Ruth Penfold (00:59)
welcome back to Women Who Lead and I'm really excited to be joined by Rhiannon here today because we go way back, we go way back, way
Rhiannon (01:09)
Way back. Way back.
Ruth Penfold (01:11)
back. We actually worked at Shazam together.
Ruth Penfold (01:14)
but didn't know each other very well at all, right?
Rhiannon (01:18)
No, but you know, you were you were there when my when I got the call that my grandmother died. You and I have been on a chat
Ruth Penfold (01:24)
Yeah
Rhiannon (01:25)
about r hiring and you and actually the rest of the recruiting team were there for me when I had to sit in a room and process it all at work. so maybe we didn't know each other very well, but you had a very important place in my heart.
Ruth Penfold (01:35)
What?
Ruth Penfold (01:36)
That's huge and beautiful. Wow, goodness. And wow, and we've reconnected recently. And when I was putting this CEO season together, I was like, I have to have you part of it. I have to have you be part of it because you're now CEO of Clue, which is all about, are you the world's leading tracking app for periods?
Rhiannon (01:59)
We we are the the number one women led period and menstrual cycle tracking app. So
Ruth Penfold (02:05)
then that's
Ruth Penfold (02:06)
the only one that counts, baby!
Rhiannon (02:10)
You see it.
Ruth Penfold (02:11)
Yeah,
Ruth Penfold (02:11)
yeah, Ruth said it, so therefore it's true. Motion carried. But how I like to start these conversations is without getting too much into the weeds of necessarily what you're doing, but I just wanted to acknowledge how woman-focused it was. But what does it mean for you to be in bloom in work and in life?
Rhiannon (02:32)
Do you know it's so interesting that you should ask me that and that even you know that even that your work is is about is called in bloom and to be in bloom because when I stepped into the CEO role, I had l I spent a lot of time thinking about and trying to visualize what did I want to change, because I knew some things were going to have to change. I knew there were some things that I would have to do differently and learn differently. And the image that I just kept having in my mind was of flourishing and of
Rhiannon (03:00)
unfurling like a flower unfurls. You know how
Ruth Penfold (03:02)
Mmm.
Rhiannon (03:03)
a a a bud is often quite tight. And often when you're in highly operational roles, a a lot of a lot of doing well it comes down to having a really tight grip on things. And yet I knew that that was going to be different in the CEO role. And so in my mind I the image that I was working towards was unfurling like a like a flower and being able to flourish like a flower does.
Ruth Penfold (03:28)
Mmm, I love that. love that. And hey, hey, plot reveal. That's why my company is called Bloom, right? It's also in reference to the seasons too. The fact is, is that we don't bloom all the time, right? Like flowers don't bloom all the time. They have, there's a seasonality there, which I think our modern world doesn't support us to live in reverence to enough. And
Ruth Penfold (03:51)
And that's something that sort of, think is one of the things that we need to shift as a society if we really want to achieve longevity as a species even, right? If we think we can be in
Rhiannon (04:02)
It's very true.
Ruth Penfold (04:03)
summer blooming all the time, then we're not necessarily gonna be there. But then every bloom, can we, you know, how big can those petals go? How tall can this tree?
Ruth Penfold (04:18)
grow into the sky, you know, those sorts of things which I love.
Rhiannon (04:21)
Totally. And
Rhiannon (04:22)
I actually think CEOing often has a a gardening analogy for me in my head because
Ruth Penfold (04:26)
Mmm.
Rhiannon (04:27)
there's a lot of it that's around a lot of what you're saying, a lot of CEOing is around identifying an area, making sure the soil is ready, it's prepared, you've planted the plants or sown the seeds, and then and then you have to wait. And you have to wait and see, right? Like you can't force y you y I I when I think back to some of the early things that I did in the role, you it's about
Rhiannon (04:49)
making a bet on that corner of the garden and that those plants or people are going to go together well in that corner and that they're gonna bloom into something beautiful that's really going to power the whole garden. But you have to wait and let it grow. You can't force anything. And in gardening when you try to force things it breaks. And there's something similar ish in CEOing, which I I find super interesting. And and you know also as with gardening, you can be paying attention to one corner of the garden and it goes well, but then you're
Rhiannon (05:16)
you're n you're not paying attention to another part of the garden and then it gets a bit overgrown and things get a bit woolly and you need
Ruth Penfold (05:21)
Right?
Rhiannon (05:22)
to and then you need to switch your attention and go back to that part of the garden. And then it's it's con it's very cyclical. You're constantly moving around,
Ruth Penfold (05:28)
Yeah!
