How to build a BOLD career - with Sarah Mittiga

[MUSIC] Welcome back to She's Men for More, Your Female Career Podcast. My name is Dr. Kim Diddy, female career coach and your podcast host. My mission is to help women from all over the world to create a career that they truly love, as well as companies to get more women in leadership positions. In this podcast, I want to share some female wisdom for your career with you. So, let's jump right in. Today's guest is Sarah Mitiga, co-founder of Scaleify, and a person who treats country moves the way others order coffee. Extra passport with milk and sugar please. Sarah has lived and worked across multiple countries, and somehow along the way picked up flawless German, despite it not being her native language, too bad we speak English today. Sarah brings an impressive consulting background, runs her own company and has moved again to what probably is country number three on a list of permanent residences. Scaleify, the company that she's building now, helps other companies to get better HR software to actually make data-driven decisions, strategic, future proof, and internationally. And then there is discipline. Sarah completed 75 hard last year, not once, but twice. She's one of the people who raises the bar just by being in the room, and that's why we are all so lucky to have her here today. Welcome, Sarah. You can, it's lovely to be here. I am very excited to have you here today, and before we start, can you quickly tell us what exactly 75 hard is? 75 hard is a challenge that I did last year. I thought it's just 75 days, but it turns out it's part of a year program, which I didn't realise I was signing up to. It's 75 days of doing certain tasks, for example, to work out today, drinking a gallon of water, yeah, not sweetened, but just plain water a day, and reading 10 pages of the book, and several other things, which I am not currently doing every single day. So I'm happy to not be doing it at the moment, but yeah, it was a brilliant challenge. Pretty hard challenge, though. What is it and how did it affect your career and life? How can we imagine that? It was important for me because of my personal life. So I would say I'm quite a workaholic, and I love working. I'm very disciplined when it comes to work or client work, but I'm not as disciplined or I wasn't with my personal life. So in the first year of founding Scalify, I was sitting at my laptop for 10 hours a day, seven days a week, wasn't leaving the house, and then I realized, okay, something has to change. So although it's an extreme challenge, for me, it was really, really important. So what I gained out of it is that I actually do continue to read, or try to read 10 pages a day, just getting us a movement in. So I'm always walking at least once a day, maybe not twice, but it definitely affected my personal life. And I've noticed that I'm still able to run the company just the same way, but getting some time in for myself as well. Wow, that sounds like a more balanced lifestyle than in the beginning. Let's move into your life today. You are not originally from Germany, but that's the company, the country where you've lived before. You're now building your own company, you have a consulting background. Tell us about your career so far, and what and who Sarah has become over the years. What a start. So yeah, like you mentioned, I left in Germany for 12 years, and for Germans, my career is very non-linear. So I studied German studies in the UK, and then I wanted to get into marketing. My first job was working for the City of Berlin. I was there for around four years. Then I switched to a startup, which was extremely exciting. And there I was for about two years, and then I thought, okay, I'm working with large corporates. I need to see the different side of the working life and ended up at KPMG. So quite a switch from a small startup selling popcorn and marketing popcorn to consulting banks and asset managers. But that's, I think what excites me is always doing something different, working with really interesting people on interesting topics. And I would say this is something that's been a part of my career, no matter which position I had. And then at KPMG, I realized that I'm actually quite curious to start my own company. And it was a niggling thought at first. And then at one point, I just realized, okay, if not now, then when? And decided to quit and start skating by now, just over two years ago. - Wow, such a brave move. When you look at this journey, what were some challenges you had to overcome? Maybe especially as women in consulting and business, Germany and the UAE, what stands out to you? - Well, I would say a particular challenge, not necessarily in consulting, but maybe in Germany, but also the UAE, is the need for certificates. To prove that I can do something, I need to show a piece of paper. And this is something that's very ingrained in German culture, business culture, but also here in the UAE, I'd say it's extremely relevant as well. And I guess I haven't lived that kind of life. I believe more in a passion combined with discipline, is actually sometimes more effective than a certificate. There will be some people that will be maybe a little shocked or disagree with me, but I really, really believe that it depends obviously in which area of work you are. I'm not saying a doctor shouldn't have their doctorate or a lawyer, but there are certain jobs especially in consulting or in tech or in marketing, where if you really want to, and that's the beauty of the day and age that we're in at the moment, you can actually teach yourself a lot. There are so many resources out there. It's not like decades ago where you really needed to do a course, get the certificate, to have that expertise, but now you're able to do that yourself. And that's something that I found challenging at the