The Girls Are Investors Podcast: Women Driving Success with Delphine Mourot

Hello and welcome to today's game meets podcast. I am Ann Marie Flurbye. I'm one of the co-founders of Gain and I'm really delighted to be the host for today's talk. Today we're going to deal with something a little bit different and that we're going to meet Delphine Moreau, co-author of the book, Take the Lean, How Women Leaders Are Driving Success Through Innovation. A book we wanted to highlight given it provides some inspiration on how we as women can really step into leadership in a way that feels authentic to ourselves and the book is a phenomenal compilation of quotes and inspiration from female leaders and it's just a really great resource and something that I've enjoyed reading myself. So with that what I wanted to do is introduce our guest Delphine. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you so very much for joining us. I truly have enjoyed reading the book and I think that there's some wonderfully practical examples for our listeners on how to use the lessons you, the three of you draw. But before we dive into the book itself, it would be great if you just take a minute and introduce yourself. Maybe just tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, what you studied and your career trajectories so far. Thank you very much and Mary for your kind of words and thank you for having me with you on this podcast. It's a pleasure to be here. So I'm Delphine. I'm today. I'm a coach and I'm the director of a business school in London. I'm the director of HEC. I represent them in London. But I'm also a coach and I've also written the book. But that's my second life. My first life I started as a lawyer in the US law firm in London, Clarissa Clib. And then I moved to Morgan Stanley where I worked for 12 years in different divisions, both capital markets and then fixing them. So I've had different lives already and I'm very happy with this because I've learned so much and different things and I was able to reinvent myself several times. So I'm sure we'll be able to talk about this but that's very important to me. And at the beginning I studied political sciences and then I went to Ashucade, a business school actually where I worked today and I studied law in parallel, did Paris bar exam and became a lawyer. So at the beginning I was more a lawyer. Well, I love that. And I think one of the common themes that comes out in a lot of our podcasts and when we meet, especially senior female leaders in, you know, in investment management and in particular, but across the across finances, how indirect the line has been of, you know, career paths have been and how you don't necessarily end up where you think you're going to end up and I love the fact that you've explored a lot of different, a lot of different career options. So wonderful to hear that. And you, as you say, you work for Ate Say, the French business school and you're based in London. And the three of you collectively, and I should say that you collectively decided with a couple of others to write this book. And I love to hear how, you know, your connection with your co-authors and what compelled the three of you to write the book. So yes, it's all started with the discussions we had after having done so many women leadership programs at part of the school executive programs. And very often we had the same topics coming back and we were also doing workshop for our alumni. And again, the same topics were coming back. And we felt very strongly that we had something to say, which was linking diversity to innovation. That was very important to us. It was with our entrepreneurs mindset and the business mindset. It was you need to have diversity of thought in the room. You need to be able to think differently. And that's how looking to build innovation in your company. But then if you have the skill of being able to think differently, you can use this for your career. And so that's really what we really enjoyed. It was you can be innovative in your business, in your company, for your company, but also for your career. And so that's how it started. And actually, it all started in a discussion where we were wondering, very often when women tell us their stories, they use a word look. Then I was lucky at that time because my boss proposed to me this new rule. I was lucky because and then we thought that was quite anecdotical. At that point, we thought, it's interesting. I'm not sure men use a word look as much. So that was a static point. And actually, we wanted to call the book, what's look good to do with it. Because that is very cool. And the editor said, no, the thought is better to have a short title and it's better to say what we want to say in a title, not trying to be smart in a title. So that's where the take the lead is coming from. It's coming from this empowering yourself, not thinking it's external. Because of course, if you think it's luck, that is happening and it's luck, which is bringing you the opportunities, it does not empower you to take the lead. So that's why it's coming from. And now I love the title take the lead. And I'm so happy to take the lead because it's clear, but it's not a feminist book in the sense. It's not against. It's just for yourself. How are we to take the lead? And then what we say is we do it in an innovative way, which means in a way that works for you, as you said, in an authentic way. So that's why, yeah, I'm sure we took up more about this, but that's why we have interviewed lots of women, very different sectors, different countries. And every time it is at the time where they were in front of an issue and they found a way that fought for them at that time. And I did love that about the book in that you've met women across all parts of the economy, frankly, and all parts of the world. And yet the themes coming out are so consistent in the types of issues these women are facing and how they're thinking about things. And so I did love that it's not, you know, obviously gain is targeting improving female representation in investment management, and in particular in the risk-taking roles, but it's so applicable across lots of different parts of the market. So I really enjoyed that tremendously. And one of the things that struck me about the book was you've deliberately created these bite-sized modules. And I wondered if maybe you could start with just to