What makes a successful leader?: Insights from female CEOs in tech and life sciences

00:00:04:09

Sara Walker

I'm delighted to be joined by Roz Deggon, CEO of Omass Therapeutics, and also Ilana Wisby, CEO and founder of Oxford Quantum Circuits

Thanks both very much for joining us. I appreciate very busy time for both of you. I think what I would really like to get to is from you both is a real essence of what it takes to be a founder, to be a CEO of a company, the challenges you face and how you overcome them and how you grow, how you get the investment.

So I suppose starting with you, Ilana, because you founded your company one why and two, what is it you wanted to aspire to achieve?

00:00:56:19

Ilana Wisby

Yeah. So I'll start by saying I have an academic founder that is our professor Peter Leek from the University of Oxford, and I was brought in to Buddy up with Peter because he wanted to stay in the university.

So they wanted to be able to bring someone into the company to get out and to bring it up, to bring it out. And for me, I think it's about why was I attracted to it? First of all, just simply naivety. Like when they approached me and said, Do you want to be CEO? I had no idea what that means.

I remember receiving my Mac and a folder of papers and being like, Here's a company, off you go. And so what do I do? And Googling like, What do you do in the first 100 days as a CEO and kind of pouring through accounts and like all the incorporation documents and it just being like, okay, I've got a lot to learn, but like let's crack on.

And ultimately the thing that kept me going every day and that kind of inner purpose, that drive is we have the opportunity to do something that's going to change the world. And it is such a privilege and it's a privilege I would never take for granted. It's one of those quantum like life changing, world changing, and everybody kind of dreams of having the opportunity, of being able to say, I've made a difference and I've done something and made an impact.

And I just feel truly grateful every day to have the opportunity to lead a company that can truly change the world.

00:02:10

Sara Walker

You sound very passionate about what you do, and I suppose that passion has got to be there to to give up the time, the energy  to grow a company, doesn't it?

00:02:18:00

Ros Deegan

Yeah, for sure. I mean the CEO, what role is a very committed role and in order to do it well you have to be emotionally engaged in it.

And I think in my journey to the CEO role was very different because I went through senior leadership roles in biotech. So I unfortunately didn't have I was getting in sick and I'd seen other people suffer through that, through that role. But I think ultimately I completely share the fact that you have to care about what you're doing and you have to.

And it is a real privilege to do in all cases. It's a life sciences company. We're trying to make new medicines, and that, for one, is an amazing reason to go to work. The second is I think building a company is just such a joyful thing to do. It's so exciting. Small companies, you feel ownership, especially early on.

They feel like family. You can think about culture. It's just and it's much easier in a small company to have a fantastic culture that is embedded and feels like people are really living the values of the company. And so that is a joy. So ultimately, I was saying somebody recently that I am that I was at a dinner party where everybody went around the table and they were all saying, if only I had thought about how I would be doing this job, I would be a BBC cameraman or I would do this.

And I was like, What are you talking about? I've been doing this, you know? So ultimately I think the CEO role, why do I want to be CEO as opposed to any other role? I do actually like the fact that the buck stops with me. I don't know whether I'm just not. I do actually quite like that.

00:03:50:03

Sara Walker

So masochistic passion. What are the other characteristics

What are your mistakes? I suppose, to be successful and to grow a successful company?

00:04:00

Ilana Wisby

Dogged determination, for sure. You mean you just have to keep going? And we spoke. I was really inspired by what you were saying around here, really saying we're going to raise this money, we're going to be optimistic. I truly believe that this is the right thing.

And you do you need the entrepreneurial spirit and that true belief that you're never going to look back from. And you do require that because you will get knocked back and you do require a huge amount of resilience in the role. So you do need to make sure that you do have that kind of very authentic confidence from the centre, but also, yeah, a lot of determination behind it.

The other thing I think for me and I've come from a role where I hadn't had that senior leadership experience and I've had to grow faster than the company. So for me I always embrace coaching. I absolutely love coaching. What can I learn from people? Because ultimately I don't have time to learn from experience. I have time to learn from age like wisdom.

I need to teach it to it. And I really finding the right coaches, the right mentors for me and really adopting that growth mindset and reading. But then of course, not just reading, like getting the experience through practically applying it as quickly as possible has helped me grow faster personally, professionally than the company. And as long as I keep doing that, I hope so that will be set up for the future as well.

00:05:23:15

Sara Walker

Would you add any other characteristics?

00:05:27:15

Ros Deegan

 I think the other characteristic which Ilana alluded to in the panel is that you referenced it as love is one of your values. One of our values is caring. And I think we think about it in terms of passion, but you need to care. And in order to grow a company, you need to also care about people.

And yet you can carve out an environment. And I think that sort of mission based, empathetic, empathetic leadership is really important. Now, I think in the past, society maybe allowed you to lead through fear, and that I think the expectations of the people who work for you with you are now that they expect you to deliver leadership in a different way.

And so I think the people who naturally want to lead and be led that way succeed in leadership roles and succeed in growing companies.