beginning. I actually got rejected from a lot of marketing jobs when I applied for my first job and because I didn't have a company in BBL, so business administration, but I was sure that I was able to do it. And as we can see, I did have a long career in marketing. So definitely. So you're saying passion combined with this discipline can bring you very far, which is a quote that I love. How can we see that in your own life right now, for example, when building a business, you said you were spending lots of hours in front of the computer in the beginning, then you challenged yourself to move more. How are you combining passion with this discipline at the moment? And what can we also learn from you here? - So I would say I'm very passionate about doing a lot of topics. This is one of my, I'd say, a strength and a weakness at the same time. So I have a thousand ideas, but I need to be disciplined in what? I actually focus on. So when it comes to business, I have a multitude of ideas for scaleify, also just for this year, but what we've done is actually reducing it just to a couple of key focus points. So we have a couple of products that we're launching this year, and that's what we're focusing on. So this is definitely a change from the past where it maybe have a thousand ideas and not really focus on one or two, but now I'm really trying to streamline that, and it's working very well so far. - Okay, so we have the passion combined with the discipline combined with a focus basically. - Yes, I would say that's the central at the moment in my life. - Can you take us into a moment in the past where this learning that this is a great form where for you became very real? Maybe a moment where you realized that something had to shift or change drastically? - Maybe when I was back at KPMG, I did a lot. So I looked at ProBono projects. I was doing my normal consulting work. Then I founded a community at KPMG, then I was working on communities in my personal life. Then I was trying to sort out family topics, and I just had so much on my plate, and I realized that I'm not actually giving one thing in particular enough effort, and I really need to scale back in order to focus. That's definitely a moment where I realized I'm just doing too much, and I think often, especially if you are passionate about topics, you don't want to wait. You want to just get going, but sometimes it's better just to take a deep breath, wait, and then restart. - Absolutely, this is something that I would sign off immediately as well. I feel like especially in consulting, there are so many ProBono tasks that women take on their shoulders, especially stuff such as diversity or female empowerment or an internal women's circle or something, and these are all the things that are not really paying into your career advancement or any promotion or something. So you might have a super busy schedule, but at the end of the day when it's about promotions, people will ask about the numbers and the progress, and when you've spent too much time being distracted by other stuff that's definitely important, this will fire back. - Do you agree? - I would say what I've noticed in the past is that I've been very busy, but haven't been as focused, and I think busyness definitely doesn't equal productivity, and this is also something that I've cut back my busyness, now also my own work these last couple of years, and really focused on productivity. - Ooh, cutting back the busyness and focusing on productivity. I love that. Can you elaborate a bit more? What's busyness versus productivity? - I think we all know that we are busy. You have lots of meetings that are unnecessary at times, and they're our day, and looking at back up just a past employer jobs that I've had, you know, you want to speak to your colleagues, you need to an update on the latest project. It's not necessarily streamlined, but you still have a lot to do, but like you said, it doesn't necessarily go towards your career, and so at the moment in our position, now at scale if I had 1000 things on my plate last year, and really just realized I am very busy, but I wasn't as productive, and so really going in with the whole topic of discipline made me realize what I want to focus on, and this is also this year, we're focusing on just a couple of products that we're launching, and that's something that I realized that we're very much more productive, and maybe not as busy, which is great, because it allows for more time to be spent in other ways, and I mean, that could be network events that I have personally avoided in the last year, because I was so busy with work, and yeah, I guess these things are changing now. - Yeah, and you're in the perfect environment for networking events you live in Dubai, those who are watching this podcast as a video podcast can see the background you're actually living, I think in Bristol, or in downtown. You have also, I think you are born in Switzerland, then moved to England, lived in Germany, you speak absolutely flawless German. Can you take us into your life path, basically? What helped you to navigate all these changes? - Yeah, so I would say, I have to say, I'm so happy to be in Dubai. I feel like I've actually found my home, because I felt very lost over the span of my life. Like you mentioned, I was born in Switzerland, my parents were already living in London, so I was born, but I never experienced living in Switzerland. I was in London with like one month old. And then I went to school in London, and I studied in the UK, and I guess I had quite British mentality, which I had to say is very different to the German mentality. And then I spent a year as an Erasmus student in Germany, and actually realized that the path that I had planned for myself, I thought I was going to do a law conversion after university, I was going to become a lawyer in the UK. And