introduce the book and what the modules are. So the seven C's is, I think, the term you've used. And then we just explain the construct of the book, and then we can deep dive into a couple of the areas of that's okay. Yes, so linking again diversity and creativity and then, I'm sorry, diversity and innovation. The heart of the book is actually creativity. Creativity, which we define as another way to solve a problem, another way to see the problem and to solve it that works for you. And so the creativity, the first C is creativity, which we think is maybe the most important one, but it's very interesting because very often women, especially in finance, are going to tell you I'm not really creative, you know, lawyers, they will say I'm not very creative, you know, because they're thinking, you know, vangog or whatever. But we are talking here problem solving. And of course, this woman are creative. Of course, they're spending their entire days solving problems in an innovative way. So they are creative. So that's really the start is creativity because once you realize you have this skill, then it empowers you again to apply this to the other C's. So our other C's are compass, working on your values, career, it's like thinking about your careers, champions and connections, creating your teams and courage. So with creativity, that's seven. So that's our seven C's. And because we applied ourselves our creativity, we drew it, I don't know if you can say it as a bit. It's a ship. So then, then we could play with the words and everything you can imagine about, you know, navigating your career and having a steel waters or a storm arriving or something, I mean, or not or whatever. You know, so we could play with this a little bit, which was we thought, fun. And I guess it marks the bind when you look at the boat. And then you can think, when I'm navigating this boat, I need to be aware of everything. Maybe I cannot look carefully at everything at the same time, but I need to be aware of all of them. And then depending on where I am in my career, maybe there is one or the other, which is going to take my time and work on more specifically for some time. That's an interesting point. So what you're saying is that it's certain at different points in one's career, a different C might be the one we're navigating at that moment. That's most important at that moment. Maybe the other ones are also there, but it's one particular one that you're looking at. I understand. It's very interesting now when I talk to people who have been reading the book. They don't all raise the same points. And I think actually say a lot about where they maybe are themselves in their own career, because something has been resonating with them. And it's never exactly the same thing, so that's a very interesting thing. That is super interesting, super, super interesting. Well, I really enjoyed reading it. And there were two sections of the book that particularly struck me as very potentially very interesting for the gain audience. And again, gain, we're targeting young women and investment management and just trying to create an environment where women feel excited about investment management as a career as myself and our other co-founders that we are. And the two modules that particularly stuck out for me were courage and connections. And what I'd love to do now is maybe take each of those sections in turn. And what I'd love to have you do is introduce the section and maybe one or two of the key messages from the section. So let's start with courage. And this is one that I feel really resonated with me because I think I think even myself over the course of my career, but certainly a lot of young women that I meet who are interested in finance are really risk averse and afraid to fail. And I wondered if maybe you could just talk about courage in the context of the book and some of the key lessons that you're trying to draw on. That's particular segment. Yeah, so very interesting. So courage, I think, was the most difficult one to write. For a long time, the C was going to be conflict or compromise. Like playing with this for a long time, conflict, compromise for a long time. And then at one point, you know, during the discussion, it was courage and it made sense. And now it's so obvious because actually it includes compromise and it includes conflicts in a way. And then it was difficult to write because we were really debating between ourselves. What do we want to tell this woman? Do we want to tell them to say yes? Do we want to tell them to say no? What do we really want to say? And it is saying yes to the stretch opportunities that make sense and it's going to stretch you, but it's also saying no to the things which are going to waste your time and you are concerned because you are people pleasing person and you are talking like you can say no. So how do you say no? And so we're debating this quite a lot. And at the end, what's happening here is we've looked at the impostor syndrome here in that in that chapter about courage. And what we try to do is we try to say in this program, in the woman programs we do, you know, at HEC or for our alumni, very often one woman is going to say, oh, I have impostor syndrome. And then half the classroom raised the hand and they tell me to move it to I have impostor syndrome. And then we started thinking, okay, really, really? Or is this just not the natural fear you have when you're in the unknown, when you're about to jump, when you're about to do something new, you are like scared. But is it just not like normal personality? Just to be scared of doing something new. And so putting a label on this in that in a way can be a bit dangerous because then if you start saying, I can't do that because I have impostor syndrome. Okay. So we're trying to work on this and see whether is this really the label you want to put yourself or is it okay to say, I'm a bit scared. I've never done that. I think I should be able to do it and then jump and do it because by the way, if you start jumping and doing it, you will realize that you can do more and more and then it will become easier and easier. And so we are trying to to look at courage with this view, which is really get to that stretch assignment. Okay, don't say yes to anything. Make sure that it is within your values, within your trajectory. Depending on where you are in your career, it might not be