00:06:16:08

Sara Walker

So obviously, it's not just about having the characteristics and the right leader in a company. Obviously the finance needs to be there. Talks me then about how you, you know, how you go about getting that investment and some of the key things you need to be doing.

And you know, that's biggest challenge, isn't it? Don't mean to growth in the end of the day. So talk to me about, you know, someone's coming to you and saying that, you know, I've got this great idea, this great company, but I don't know how to get investment or, you know, what do I need to do? What would that advice be?

00:06:41:19 - 00:07:21:12

Ilana Wisby

Just reflecting what you were saying, That reminds me, my friend says, you either give up or you run out of money. And I'm not doing either. So yeah. Stephanie that the two key things that if someone were coming to me and saying, Hey, I want to spin out this kind of company or I have an idea, I think first of all, being able to create and sell the high level story, actually a lot of particularly within science, is how do I connect this piece of technology to something that people care about as often then pulling a narrative together that is this kind of pillar of the story of this emotional journey that ties a human, right, to whatever scientific geeky thing that you've got and takes them on that journey. And then from the lens of the investor, I either need to think of it both in terms of building a business, but then also you want to go get investment. What what are investors looking for? So really starting to learn the role, the language, the priorities of an investor.

And actually there's a principle that I always apply. It's called the seven T’s defining. If you remember all of them off the top of my head. Right? But it's basically what are the things the tick boxes are investors looking for? And it's often around the team traction and timing like all of these different aspects to them and then making sure that you do then telling that story in a way that's emotionally intelligent and gives the investor the tick boxes that they need without them feeling like they're going through a tick box exercise.

00:08:12:18

Ros Deegan

But yeah, I was starting to think what are the other four, well, I'll get back to you on that. I mean, I completely agree with you and I think science should sell itself, but it doesn't. And maybe the science sells itself once you've had your initial conversation, but you never get a second meeting. If you want the science to set itself and you won't close it either.

If you rely on the science to set itself. And so it is sales and marketing skills ultimately that drive investment across growth companies. You need to be able to do the sales marketing at the beginning, which is just the simplification of your message to something that resonates and is memorable and that gets you into the second meeting. Then the science sort of does its work and then you need to be able to close it, which often requires competitive pressure, tension, you know, a sense that this is a time limited opportunity.

And if you don't have those things, particularly in challenging finance and climate, then you're going to struggle to sort of close the deal so that so I think sales and for any entrepreneur who came to me was kind of from a purely science background, I'd say you either partner with or find yourselves a marketing self.

00:09:18

Sara Walker

What would you say that has been the biggest challenge for both of you on this journey?

Has it been the raising of finance that the managing the growth or something else?

00:09:22:16

Ros Deegan

That's a really great question because I've just had such a I mean, I've enjoyed every aspect of this journey. So even even when I think about sort of some of the things we've experienced during my short tenure as CEO, you know, we've gone through COVID, we've gone through, you know, the banking crisis with Silicon Valley banks, you know, even though I've been through some tough times, somebody said to me very early on in COVID, you never know.

It's like it's amazing. It's like a tea bag. You don't know what it is until it lands in hot water. And so let's use that. Yeah. And so I think in some ways those things really brought out my authentic self in leadership. And if you're being authentic, then even if you're having challenges, data is not always perfect. You know, finance and climates are not always perfect.

You have to be resilient. You'll get back. Somebody also said to me as a CEO, everyone's going to tell you you're doing it wrong. So they always do all the time, but you certainly have to be ready for that to be different views and for people to tell you that they have different opinion. But throughout it all, my my authentic self loves it.

be in.

00:10:36:06

Ilana Wisby

If you also if you lead through your authentic self and from those principles, you kind of look back through all of those challenges and say, well, would you do it differently or would question It's like, Well, I know that that was the best I could do at the time, and I know that I acted like all my principles.

I'm from that place of authenticity, so I'm comfortable. So actually leading the way I think is is really good. You touch on a few of my certainly hardest moments. I mean, leading a team through the pandemic. We were here in Oxford, 15 people in a basement and then a year and a half later, double the size in Reading, setting up a lab in six weeks.

But yeah, definitely from a leadership perspective, I really care about the team and it was really hard to see everybody kind of in those situations. Every situation was slightly different. We did lose people through that and having to tell the team that, you know, one of my dearest friends and colleagues had passed away very suddenly was certainly one of those leadership moments.

And real adversity is a you don't I wouldn't wish that on anybody. And you just won't be that you won't be able to give them a hug. And you know what? On Zoom. So for me, they're certainly challenges. They're not challenges I hope we'll go through again, but they're also learning. So it makes you stronger, right? Like I know now when you have a stressful day that makes you really grateful for what we do have and we do still celebrate.

We celebrate each year, we celebrate Phil and we all share chocolate together. So it also actually becomes then a pillar of our foundations, of our culture and our people in who we are. And really to make sure that we do keep, you know, fill in our memory and make sure that we do him proud

00:12:25:17 - 00:12:57:16

Sara Walker

 And actually those relationships within the teams is so important to that growth as well, isn't it? It's great to have two very passionate female CEOs here, but there's not enough of them. There's still that glass ceiling, there's still that gender gap. What can be done, whether it's a more sort of grassroots level, getting people into STEM education, be female education, or the support like the events with JP Morgan are holding. What needs to be done to to improve that sort of level of female led companies?