Rhiannon (05:29)
focusing on different areas and watching them bloom and then transition through you know, might one area might be doing really well for a while and then things change and need some more love and attention. Then it will go back to doing brilliantly and you can move on to something else. And it's it's just it's very cyclical. It's not linear in the same way that
Ruth Penfold (05:45)
No.
Rhiannon (05:45)
a lot of
Rhiannon (05:46)
other functions are.
Ruth Penfold (05:48)
Mmm, no, I love that so much. And you actually, when I was sort of doing some research into the summer, the things you've spoken about previously in the past, you've spoken about a kind of moment where things clicked for you, right? Where you were like, realizing how much further a team can go together. And it feels like that's leaning into the example that you're giving there. But the reason I'm asking that question is because if we're speaking to
Ruth Penfold (06:15)
the woman right now who is maybe not even thinking about CEO ship, right? Or we're speaking to that phenomenal, maybe she's just stepped into leadership, maybe not, right? Like, what was that moment for you? And I'm curious about, yeah, like, what was that click moment and then what was born in you through it?
Rhiannon (06:38)
Yeah, you know I don't think there's been one I mean, there have been single moments and there's also been cycles within that. So when I f first stepped into my first leadership role, I was in my late tw mid to late twenties and I had this click that you that I have spoken about before where I really felt the my goodness, the energy and the power of the team and how much further and we can run together and how much more we can do together than I can ever do on my own. It's genuinely very I find that it's like a never ending battery. and it's it's really wonderful and I always find
Rhiannon (07:08)
the team and the the gestalt of the team is much more exciting than my own brain blocked away on my own doing XYZ. And so that was a really exciting discovery and it really awoke in me an ambition to I I thought, well I I love this and and we can do so much more together and when we lead and when we lead ourselves and when we lead each other and and you know that is also a cyclical thing that can pass back and forth between people depending on what you're doing.
Rhiannon (07:32)
and I really it really awoke that ambition in me. I thought, I don't know if I want to be a CEO, but I don't want that route closed to me. I want to be able to do everything I can to have that opportunity. And so I spent a lot of years working to further my skills and further my experience, but make sure that I was positioned so that nothing was closed to me. But then I spent a lot of time working quite closely with CEOs, not at the management team level, but that that at that sort of
Rhiannon (07:57)
one below that director VP, whatever it is in that organization that you're in, that layer that's the one below the management team, the management team's right hand gal, you know, the the person who executes everything and does everything exactly as, you know, as is needed. And I saw so much of what management teams look like and what CEOs look like and I thought, Well, that's not for me. I don't I don't want to do that. That looks hard and lonely and horrible and they all seem really stressed and
Rhiannon (08:26)
Why would I want to do that? No. And so I just shut it off as a, you know, I love what I'm doing, I'm gonna do what I'm doing, and that's it. I
Ruth Penfold (08:32)
Mm-hmm.
Rhiannon (08:33)
did want to move into an executive role, but I I just shut off the idea of CEOing. And so I I I spent a long time again at that one below the management team role. It took me a long time, it felt to break through into a management team role. And when I finally did, I loved it. I mean, I just loved the role so much and loved what I was doing and thought
Rhiannon (08:53)
Yes, this really confirms that I would never want to be a CEO. I love what I'm doing and look how hard the CEO role is. And it just does not look great. and I loved the CEOs I was working with. It wasn't because that they weren't great. I just saw what they were carrying and thought, I don't want to carry that and I don't want to do
Ruth Penfold (09:08)
Right?
Rhiannon (09:08)
it like that. And so that was how I went for quite a long time. And then and then when it was time to when the opportunity with Clue came up, Clue at the time had co-CEOs.
Rhiannon (09:20)
And I remember thinking, that's nuts and also wonderful. And it was really it was the first moment that it sort of broke through my thinking and made me just a little planted a little seed that said, there are other ways of doing it. May maybe. Not right now, but maybe this is something I could open myself up to again. And so I came to Clue very inspired by the women who were the co CEOs and actually the
Rhiannon (09:44)
very nearly all female management team. There was one man this still is, he's wonderful and he's an amazing colleague. and a very heavily female management team. and I was really inspired by working with them. They're they are amazing women and I still work with both of them even though they're no longer formally inside the clue team. They support us in other ways now. And as I worked with them, I thought more and more, hey, there are other ways of doing this. Maybe it is something that I would be interested in. And when the
Rhiannon (10:09)
when they when they left and and said, Well, you know, you should think about putting your hat in the ring I thought, Yeah, I'm gonna give it a go. I do want to I do want to put my hand up, you know, I and it was because of because I had seen them lead in a way that didn't look lonely and didn't look isolated.