the same thing you have to say yes or no to. And have yourself the people around you who can help you decipher what it means. You know, should you get that opportunity and have people around you who you trust. And then generally, we would say, you know, go for it for the right thing. But learn to say no and learn to say no in a way that still does not close doors. And that's, no, it's super, super helpful and a great, a great backdrop and obviously bleeds into connections as well because you need the people to kind of help you see the opportunity and take advantage of it and offer advice and we'll come into connections in a minute. But coming back to courage and this label of imposter syndrome, you know, it's really fascinating that you say that because surely men feel imposter syndrome too and or they feel nervous at taking on new opportunities. So what is it in your experience or in the interviews that you did? What was it that particularly stood out why why women felt this so much more profoundly or how it or that maybe it impacted them to the point that they were not willing to raise their hand for the stretch assignment? I think it might come from education. It might come from the good student syndrome, which is you you need to get good marks, you get the good report and then that's how you are rewarded and it's all working well and as long as you've been working hard and not and so you're not used to fail in a way because you know good student works well and then maybe maybe failure was not really rewarded when you know during your education. So I think that is something about education and being able to take risks means being able to accept to fail and yes. I think that's so I think that's so true and I do again with the young women. With the very young women I meet you know 16 to 18-year-olds I think they're so used to striving for perfection not just you know we can talk we'll set aside the whole social media and pressure for perfection but certainly in academics that if one it's not good enough to be to have an an A one must be you know the top of the class or whatever and there it does feel like there's this pressure not to make mistakes and one of the key elements of my day job as an investor is I'm going to make mistakes I'm going to have errors I'm going to you know frankly I'm going to make decisions that lose money my hope and expectation is that on balance I well first of all when I make those mistakes I never make those mistakes again so that's the first thing but the second thing is on balance my hope is that I make fewer mistakes than I have successes and it's in the being willing to take the risk that one can succeed in this career and it's an expected part of the careers these mistakes so it is fascinating to me that women feel this pressure not to make mistakes but actually on balance it's something we really I would love to disabuse these young women out so any advice on on what they could do any key lessons or messages that you would want to leave our listeners with in terms of how to have more courage and how to be willing to take on stretch goals or say no to things that are wasting their time I would say it's having this entrepreneur your mindset which is test and try test and try and then you get used to it so test and try second thing I would say as well is what is the smallest step you can make in that direction I love that I love that to really practical small bits of advice so maybe if one is interested in becoming an investor maybe it's creating a paper portfolio you're not actually putting money to work but you're saying I'm gonna just track this particular stock or this particular issue over time and see you know I'll do my analysis and I'll track it over time and see if I do well or if I make a mistake try to learn from it so test and try I love that and then or maybe and then the small step might be I'm gonna go and have a conversation with someone in the industry to ask them about what it is to be an investor and find out just a little bit more so it's a a low stakes easy thing to try exactly because if you see your project as a mountain it seems impossible no if it's one little step you move forward and then and then you learn I absolutely love that I think that's fantastic so I think Delphine thank you so much for for talking to us about courage in the context of the book and I think it leads us super well into connections because having these opportunities having the person to talk to about what it's like to be an investor in the example of my career it relies on having connections and I loved in the book that you used one of the phrases that I've used for many years which is nurture your network I think women are amazing and building social relationships but we're often hesitant to leverage those relationships for personal or professional gain for lack of a better word I'd love to hear you tell us a little bit about connections as a as a segment and the key the key messages that you're drawing out in that in that part of the book yeah so indeed connections was an easy one because it was so obvious and when we interview the woman one hundred percent of them mentioned connections as one number one or two of their success you know factors no debate on this at all also realizing that for all of them they said it was an effort they needed to take to take the time to do it and also that they were nurturing it so it was a long long stand you know it was not only you know some one of and then for some of them they said that they took them a while to realize how important it was so it's easy to miss it but then once you realize it's huge but then it's easy to miss so it's easy to miss it takes time it requires efforts now that we say that again when you then apply creativity to networking so you know it's important how can you find a way that works for you and again does not need to be big and so when we interviewed this woman they all had very practical tips one of them said okay I'm quite senior in the investment industry what I love to do is bringing my clients to the opera because I feel more comfortable in the one-to-one relationship than with lots of people so she's creating her own thing another one told us I'm super shy so what I do is if I'm going to a networking event I prep and then I create my own list of the people I want to meet and then I just go and I have my own target tonight I talk to