00:12:57:18

Ros Deegan

Yeah, it's it's it's a difficult one, isn't it? I mean because I've been relatively I think, lucky because I do look at gender diversity and I and I think it's incredibly important. But I actually look at my own background and I have many more sources of privilege than I have. So sources a sort of being in a minority.

So when I and I had a conversation with somebody once who presented it to that mate that way. And so I think I have to recognise myself that a lot of my privilege has helped me to get where I am. And yes, I may have had challenges for being a woman, but it definitely in the great scheme of things, I was relatively blessed with where I started.

But having said that, how do we how do we embrace more women coming into positions of leadership? I think it's all a it all positions. But I think in particular, yes, STEM is really important and particularly for me it's less of a critical and a place where we're losing because the pool is pretty good in sciences. A lot of women do choose to study biology.

So and even actually when that was at one point I mentioned in the panel that we did have mostly men in the lab, and I was talking to our family scientists and saying, Well, maybe it's just because not many women do maths back. And she was like, No, no, look, plenty of women do less. But so, so so I did think that that's it's not a pool issue for me.

But I do think there is that middle career time period where women are having to make choices between whether they take time out to bring up families or whether they prioritise their career, how they balance that with with their partners. And I think that is really still an area that we do need to get better at supporting women through that middle transition period to be able to continue to that growth and that trajectory and for them to fulfil their potential.

00:14:46:20

Ilana Wistby

Yeah, I definitely recognise the voices of their own privilege as well and the recognition, the importance of that, the I think there's so much that we can do still as a society for sure. You spoke about middle career women. How can we as society better support that? There are some really good examples. One World, of course, Sweden really great for, you know, policies at government level that can help drive better, you know, better joint parenting ultimately, you know, through maternity paternity leave being split equally, it kind of gives a different lens.

And the employer, when they're looking at candidates and can eliminate some of the bias in that way as well. So I think there's certainly a role for government and policies as role for society and all of the different ways that and my friend calls it a trick. Her name is Lauren Currie, and she's got a phenomenal platform actually inspiring women confidence.

So it's all about inspiring confidence and women, all of our team have the opportunity to go on to that. But it's not saying women aren't confident and that's the problem. It's going, how can we navigate this world? How can I help women identify the challenges that the patriarchy is creating? And to address those challenges and be proactive in pointing them out?

So I think that's one way street through training and other is just general training of the whole of society. On identifying the patriarchy started with the trick, which is a wonderful way of teaching children when they can start to identify and, you know, from on TV, why are the men always the fire fighters, why the women, always the nurses?

And just to start being curious and and questioning those things from a really early, early stage. So I think there's a huge societal piece there broadly that as a leader, what we can start to do through leadership is shape, you know, we're responsible for it. Ultimately, the processes, the environment that we're creating for our teams and to to best cultivate a diverse and inclusive environment and attract that talent through our recruitment pipelines and processes, through our retention, through our policies, all these different areas, but also through modelling leadership and modelling leadership in a different way.

Yeah, right. And often leadership is still seen as, you know, a more muscular in trait and a masculine way of leading. I need to be strong, I need to be powerful. I don't give away emotions like all these different things. Like I shout whatever, like it's not necessarily true anymore. But often leadership is perceived in a different way to what I personally think really great leadership looks like.

And I lead. And you said you also lead authentically to yourself. And I imagine that that is one of the key differences here and that inspires the other women hope and not just within our companies, but within the networks and people who see us leading authentically to ourselves as women and they can see I recognise those qualities in myself.

00:17:50:19 - 00:18:09:12

Ros Deegan

Maybe I can do it too. Yeah, I hope I agree. I mean, I think it is something that unfortunately is takes time and that's not an excuse for it because you want to accelerate it. But the more people and again, it's also that like with like so people want to join other women, they want to see other women.

It makes people aspire to different things. And I think one of the reasons I never hold myself back was I was never sort of held back in my family was always sort of very ambitious for me and expected things from me with no kind of cut off because of my gender and and I've always expected things for myself.

But, but I think that there is a slight is it cultural, societal. But I think women are less good at faking it until we make it. That's what I always think, that in certain you know, and I'm sure you felt it early on when you were when he first took the CEO job. And that's a really challenging time when you're when you are learning curve is sort of, you know, you've got a ahead of the company.

And I think women are a little bit more likely to want to do what my my career path which which was sort of you know I did the role as is is the second in command. And then I did it in the first in command. And actually, in order to get more women in leadership positions, we need more women willing to take that on.

I don't know how we do that, but to to take on that, fake it until you make it aspect,

00:19:24

Sara Walker

I think was a great place to finish. And thank you very much. I think, you know, the authenticity, the passion comes through from both of you. And you say two key characteristics that CEOs founders need to have to to make success.

So thank you both very much. Thank you. Thank you.