was someone who said, yeah, but there's opportunity to do more, there's opportunity to do it better, and it's something that has stuck with me throughout. That is like, yeah, you might be doing it brilliantly, but can you make it even better than that? Can you change it? So she's someone who I later, with time, considered to be a good friend and still follow. Now you know I mean 20 years on from having last worked with her nearly and I'm really pleased to see she's now someone who is absolutely respected in her field has gone on to do brilliant things. But yeah, for me that's, that's someone who will always stick in my mind.

Speaker 1:

She seems amazing. I want to meet her. What about you?

Speaker 2:

Ilan. Well, she doesn't know, I'm going to call her out, but I would say that Cecilia Kong is probably one of the most important female mentors I've had in my career. Cecilia was a reporter with me at the Washington Post and now she's a technology reporter at the New York Times, and she was someone who was sort of one step ahead of me in terms of where she was at in her career and where she was at in her personal and family life. So her kids are going off to college now and mine are in elementary school. But I was able to watch her and to see how she juggled things, how she lived her life, and realize, okay, this is doable. It's not pretty, it's messy, but you can make it happen and you can make it work. And I used to call her my mommy mensch because I was sort of struggling and not sure what to do and in a sort of a tough place. I knew that I could always turn to Cecilia and she would give me great advice and have my back and just kind of give me that support that I needed in order to keep going, make me realize that it would be okay and I would figure it out.

Speaker 2:

She also, very informally but sort of encapsulated that idea of why mentorship is so important. Because we had a sort of group of women at the post who would have lunch together and just kind of talk about our jobs and our work and Cecilia would say, okay, so we're going to be each other's cheerleaders, like we're going to tell everybody else in the organization at the newspaper that, like how great the other person is right, we're going to work together to do this. And it wasn't that systematic, but we knew that if there was an opportunity, someone else was going to tell the world about how great we are. We didn't have to do it all ourselves. There was going to be someone else in our circle of trust who could do that for us, and I think that was incredibly important in building that network and building names for ourselves inside the organization as well. Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

And I think it's so clear. You know once you get into the professional world how there's really a space for everyone. It doesn't have to be a competition. It's so much going to work so much better when you work together and stand up for each other and work as a team. So I love to hear it called out so explicitly like that Debra, do you have a favorite mentor you'd like to share about?

Speaker 3:

So mine is actually a friend who I've never worked with. She's just somebody. We've had very similar experiences. You know our life situations are also quite similar. She's in a C-suite position.

Speaker 3:

So we talk about work, we talk about how we deal with things and I think what's very important is that we both provide each other with a very safe space. So there's no judgment, you know, there's no emotion that we put into it. It's like, hey, I'm going through this thing. Sometimes it's like am I overreacting? She'll be like no, you know, we just have to look at the facts that way, or she'll come to me and she'll be like I'm really upset about this. You know what's going on. How should I be looking at this? So it's just us providing that space for each other to be able to talk through whatever it is that you've got on your mind and you're not worried about someone looking at you going, what do you mean? She can't cope with this. This just seems a bit off, and I think that's quite valuable also to just find somebody who you can really have that chat with. And you know that, whatever it is and whatever decision you make, in the end they've got your back and they'll support you as well.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. Your agents have already touched on this a lot, but curious if you have any other thoughts on why this mentorship, especially from females, is so important for people that are starting off and young in their careers.

Speaker 3:

I actually threw this question to my team because I've got some quite young women on my team and I said, hey, tell me, what is it? How is it different to have a woman as a leader rather than as a man? And? And so they said, a lot of the catch ups that we have and the one on ones that we have feel like little mentorship, many mentorship meetings, and in a sense, because I've I'm further along in my career any doubts or, you know, any uncertainties they have, they can ask me about it and they feel like, okay, you know she gets it because she's obviously been through it.

Speaker 3:

And it's something that maybe male bosses don't quite get. It's not not by any fault of theirs, it's just something that, as a woman, I would be able to understand a little bit better. And another one said you know, seeing a woman in a position of authority is a really, really powerful example of diversity and representation. You know, seeing somebody who is there and it makes them feel like, okay, you know what they can get there too. I just need to know that. You know seeing somebody who is there and it makes them feel like, ok, you know what they can get there too.

Speaker 4:

I just need to know that you know it can happen and I will have a path and it will be leading to somewhere that will take me great places. Yeah, I really agree mostly with that. I agree with everything you said, but the second part really kind of struck a chord with me. So I'm a governor at a local school as well and last year went on a course that was to do with diversity, you know, inclusion, and there was something they talked about that really resonated with me it's just something I hadn't thought about which was to do with visibility, representation, as you're saying, how important it is, and the concept here was they were saying if you're saying to children from a background that is not typically represented in that career, you can be anything you want, but yet you have no people in that role.