three people and then I leave and so they found their own recipes that worked for them so I'm not saying it's like you know one silver bullet and everybody should do the same just seeing that this senior woman found ways that worked for them at that time another one said I'm so busy now and I have my children at home so if I am now at this event it's not to do nothing otherwise I leave my slippers at home and so if I'm here I'm going to talk to and maybe she's decided who the most important person was and then she would not leave the room until until she's left because she's that was her own target but okay here again all the women were so completely convinced that that was the number one priority for all of them connections and then nurturing the connection and then the nurturing same you can do it in your own creative way it could be that you meet someone and then you think of them later you just drop them a line it could be that you are very systematic on your thank yous when you meet someone so just being systematic and it's part of your to-do list just do it being grateful and I'm thinking of people but in a kind authentic way it does not need to be completely systematic but then if you don't do it it means that if you need to talk so much in five years you will think oh my goodness I'm not spoken to him or her for five years how can I go and ask them for something but you know what if you manage to have some points again natural not forced really natural authentic that will feel easier especially because of research shows that men with the same level of knowledge of someone they would not hesitate to ask for something definitely so it means that we are especially if you are like in a sales role or in an investing world and you have a strong network you absolutely need to be able to bump to someone and share ideas but then you can do it only if you feel that you can connect with them and so how can you yourself create a way that is comfortable authentic to you there's there's so much in there resonates for me I am often people when they meet me they don't believe it but I am actually very naturally introverted and stepping into a networking reception where I don't know anybody is frankly terrifying to me and I I set up very similar to the woman in your book it wasn't me about someone in your book where I set a goal where I have to stay one hour and I have to talk to three people I didn't know and once I've achieved that if I've met someone and it's super interesting obviously I will stay longer but this is the this is I promise myself you know this is my framework and and then it becomes it just becomes a lot easier because it's it's a bite size coming back to your point on courage it's an environment that makes me very nervous but it's a small thing it's just an hour it's just three people and then if it comes and often I have met people where the relationship has blossomed from there it's just a nice way to think about things and your point on keeping the network nurtured I group as a telecoms analyst back in the day and I remember talking about networks as keeping the networks lit you know you don't want to have to start up with a network cold when you need it most you want to just keep it warm at all time in this you know authentic I saw this article I thought of you hey have you met this person you know I think you'd really enjoy meeting them just dropping a hey can you have a coffee with no agenda those are really easy ways to keep the network alive or one's personal network or professional network too alive in a very authentic way but I do I did want to ask you and go into this point on um taking the next step of saying okay I've got this phenomenal network of people I know and I now have an issue either I want to pivot my career or I've got a problem at work I want to solve and then asking for help specifically in as it pertains to me I think on balance I do think women are a little more hesitant to make the ask if it's for themselves versus a man in the same position and I wonder if you have some practical or just some thoughts around that or some practical advice that you could offer yeah we talk about this in the book about like it's a queer road so you can't use your network only when you're not going to need to ask for help maybe men do it more naturally but again if it's not natural to you find an authentic way that works for you for example if make sure that you've thought before you meet the person what can you bring to them so that you have prepared a little bit and then you talk to them and you ask what you need but and you also have in mind what you could maybe give to them propose to them in the discussion be very alert of who are the people who are very close to you that maybe could talk to them as well on something else and then deliver of course so if you talk to someone and then you promise something make sure that you are the person who delivers who's reliable and who's falling through so we're going back to nurturing it's also being grateful following up and following through really and then once you are seen like this then maybe it's easier to ask for help when you have already been helpful as well so it's not only calling the network when I need help it's not showing it making sure you are a giver and and that's I think the long term the long term view on networking I think that's great advice I think one thing talking you know you've experienced working with young women you know a lot of these young women in the game network maybe don't necessarily have something they can do for you know the CEO of XYZ investment company so they might hear that advice and think that sounds great if I'm a senior person already and I have some knowledge I can impart but you know I'm 16 or I'm 18 years old and I'm still learning about the career what is what would you say to them specifically so to them specifically I would say one people love to kick about themselves yes true okay so yes they are helping you but also it makes them feel good to help you and so you and then it's good for them to be seen and also to it's good for them to feel like they're helping the new generations hmm definitely meet someone who's curious and then if they tell them you should meet so and so and then you meet the person and then you go back to that person and say thank you so much again for mentioning this because I did follow through then that