Ruth Penfold (10:24)
Right.
Rhiannon (10:25)
and I and I thought, okay, there is a way to do this differently. As I was going through the process, I spoke to former CEOs I had worked with and one in particular a female CEO who I'd worked with in my previous
Rhiannon (10:36)
place and she and I said this I said you know this is my fear that it's lonely and stressful and I love the team. And she she said it doesn't have to be that way. You know, really it really can be done differently. And this sort of hero's journey stereotype of the great man CEO doesn't have to be the way it is. And she was so right, 'cause I have to say, I you know, from the moment I've been in the role, it's never felt lonely. It's it's not at all a lonely role. It doesn't have to be. In fact it's it's actually, here's the bit that I whisper.
Rhiannon (11:06)
It's actually really fun. This is the crazy thing. There are moments, of course, when it's stressful, of course. I mean any role has its moments when it's stressful. And actually, if you have a great management team, which I'm very blessed to work with an amazing management team, if you have a great board, which I'm blessed to work with an amazing board, you're not lonely at all. It's a remarkably collaborative. It's in fact it's a profoundly collaborative job. And it only works when you're very collaborative with the people who you work with. I think I've made
Rhiannon (11:32)
two decisions entirely on my own that haven't been in a collaboration and taking people with me. and they were very minor. And they were just because they were so minor, other people couldn't decide and so I just cast a tiebreaker. You know, it's a really it's not it doesn't have to be the way that it's portrayed. And and it really I think I wish it was, you know, I wish more people would talk about the the joy that comes from, you know, watching the whole team run together and the joy that comes from working with such
Rhiannon (12:00)
remarkable people and being able to collaborate so much and and realize that you're you know, it's not I don't see it as the the I don't see the role as a hero's journey role. I see it more as a gardener and as, you know, if you think about a stone arch, the stone in the the stone in the middle of the arch is not load bearing, right? It but without that stone, the arch can't hold up. So that's
Ruth Penfold (12:21)
Mmm.
Rhiannon (12:22)
the role for me is to be there to enable the rest of the stones to load bear.
Rhiannon (12:27)
And to really deliver what we're trying to deliver for the people who we're there to serve. And and that's that's it. Those were the clicks for me.
Ruth Penfold (12:34)
I love that, I love that. And what you've just named, hear so many times, which is, you know, what I hear most often from women and you've just described her perfectly, right? That highly capable, somebody's right-hand person, you know, doing everything, like operating at an incredibly high level.
Ruth Penfold (12:54)
but also not necessarily like not even wanting something. know, I'm just not that kind of person. That's just not my thing. You know, and I hear and to some degree, these are, I was gonna call them lies, but I think that might be a bit strong, right? Like it's a clever assumption that creates safety based on what you see and experience, right? And even for myself,
Ruth Penfold (13:20)
When I looked around me, I didn't love how leadership looked, but something in me wanted it anyway because I thought I could do it better. And I thought that if I can take this big leaky heart of mine into leadership roles and actually then surely I might be able to at least, right, maybe create an environment where humans were thriving. That was my goal, right?
Ruth Penfold (13:46)
because I'm coming from the people side, maybe I can do that. But I didn't find the examples that I needed to see of how that would be possible for me. So I actually ended up looking in the outside world and looking for who do I see lead, like community leaders? Where can I see people walking with a straight spine and walking with integrity and not in this weird hierarchy dance that we do in so many organizations?
Ruth Penfold (14:14)
You know, I've worked in organizations where you don't make eye contact with the CEO, for goodness sake, right? Like, are you crazy? Like, really? I mean, like, go on, what were you gonna say?
Rhiannon (14:23)
I know, I know. And but here's Yeah.
Rhiannon (14:27)
Well, here's the thing though, Ruth. I have been leading teams for more than twenty years now. More than twenty years, right? I think I was
Ruth Penfold (14:32)
Yeah!
Rhiannon (14:32)
twenty-six when I got my first when I was in my first management role. So if you take the ten thousand hours idea, I have more than ten thousand hours in the cockpit. If I were a pilot, I would be an extremely experienced. I think I'm at twenty thousand hours, right? In terms
Ruth Penfold (14:46)
Right.
Rhiannon (14:47)
of in terms of people leadership. And I have a really strong track record.