then I realized when I was in Berlin, actually I don't think that's the path for me. So I ended up deciding to finish my studies in the UK, moved to Germany just for a year or two, and then moved back to London. And then I think that's something that I've always had is I follow my gut instinct. So I just felt like Berlin was actually the right place for me, and then I didn't go back. And those one to two years turned into 12, and then I finally actually left and went to Dubai. But even in my time in Germany, I noticed that I often think differently, challenge the status quo. It was something that was just a running theme throughout my life. And I didn't think that I wanted to start my own business. I grew up with a single mom with her own business struggling a lot. So for me, it was clear I am never, ever going to start my own business. And so I really thought I'm just going to do my career in the UK. That already changed early 20s. Then in Germany, I thought I was just going to work hard, succeed in my career. And then I realized in my early 20s that working hard doesn't necessarily enable recognition, verbally, financially. And then things started to change. And then when I finally moved to Dubai, starting my own company was a huge, huge shift. And now I am fully in control of my own life, the positives, the negatives. And I love it. So I'm very, very happy to have taken that huge step. I have to say I had never seen myself living in Dubai. If you'd asked me maybe five years ago, I'd never been to Dubai. And now I'm here. I am surrounded by a lot of entrepreneurs. And they push me every single day, which is incredible, and help me build the business. Wow. I feel like with every step of your career, you were literally discovering that you were men for more, and that you can uncover a new layer, whether it's a country or a job or a founding your own business. If you could travel back in time and have one conversation with your younger self and tell her maybe what's in it for her in the future, which age would you pick and what would you tell her? That's a four-year question. So when I was in my early 20s, I traveled through Latin America, and I met quite a few digital nomads at the time. It wasn't really a thing, but I met a few. And they were all web developers. And they were working whenever they wanted, with whom they wanted, and could travel the world. And when I met them, I realized I have to become a web developer. I realized that in that moment. And then I went back and realized I actually really don't want to become a web developer. But I do want that lie. I want the freedom to travel whenever I want to. You mention it. I have Italian roots, Swiss roots. I do want to visit my family, my friends, whenever I want to. And I would like to work with amazing people that I enjoy working with. And I want to work on topics that I enjoy working on. And web development was not that. So I had this goal in my mind of the life I wanted. But I really didn't know how to get there. And at the time, remote jobs weren't a thing. And working also, hi-verally, wasn't really a thing. You would have your desktop, computer, and no laptop at work. So working from home wasn't an option either. And so if I were to speak to that younger self, I think it's really important to know what you want, to have that end goal in mind, but so much can change on the way. So being flexible and how to get there, maybe it isn't the web development. But maybe there are other things. And because our society changes so much, technology changes so much, to be flexible, to go with those changes, I think are essential. So I would say I'm living that dream that I had back then, but through a very, very different route. Yes. A hundred percent. And I love this naked of wisdom, actually, of picking a goal that really sets you on fire. Like, wow, I could have that lifestyle. And then figuring out the how along the way. And also using modern technology. Oh my god, I also sound old now. But like new technologies, no new way of work, new jobs that are like occurring every minute, basically, to get where you want to go. I think that's an amazing career hack for many women. Can you give some more career tips? Maybe one for someone who's still in corporate and one for a lady, a girl who wants to build her own business just as you did? I would say if you're employed in corporate, I think it is important to just also be you. We're so used to being surrounded by people who are so similar. Everyone has their, in Germany, for example, VBL degree. Everyone has their masters. There are lots of things that people do that just seem very, very similar. And if you do not fit in in that kind of, yeah, I guess that template, it can feel quite uncomfortable. But I would say lean into that because I think that could actually be your strengths. So especially as women in consulting, we are, Sarah or other corporations often, especially when we do climb the career ladder. There are a lot of male colleagues. And it might feel lonely at the top. But just remember that your individuality is actually a strength. And when it comes to maybe someone who wishes to build their own business, I think it's really important to actually validate your idea. I think I'd, I'd do. Yeah, because I have to say this is something that I've seen now also running our own business. Just because I have an idea doesn't mean the client wants it. Or that it will actually sell. So really validating what is needed in the market before following just a passion project. So validating your idea, testing it and using your network. So I would say having started a company without a network, I don't think we'd be where we are today. I really don't. How do I as a future found, refine my network? What's your suggestion? So I would say there are multiple obviously networks and different cities. They can be