Speaker 4:

What they look at when they're thinking very, you know a very simple term. They look at that and they say, well, you're saying that, but it's not true, is it? It's not happening. So, as much as anything else, I think for for women earlier in their career, who obviously there are challenges for everyone, and I think mentorship is important for anyone in their career, but I think women do still face challenges in the workplace, um, that maybe men don't, and there are still barriers that exist, things that struggles that are often specific to women, and that having women in leadership positions, women who are mentors, who can say here I am as much as anything else, it's just recognition, it's visibility, it's that could be me, as you say, and it's, I think, probably the best way of showing that a company is truly diverse is to demonstrate it, and that's the best lesson you can be giving to young people is we do what we say.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I absolutely love that. So, thinking about as I move forward in my career and think about maybe next steps or how to keep growing, I would be really curious for your guys' thoughts on how to network in a way that comes across as really professional but also authentic and, you know, making sure that I'm really showing who I am as a professional and as a person.

Speaker 2:

I think a couple of things, lizzie. I think that it's. I think that people want to help each other. I was actually just talking to a friend of mine who is going through a career change, who was nervous about reaching out to her network to ask for help, and I said that's what we're here for, right. We're here to help you. We're friends, but we're also coworkers, we're also colleagues and we want to see you succeed. So I think that one you'll be surprised by the number of people who understand the purpose of a networking meeting and actually want to lean into that and want to support you.

Speaker 2:

The other thing I would say is that when folks are being asked about their own life experiences and being asked to reflect on as you're doing with us right now, reflect on their careers, I think there's a natural. I think people want to do that right. When you invited us to join this podcast, obviously we said yes, not only because we want to support you, we want to support the mission of International Women's Day and International Women's Month, but also because it's a chance for us to kind of think back and reflect and understand how far we've come as well. So I think that I start from the presumption of that. Folks actually do want to help and be supportive and if you ask, they'll be surprised what you receive. I think a part of that. Folks actually do want to help and be supportive and if you ask they'll be surprised what you receive.

Speaker 3:

I think a part of that is also just having a natural curiosity. Like I've never sat down and talked to Elan and I've had little conversations with Louise, but they're always about work. You know, and hearing both your stories, I have a ton of questions I would love to ask the both of you as well. So I think it's really trying to just ask people about their experiences and, like Elan says, people are more than happy to help. So it's really understanding what each person can bring to your experience as well, and people are always very happy. Like if somebody comes up to me and goes, hey, actually I was thinking about doing a career in PR, I'll be like let me talk to you about it, no problem, and we're always happy to help each other, and I think that's what's really important is that women should be helping other women like all the time.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. I love that. This is so fun. I feel so supported and so empowered after this conversation to go out and be mentored and be a mentor and just feel awesome. But before we wrap up here, I've already gotten so much awesome advice through this conversation but wanted to give you each one more chance.

Speaker 4:

if there's anything else you haven't said that you would give as advice for a young professional and a young woman in the workplace, so I would say that, as someone who, unlike some of the rest of you, didn't know what they wanted to do in their career for a long time, I think it's a great thing to have ambition and to know what you want to do and have a path laid out and to achieve it. It's fantastic. But also I think it is important to remain flexible and open to opportunities that might be a direction you didn't know you were going to travel in and that sometimes, again, that sometimes these opportunities for women are fewer than they might be for men. So just kind of remaining open to things that you might not have considered to be where you ended up, because by constantly reassessing what's going to make you happy, what's going to work for you, I think is possibly the best advice I could think of.

Speaker 3:

And I think, to build on what Louisa said, you know it really is about asking questions, you know, finding out, talking to people, what, what's your experience like? Tell me about this before you can also understand what you want to do, and I think that's that's quite an important part. Again, it goes back to the networking and connecting with people. Just ask lots of questions. People, again, are very happy to share their experiences with you and I would rather you spend this time asking all the questions and then knowing your answer, rather than kind of pretending you kind of know it all and then stumbling through everything else. Yeah, so I think it's ask the questions and ask as much as you need to. Yeah, so I think it's it's ask the questions and ask as much as you need to.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to bring it back to where we started, which is that none of our paths to Penta were a straight line, and I think that when you're starting out in your career, it's easy to feel like where am I headed, you know what am I achieving, and that is important, and we want to see that drive, but, at the same time, recognizing that you know, sometimes you're going to climb the ladder and sometimes you're going to go down the slide and sometimes you're going to go sideways across the monkey bars.

Speaker 2:

Right, it's a long career that's going to have many twists and turns. So I will leave you with a quote that I absolutely love from Ben Bernanke, who said this during a former Federal Reserve Chairman. Who said this during a former Federal Reserve Chairman. Who said this during a graduation speech, and I thought it was a perfect line. He said if you think you know where you're going to be 10 years from now, then you are sorely lacking in imagination. So, with that, you don't know what life is going to bring. You don't know what your career is going to bring, but if you persevere, you'll have good days ahead.

Speaker 1:

Wow, how about that for some inspiration for the day? Thank you guys so much for coming. I can't believe I didn't mention it until now, but we've actually, with our international conversation here, we are speaking across 13 hours of time differences, so we all came together to have this awesome conversation. Deborah, ilan and Louise, thank you so much for coming on what's at Stake. This has been a joy to our listeners. Remember to like and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts and follow us on X at PentaGRP and LinkedIn at PentaGroup. I'm your host, lizzie Johnson, and, as always, thank you for listening to what's At State.