Rhiannon (14:52)
of delivering great results through other people and with teams. And I I'm not like I'm because I'm female, I'm going caveat that I'm not perfect. Of course I'm not perfect. There's lots of mistakes I make. I'm sort of blah blah blah. All those things. And a lot of the way and the things I do are almost orthogonal to accepted business wisdom around the way that we do things. And
Ruth Penfold (15:11)
Yeah.
Rhiannon (15:12)
and even, even in a CEO role, I cannot get people people don't want to hear it, you know, when I say
Rhiannon (15:19)
It's not the way I do it. Or I don't think that really works. You know, and and they don't there's something about it's incredibly hard to to not only see the other examples, it's r even hard to be the other example or to talk about it publicly because I don't know why, but it's just continuously you know, I thought I did think you know, I'm in a CEO role. Maybe now somebody will listen to me when I say I think XYZ and common practice is bollocks and doesn't actually deliver any value. Nope.
Ruth Penfold (15:43)
Right. Right.
Rhiannon (15:47)
And I don't
Rhiannon (15:48)
I don't know why that is. So, you know, I all I've can't come to the conclusion is that I I'm almost sort of secretly trying to do what I did. Once I had a piece of okay, this is a public podcast, but I'll share it anyway. When I was at Shazanne, the CEO, who you and I both knew, in a performance review for me. Very nice he f he provided a very nice piece of feedback. He said that he thought that I was achieving great results. He didn't understand how I did it, but it was clear that I did it.
Rhiannon (16:16)
And I thought that was that was great, like that he could acknowledge that I was doing something quite differently to the way he would do it and it was still having a result. He didn't try to change the way I was doing it. And I thought it was quite telling, the don't understand how she does it. And and that's the the thing that I find really fascinating is that even though when women lead, we can often point to the results. There's very little curiosity about what we do differently and why it's different.
Ruth Penfold (16:42)
Right,
Ruth Penfold (16:43)
right. And therefore it takes being excellent. It takes being, exceeds expectations always. have to, it's almost like you have to become this undeniable force so that people then can't be like, well, cause then it's like, the greatest respect to the CEO at the time, but you you become this, you become this undeniable force where then your methods
Ruth Penfold (17:08)
are like, well, I mean, don't get it, but okay, because you're doing this. Do you see what I mean? Rather than being like, oh, this is interesting, what's different here and how might we learn from that? But it does mean that you kind of end up forging your path, you know, on your own to some degree. But would you say then that almost like the idea of CEO popped in or that you...
Ruth Penfold (17:35)
that it is something that you'd actually had a greater yearning for deep down.
Rhiannon (17:39)
I had a uning and then I pushed it aside and then it came back. Yeah.
Ruth Penfold (17:42)
Okay. Yeah.
Ruth Penfold (17:45)
Yeah. And listeners, I want you to hear this because I'm gonna say this right now. You already know what your little yearnings are. You already know in yourself, what are the little moments where like you just get these intuitive hits. Ooh, could I? And then the fear will come in and the perfectly rational explanations will come in. Hey.
Ruth Penfold (18:11)
absolutely no way where you can't do that because look because look at it because look at it right and I can remember when I've had an opportunity to join a big corporate I looked at how exhausted all the women were that were in front of me and I thought I can't do that and it's because I thought you know like I I thought I don't know how I'm going to like I can't I can't work out I can't crack the code in a system that's already like that
Ruth Penfold (18:40)
So I continued in smaller organizations to see, okay, well maybe I can crack the code another way. Looking outside to sort of look for my inspiration because I couldn't find it. Couldn't find it anywhere else. There was something else that I saw that you'd spoken about before that I thought was quite interesting. And you were speaking about how being a CEO requires an enormous amount of self-restraint.
Ruth Penfold (19:04)
And I'd love you to say more on that with the caveat that one of the things that I don't think we talk about enough coming from those of us that worked in tech for a long time is or still do is how wonderful tech is at getting people to come together and work on stuff and actually share in each other's brilliance in the way that you're talking about. Right. So I say all that to say, I understand that we're trying to enable this phenomenal group of humans.
Ruth Penfold (19:31)
to actually share ideas, but I, that was my guess what you meant by self-restraint, but you can tell me more than you actually, whether that's what you actually meant.