online or offline. I have to say for me, a lot of it actually happened via LinkedIn, for example. During COVID, I met a lot of people virtually. I would say I'm more introverted. And I have to say that meeting people just online was a lot more comfortable for me than being in a room with 200 people and not knowing who to speak to. So really finding those people that align with the topics that you're interested in, maybe interested in launching and getting that feedback is so so important. Okay, so definitely online LinkedIn is something I can also recommend. And then in person, like look for people who inspire you and who have somewhere where you want to be in the future. Just as the web developers, except what they are probably even more introverted than you are. Absolutely. Finding those people that can push you. And that's also something that I've realized here in Dubai. I have a lot of people who make me think differently, differently than I did before. And provide me with whole new, maybe also money mindset, business mindset. And that's quite inspiring. Let's share some of the inspirational mindsets we have here in Dubai. What is something that you want to pass on or an angle or perspective that has helped you in the last year, for example? So I have one moment in my mind, it's to do with money mindset because I would say I didn't always think as big as I wanted to. And I had a friend or I have a very good friend. That the first time I met her, I didn't think we'd be friends. Well, one of the first things she asked me was, have you made your first million yet? And I thought, well, I'm really into Dubai now. What kind of question is this? I found it very almost, yeah, rude. I was very confused at the time. Do I have these goals? Could I have this as a goal? She definitely made me rethink my business goals, my financial goals, and now we're very good friends. So I'm happy she asked me that and really changed the way I go about setting up my goals. Absolutely. So what we can take away is set big goals and they're too dream big. We can also have people around you who maybe have achieved what you did not even have as a goal like five minutes ago. Yeah, I think that's something that's a running theme in personal life, but also in business. You don't know what you don't know. So surround yourself with people that do things differently, that have different experiences, that haven't worked in the company you've worked, but can give you complete different perspectives. And through that, we can then also make conscious decisions because once you know what possibilities are out there, you can actually make a conscious decision for yourself. It's all about conscious decisions, I love that. Thank you for sharing this story. Maybe coming back from big ideas to boundaries, what is one boundary that you would nowadays protect at all costs in your career? I am very selective with who I work with. So I've worked with people in the past that maybe there's been disrespect or it could be because I'm a woman or because I have different ideas. And I have to say I no longer work with people where I feel like our values aren't aligned. So that's extremely important to me in business. In my personal life, I have to say it's the movement every single day that I won't accept anything until I've done that every single day. It's referring back to 75 fired that we were talking about in the beginning. Usually we are ending this podcast with a lightning round of questions, but in your case, I would like to continue talking about movement. You are traveling a lot. Please tell us two things. One, how many countries have you visited in total and two, what are your top three places to go? I know that's a large one. That's really difficult. So I think you know that my goal is to visit every country in the world at one point before I die. And at the moment, I'm only at country 74. So I've went to 74 countries now. It's not even halfway, but I'm hoping to get that one day. And my favourite three, top three, I have to say it's really different whether or not it's to live or to visit. I would say Dubai is the absolute perfect place for me to live. But to be on holiday, I would say Mexico has always been my favourite. I have to really say that the first time I went there, I think it must have been 15 years ago now, I completely fell in love. It's incredible, nature wise, people wise, culturally and obviously food and drink wise. So I can hire next time lovely. Not just the Caribbean side, but really discovering more of the country. I actually just spent the beginning of January in Lapland, so in Finland. And it was one of the coldest holidays I've ever been on. Minus 39 degrees, but it was spectacular. And I can hire a lot more. And someone who is freezing at 20 degrees in the UAE, I can't imagine myself going there, but it sounds amazing. I can highly recommend it. And then I thought when I would say maybe even Switzerland, I've never lived there, but having travelled quite a bit throughout the country, it's absolutely stunning. And it's so easy to visit the rest of Europe, so it's a brilliant place to go to. Okay, so we have Mexico, Finland and Switzerland as your recommendations. Thank you. Thank you for everyone who's listening, the next location spot to pick from. Thank you so much for everything that you shared with us today. I really take away the passion combined with discipline, combined with the focus as my friend work for 2026. Brilliant. Thank you so much, Kim. You're welcome. Thank you very much for sharing your wisdom with us today. And you will find all of the links to my guests' work in the show notes. And if you want more on female careers, visibility and motivation, you can subscribe to this podcast and follow us on Instagram @TheFemalCareerCoach. Thank you for listening to She Is Men For More Your Female Career Podcast.