person will feel like they have been helpful I think that's maybe what you have you have as well this way of being very grateful and have giving them the impression I'm telling them because if they're helpful you need to tell them it's helpful you know they need to know it's helpful and of course you're not going you might not bring it like you know feedback for them but it's it is important for them at the certain point in their life as well to feel like that they're giving back and that's what they're doing while helping you and so if you know that then you are and you're very careful about being thankful then I think that's that helps I think that's wonderful advice and and so true and you know I think it's I'm delighted you framed it that way because I I don't want someone to say oh I'm not going to ask for help because I don't have something to give back and as you rightly say senior people love to talk about their career most senior people love to talk about their career experiences and want to help more junior people come along as well so in a way you're giving them the opportunity to talk exactly they say no to busy they say no yeah or actually the worst is they don't say anything and the second worst is they say no but at the end of the day it doesn't matter and then I love the idea of circling back and saying this was incredibly helpful thank you so much but I I do think that that is it's very rewarding and that's what you give is that gratitude that's really wonderful so thank you for that delphine any final messages or practical advice on connections that you like to give our listeners anything that we've missed in this conversation so far let's say maybe find a way to keep track so I'm not saying I'm like you're creating your own you know accept charts with one thousand times or whatever keep track of the people you're meeting because it's a very small world in the end and then so now with LinkedIn you know it's quite easy so make sure that you keep track because you will meet these people again and then make sure you're not sure and you think long term I think that's wonderful advice thank you thank you so much so what I wanted to do now is maybe just go into some final bits of advice or some final thoughts and maybe delphine specifically for you I'd love to hear what's the best piece of career advice anyone has given you and you've you've worn many hats you've had many lives and I'd love to hear it you could cherry pick from all of those parts or one part but what was the best bit of advice you got so it's a difficult discussion because as you say it depended on where I was in my life you know so there was one point in my life where I was told to slow down hmm and it was hard for me to hear that but actually it helped me at that time another piece of advice is also always to think long term and another piece was if you don't do it will you regret it I love that and I think that I think that in thinking long term and thinking about what one might regret probably resonates really well with gain's audience who are you know at the early stages of their careers in particular where they're thinking what do I want to do with the rest of my life I think it's important to think long term but it's also important to recognize that what the path you start today may not be the path you end up following 10-15 years down the road but taking the chance initially is so important and any other key messages that you'd love to have our audience take away today maybe going back to creativity maybe our audience can they think of times where they were in front of a problem and they found a way that worked for them and maybe pat themselves and realize that they do have this creativity skill and how can they apply it to their other problems whatever it is that's because I think that gives lots of courage and the second thing is make sure they take the time to pose and reflect because even the very senior woman we interviewed in the book all of them they say that when they were like head down working very hard they did not see that they were using gold skills with hindsight that they realized that they found a way they they they managed very difficult complex things because they had to without realizing the skills they were developing so make sure that you pose and then you reflect on what you've done and the game pat yourself and and really see what are the skills in terms of skills that you can then apply to other parts of your life that's it's created recognizing one's wins and kind of celebrating the wins that you've had it is so useful and and kind of and really aligns with that that concept of gratitude in a way of like look how far I've come already I may have a lot further to go but I've already done all of this and I've succeeded here or these are these are my strengths that I know of I love that I love that clearly and so it's clearly if young women on the listening to the game podcast want to learn more about this seven seasation by the book take the lead how women leaders are driving success through innovation or other yeah exactly thank you exactly it's it's fantastic and it's really fantastic and it looks great on my bookshelf now in terms of in terms of other resources that you'd like to recommend for young women today is there anything else that you'd recommend for them so there you know lots of books happening lots of podcasts so they should really be curious and read everything they can to find their own way because there is no you know one silver bullet again and one recipe it would be too easy you know if there was one they would all have found it so it'd be very curious and read lots of things and the for example that I have a friend Caroline Flanagan she wrote a book called Be the First be the first interesting wonderful thank you so much I wish we had more time but we do need to wrap up I want to say huge thanks to you Delphine for taking the time to introduce us to the book the book is called Take the Lead how women leaders are driving success through innovation I also want to thank all of our listeners I hope you found today's podcast as interesting as I have and if anything sounds interesting and you'd like to find out more please do check out the website which is gainuk.org or follow us on social media and particularly on Instagram and LinkedIn where we share updates inspiration and work resources on a very regular basis.