Rhiannon (19:41)
and look, this is definitely one that I am still working on and that I do get wrong with terrifying frequency. there's an enormous amount of times when it's not helpful to jump in when you're on the CEO role, right? So there are
Rhiannon (19:55)
There are moments when when so there are mo I I've been in this business for over four years now. I know the business very well, I know the customers very well, I know the team very well. And there are moments when I want to jump in and when I want to say XYZ and and sometimes that's useful. Context is always useful. The more context we can share, the better, except if you share too much and people feel overwhelmed. and then sometimes it's also
Rhiannon (20:21)
not useful because inevitably the role is the a the stone at the top of the arch. It's not a load bearing role. And so if I jump in and I start getting involved in something executional, inevitably there will be demands that only the CEO role, you know, to do with the board or to do with investors or to do with partners that I have to turn that attention to. Well then who carries the execution load once that's done? that falls on the team who already has a very full roadmap and that I've just jammed something in there by
Rhiannon (20:49)
not exercising self-restraint
Ruth Penfold (20:50)
Mmm.
Rhiannon (20:51)
by just going, ooh, we can do XYZ, no, it's not that hard. Let me help here. You know, and so that is a it it's and sometimes because of the cyclical nature of CEOing, there are moments just in any role where it's busier than when it's not. And if you can't sit with that waiting, waiting, waiting, you know, for example, right now we are in a moment where the team is just on the verge of delivering some massive changes and improv
Rhiannon (21:17)
you know, huge exciting things into the product. And they need everybody to stay out of their way right now. They need to focus and they're they're at the sharp end of delivery. They've, you know, that what you described in terms of the amazingness of the team coming together is happening and I can see it. There's nothing I can do to help. If I were to be anywhere near it, I'm actually in the way. And even though I'm desperate to know and to see and to see it live, there's I have to restrain myself from because I will just get in the way if I try to get in there right now. And so it's this sort of a self-restraint of going
Rhiannon (21:46)
I've done everything I can to enable them. I gave them the context, I gave them what we need to do, I gave them the resources in terms of time and money and people that they needed. That's what I can contribute. And now I have to wait and let them do their jobs. And that bit is you know, that bit's really quite hard. And that's the dangerous bit, I think, for CEOs. You know, if there's there's a there's
Ruth Penfold (22:06)
Yeah.
Rhiannon (22:07)
a especially if, you know, CEOs who come from operational backgrounds, which I think most of us do, and who love
Rhiannon (22:13)
operating and love delivering and love seeing results out in the world, then that's the moment when you can tip over into from enabling to hindering. And that's the
Ruth Penfold (22:23)
Yeah.
Rhiannon (22:25)
that's the bit to sit on.
Ruth Penfold (22:26)
Yeah, absolutely. And that's a beautiful call out. That really, really is. there was something else that you said as well, which is the sort of discovery of you are not your role, right? Like your own identity as a human being. And I think that, you know, high achieving women, we are like, I know.
Ruth Penfold (22:52)
Personally, when I left Shazam, wasn't so much about my title, but working for Shazam was something that whenever in conversation or I met somebody, they'd be like, you work for Shazam? Because most people had heard of Shazam and Shazam does something magical. So I kind of consciously, in my next job, I mean, I then became VP of people for a machine learning identity company called Onfido.
Ruth Penfold (23:18)
that not that many people, didn't carry, like don't get me wrong, if you're in tech and you're in the UK, they were an impressive organization, but they didn't have quite the same like, you know, like ooh, wow factor, right? Where people are like, my gosh, that's so cool. So I know I experienced some of that and I actually consciously decoupled myself with a consumer brand.
Ruth Penfold (23:44)
And I was like, come on, I need to let this go. I need to see who Ruth is, not just Ruth. Or Ruthie, as I was known as Shazam, at Shazam As, because fun fact listeners, I thought Ruth was too, I was afraid of how big I could be as Ruth deep down. And Ruthie felt softer and easier and more playful and safer. And so I let myself be that. There's a whole other story there, right? So there again.
Ruth Penfold (24:11)
I'm minimizing myself in so many ways. Anyway, I'm just curious in that little brain dump there, what's come up for you in that? Like, what kind of journey have you gone on there that you might wanna share with us?
Rhiannon (24:25)
Yeah, there's this entrepreneur who I really admire called Hiten Shah who talks about how for him, his family gives him identity and his team gives him direction. And I thought that was a really great way of expressing it. You know, I I am I'm not the role. I am a human doing this role. And there have been people in this role before me and there will be people after me. And you know, when you look, because I think often one of the things that we do, you know, women like us is we'll look at the data. It was very helpful to look at the data and realise hmm.
Rhiannon (24:53)
Most people don't do more than one or two shots at CEO. You know, the the clickbait headline is CEO career dead end, right? Like so there is a the what is the next step from there? So I think it was a it was really helpful to to r to realise, to do that work to try to separate out from I'm not the role. And the irony, of course, is that once I started to apprehend that, which of course it's not perfect all the time, you know, when I get criticized, of course I internalize it.
Rhiannon (25:21)
but once I started to really apprehend that, I collaboration, for example, was so much easier because criticism or feedback wasn't criticism of me, Rihanna, the human, you know, me, Rihanna, the mom or the wife or the sister or daughter. It was just about the role. And it was so much easier just to hear it and not not get my back up. And of course we all know that people who can hear it and who don't get their backs up are great to work with and you want to work more with them and you feel better about it. And it's you know, and so that started to happen with the board and with
Rhiannon (25:49)
And suddenly the relationship really clicked, you know, in terms of so the irony was is I think by being able to realize that I I was able to be better in the role and enjoy the role more by letting go of some of that. so I I I think that also I thought was very interesting when you talked about the Ruthie moment. That really brought up for me. I did the inverse. So when I was when
Ruth Penfold (26:06)
Mmm.
Rhiannon (26:07)
I started working, so my name is very long. There is a short version of my name, which
Rhiannon (26:14)
I which my husband and my parents and my everybody I grew up with and everybody who I'm friends with who I haven't met through work calls me by. But I don't I s I and I made a very conscious decision when I started working and I started to enjoy work and thought that maybe I wanted to do something here. I've never used I don't ever use the short form at work. And I've
Ruth Penfold (26:31)
Mmm.
Rhiannon (26:32)
I've never I've never used it and I don't ever let anyone 'cause it's a diminutive. That is the word we use in English when you do a nickname. It's a diminutive. It diminishes.
Ruth Penfold (26:41)
Mmm.
Rhiannon (26:42)
The and so I very consciously did that. I have one or two slightly awkward moments in my career where I have met 'cause New Zealand's very small as well, where for example I worked for a while with this woman who was a lovely woman who I didn't know her before I started working at the organization, but she knew quite well a former flatmind, flatmate of mine. So she knew me through him by the diminutive. But that you know, I was in a very senior role in that organization and I didn't want to be called that. You know, so she would call me it, but I didn't feel I could correct her because of the, you know, the kind of the social connection that
Rhiannon (27:12)
we sort of had. but that I I've made a very conscious decision to to go for the longer version of of my name, for precisely
Ruth Penfold (27:20)
Yeah.
Rhiannon (27:21)
that reason. And then I was very conscious about pink jobs in the office. So, you know, for example, I never I never made the tea and I never brought cake into the office.
Ruth Penfold (27:31)
Hmm.
Rhiannon (27:32)
and because of these are all things that are
Rhiannon (27:34)
You know, they they can't
Ruth Penfold (27:36)
Absolutely.
Rhiannon (27:37)
it it it puts you in that
Rhiannon (27:39)
On Saturday night I went to see a a set of people who've gone to a stand up comedy course. My husband was part of it. And there was a woman there who works in tech and she said, you know, when you're a woman, all roles are caregiving roles, even though she's a back end engineer. And I was like, That is really insightful what you just said and and th there's a real risk that you become a caregiver or in a caregiving role with the
Ruth Penfold (28:01)
Absolutely.
Rhiannon (28:02)
with the pink jobs and people
Rhiannon (28:04)
The horrible truth about our society is is that people don't promote caregivers to CEO. So you have to be not in that room.
Ruth Penfold (28:08)
Absolutely. I call it wiping
Ruth Penfold (28:11)
the workplace. That was what I called it. Right? Like we
Rhiannon (28:13)
Yes.
Ruth Penfold (28:13)
literally, we show up and we're like, wait, no, hang on. Cause we can see it. We know, you know, this needs to happen. That needs to happen. And yeah, it's huge. It's huge. And we have to, we have to shift that, but we have to stop measuring our enoughness by how good we make other people feel like that. And that's the hard
Rhiannon (28:31)
Exactly. Yeah.
Ruth Penfold (28:33)
bit.
Rhiannon (28:33)
But you know what is an interesting flip there as well. So I was very
Ruth Penfold (28:36)
Mm.
Rhiannon (28:36)
careful never to do but once I moved in so for example I I didn't I didn't do the dishes in the office. I didn't not I always took my care of my own dishes. But I wasn't, you know, the person who went around doing the dishes behind everybody else
Ruth Penfold (28:45)
Yeah.
Rhiannon (28:45)
or bringing cake in. But now that I'm in a CEO role I think it's quite different. And I think I
Ruth Penfold (28:49)
yeah.
Rhiannon (28:50)
I think A it's actually good for me to do the dishes. You know, I really you know
Ruth Penfold (28:53)
I completely agree. Yep. Service
Ruth Penfold (28:55)
mindset. Service mindset now. Yep. It's different.
Rhiannon (28:56)
Exactly. So it's a different you know, so that I I'm trying
Rhiannon (28:59)
to flip that stuff. But that's I think how I don't know, it's weirdly weirdly we have to think about these things as we travel through.
Ruth Penfold (29:05)
Yeah, no,
Ruth Penfold (29:07)
absolutely. Now there's two more things I want to ask you and I know time is marching away, but like you are CEO of Clue right now, cyclicality matters to me a lot because I believe that cyclicality as women is our superpower and that if we were to spend our life, if we were to introduce to womaning from a place of reverence for what it means to woman and embrace the fact that we change.
Ruth Penfold (29:34)
and realize the magic that that gives us beyond birthing children, right? And there was a different association with that experience that was built into the way that we experience our lives, the world would be a very different place. That we wouldn't carry shame over it or pretend it wasn't happening. And that's not to catastrophize it either, but actually we change. We have this miraculous season within us.
Ruth Penfold (30:00)
that these four seasons every month, and then that changes obviously when we hit Peri and menopause, but nevertheless, cyclicality in women is inextricably linked. So I'm curious about once you started working even for Clue before, was there a shift in you where that started to come online a bit more, where you were like, actually, this is way more important than I imagined, or had that happened sooner?
Rhiannon (30:27)
It was a bit different for me, because my I had a very straightforward cycle. Everything was very straightforward and nothing really to think about until I started trying to have children, which was when I was at Shazam. And so then I
Ruth Penfold (30:39)
Hmm.
Rhiannon (30:40)
and then and then that didn't that was was not straightforward for us. And I ended up having to go through fertility treatment while I was at Shazam. and we got very lucky actually on on the drug rounds, but having to go through all of that experience totally flipped my
Rhiannon (30:55)
It changed my thinking not so much around cyclicalness, but more around I had had this assumption that I could always plan in longer term increments and I could live in, you know, I will do X, Y, Z in this many years. And it totally destroyed that because I realized that this most fundamental assumption that I'd had that I would have children might not happen. It might not come to pass. And we spent a lot and so everything shrunk from these horizons of years down to every month.
Rhiannon (31:24)
Am I pregnant or not? And I wasn't, over and over and over again. And then am I going through the treatment and what's going to happen on this round of the treatment? And you know, when are we going to have these blood tests? And the and that it became a much more realizing how much of an illusion the longer term planning
Ruth Penfold (31:39)
Hmm
Rhiannon (31:40)
can be. And then when I was fortunate enough to fall pregnant with my first child, I I realized how everything telescoped down to a few months at a time. So, you know, I'm I I remember getting to the end of the first trimester and having
Rhiannon (31:53)
blood tests and all the stuff and everything came back fine and thinking everything's okay. I don't I can stop worrying. I had this ten glorious seconds. It's about the only ten seconds of my life wherever just didn't run worry. And then I realized I've got years of worry ahead of me and then it all came in. But then I everything, you know, it's like three months there, next three months, next three months. And then when you have a newborn you realize that any illusion of control really is just an illusion. And so everything just that whole process and I was
Rhiannon (32:20)
pregnant and or breastfeeding nonstop for six and a half years. So it
Ruth Penfold (32:23)
Mmm.
Rhiannon (32:24)
just completely changed the way that I I I I stopped thinking about control and time and that I could plan so much and started to just see life in smaller increments and be much more okay with, well, we're doing the best that we can right now. And you know, and that's and
Ruth Penfold (32:40)
Right, right.
Rhiannon (32:41)
that's good enough. And that's great. Yeah.
Ruth Penfold (32:43)
Right, and that really is, like, we're cyclical in every way, right? Like, the season of mothering requires particularly active duty, like, super active duty mothering. Active duty mothering, lasts a long time, but like, super sonically act, like, that's just a different season that you, you're never gonna understand it till you experience it. And I say that not having experienced it, right? So like, so, but that, that.
Ruth Penfold (33:08)
I love what you say there because different seasons do call for different things. But we've been shown a model for humaning that is modeled in the masculine. And therefore we're expecting ourselves to be like that. And it's quite a surprise when we learn that we're not. Yeah, massive surprise.
Rhiannon (33:25)
massive surprise. I think any
Rhiannon (33:28)
and I I see that often here is, you know, for we are often sold, particularly I think as women operating in this environment, the illusion that if we just try harder, and we just work hard enough and we're just in control enough, we're in control of our food and our exercise and our energy and our bodies and our what we do in our jobs and if we in control enough, then everything will be okay and we will be safe
Ruth Penfold (33:49)
Mmm.
Rhiannon (33:50)
and we can make it through. But it's not true. And when
Rhiannon (33:54)
when we come up against and the menstrual cycle is really interesting in this impact in this respect because it is a system wide regulator. So it impacts yes, children, but impacts all sorts of other things. When we come up against that, we realise how much of an illusion the control is. You know, if you have endometriosis, you can't just try harder to get rid of that crippling
Ruth Penfold (34:10)
No.
Rhiannon (34:11)
pain. You know, if you're living with PMOS, you can't just try harder to make your hormones suddenly
Ruth Penfold (34:14)
Mm-mm.
Rhiannon (34:15)
do something. It's you know, like it's this weird
Ruth Penfold (34:17)
No, perimenopause,
Ruth Penfold (34:18)
you cannot just try harder.
Rhiannon (34:20)
Yeah, certly, certly.
Ruth Penfold (34:22)
my season
Ruth Penfold (34:23)
right now I'm like but I'm but I'm doing all the things no honey it's a
Rhiannon (34:28)
And
Rhiannon (34:29)
it's a it's a myth that we're sold that helps actually keep us contained because we think it's our
Ruth Penfold (34:33)
Right,
Rhiannon (34:34)
fault, 'cause we haven't tried hard enough.
Ruth Penfold (34:36)
right, exactly. that's huge. that we think that we haven't tried hard enough. So that is a beautiful thing to almost exhale on as we come to the end of the episode. My final question though is, what's the one thing that you wish that you'd known sooner in your career?
Rhiannon (34:53)
so many things. one thing. Ruth, this is really tricky.
Ruth Penfold (34:56)
Yeah, you're
Ruth Penfold (34:57)
like, that's awful. Don't do that to me. Intuitive
Rhiannon (35:00)
One thing.
Ruth Penfold (35:01)
hit. Maybe just... Yeah.
Rhiannon (35:02)
Num numbers out people down. I say this all the time. If you wanna progress, numbers up people down and I wish I'd known that earlier and s sort of started practicing that earlier so that I could be heard more earlier. it's a it's it's a it is a it is a mechanic that accepts the world the way it is, and maybe that's not the greatest thing, but it is a mechanic that enables you to
Rhiannon (35:28)
exist with that within that world and and get heard. And getting heard is really important, I think. I think we you know
Ruth Penfold (35:32)
Now if, and if I'm hearing
Ruth Penfold (35:34)
that for the first time, tell us exactly what you mean by it.
Rhiannon (35:38)
So that's the idea that when you because we do operate in hierarchical systems at work, and the great mistake everybody makes about hierarchy is that they don't like it because they conflate hierarchy and respect. Everybody,
Ruth Penfold (35:50)
Mmm.
Rhiannon (35:51)
we are all deserving of respect as individual human beings. And this is the only way that we can have any way through this is if we treat each other with the respect and love that we all deserve. Doesn't matter where we come from or what we do. Hierarchy is just a scaling mechanic. It's just a way
Ruth Penfold (36:04)
Yeah.
Rhiannon (36:04)
of organising larger and larger groups of people.
Rhiannon (36:08)
if you're talking to someone up the hierarchy, lead with numbers and impact. And if you're talking to someone down the hierarchy, lead with the people and ask about the people and what's going on with them.
Ruth Penfold (36:15)
Beautiful.
Ruth Penfold (36:18)
that is huge. I know that people's minds have just gone, Yeah, the way that I frame that is with a, is particularly when I'm working with people on negotiation is what's in it for them. Everything
Rhiannon (36:31)
Checkling.
Ruth Penfold (36:31)
comes down to what's in it for them. Like what did they get out of the thing that you want? There's always something. And if not, then you probably need to work a bit harder to figure out what's the upside for the thing that you want.
Ruth Penfold (36:44)
what could it mean for the person that you want it from. It's huge. Well, this has been a complete pleasure. Thank you so much for being here. And if people are curious about you and want to know more or just explore more about the work that you're doing today, what's the best way for them to find you?
Rhiannon (37:02)
Well, thank you for having here, Ruth. It's just been lovely. I'm on LinkedIn. I am slow on LinkedIn, but I am there and I will I will if you know, people reach out there, I will I will it it might take me a few months, but I will eventually get there get back to people. So LinkedIn is the best way.
Ruth Penfold (37:17)
Beautiful. Well, thank you so much, my darling. This was such a gift.
Rhiannon (37:23)
Thank you.
