November 26, 2023 • 20 mins
Join us for an enlightening journey with our wonderful guest, Dr Natalie Kenny, the CEO of Biograd and the recent recipient of the Outstanding Entrepreneur and Inclusive Innovation awards at the Northern Power Women Awards. This episode reveals the riveting narrative of a girl with a dream of becoming a scientist, who found herself as the leader of a blossoming business.
Natalie lays bare the unexpected pathways life has taken her, underlining her unwavering commitment to her scientific roots while nurturing her business and personnel to fruition. Don't miss your chance to hear wisdom from Natalie's journey and her sage advice on striking a balance between work, life, and mental health.
Listen to Learn:
🎙️Natalie's experiences and lessons gained from establishing her own business
🎙️The impacts of toxic positivity
🎙️The importance of self-awareness and tuning into your body's needs
🎙️The significance of a work-life balance
Listen here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1981646
#NPWPodcast #ListenNow #Podcast #WeArePower
Find out more about We Are PoWEr here. 💫
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
The Northern Power Women podcast for your career
and your life, no matter whatbusiness you're in.
Hello and welcome to theNorthern Power Women podcast.
My name is Simone and everyweek, I speak to amazing,
remarkable, inspiring and justkick ass individuals who are
using their power for good.
As we continually over here weare Power HQ strive for that
(00:41):
more equal, diverse andinclusive world, and this week I
am chatting to the incredibleDr Natalie Kenny.
I always think that then thereshould be letters.
They've got to be coming.
Dr Natalie Kenny, who is theCEO of Biograd and the winner of
not just the outstandingentrepreneur category this year,
but a cheeky little commendedfor inclusive innovation at this
(01:02):
year's 2023 Northern PowerAwards.
Natalie, natalie, natalie,welcome.
What do you think about theletters?
Welcome to the podcast, let'stalk about them.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Letters I'll take whatever I can get to be honest
with you.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
It's nice to be here finally, oh, it's great, it's
great to see you and you havesuch an amazing story which
we're going to jump into andwe're going to sort of navigate,
sort of from the Amazon jungleto extra Madura to where else
are we going to go?
Neurological research,respiratory diseases and
everything in between.
(01:36):
Talk to us about how you got towhere you are now as the chief
exec of the Biograd group, noteven company a group.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Do you know what?
It was never a conscious plan.
So when I was a kid right, Idon't know if you remember this
Do you ever remember seeing afilm called Medicine man?
It was Sean Connery and he wentto go live in the middle of the
Amazon jungle and he lived withthe tribe and he found a cure
for cancer.
I was a little girl growing upin Birkenhead and I said to my
mom that's what I want to do.
Mom, I realized that and DrQuinn medicine woman, you know,
(02:07):
when she traveled around, likeyou know the wild west, and
cured people.
So I always wanted to be ascientist.
But it's really difficult, isn'tit?
Because you say to your parentsor to your teacher I want to be
a doctor, a nurse, a teacher, alawyer, a dentist, a police
person, all of this, and theycan give you a plan because we
(02:29):
see what those people do.
But I didn't want to do any ofthose.
I wanted to be a scientist.
I wanted to change the world,make a difference, help people,
explore the world, do reallycool things.
I didn't really want to carefor people, I wanted to go, I
wanted to see things, and so mycareers advisor at school gave
me a full plan to be a landscapegardener because I said I
wanted to work in the jungle.
(02:49):
So it was a little bit lost.
Really I didn't see the pointin doing my.
I didn't see the point.
You know, I was doing A-levels.
I could not see the pointbecause I didn't want to be a
science teacher and I didn'twant to be a doctor and, yeah,
I'd never met a scientist, seena scientist other than what you
see on TV.
So you know, I sort of got toit in a roundabout way, much
(03:10):
like probably most otherscientists.
I did my A-levels, didn't doparticularly well, moved to
Ireland for a year, worked in ashop, knew I wasn't where I
wanted to be but didn't know howto get to where I wanted to be.
So did my undergrad, did mypost-grad and then ended up
working in Peru for JohnsHopkins Medical School as a
(03:32):
neurological parapsytologist.
I was working in Lima and thenup in the Andes as well.
Then I ended up in the middleof the Amazon rainforest.
That was my dream job, workingfor St George's Medical School.
Then funding fell through.
We've back to the UK, worked atPfizer for a few years, then
did my doctorate intranslational medicine.
Oh, I worked in Ectromodora inSpain as well.
You mentioned that for a bit.
I forgot about that Sort of Ialways wanted to be a scientist.
(03:56):
It's all I ever wanted to do.
And then I did a couple ofpost-docs in the Institute of
Environmental Health.
I worked in Cambridge for a bit, was really happy as a
scientist, never wanted to beanything else.
I was very happy with my life.
But you know, strange thingshappen then and life is never
linear.
You have your ups and downs,and remember somebody who wants.
One of my cousins once told melife is like a wheel and
(04:17):
sometimes you're at the top andsometimes you're at the bottom,
but you will never stay whereyou are.
And then I felt like, you know,I sort of went from the bottom
and over sort of 10, 15 years,sort of far away, up to the top,
and then my life from theoutside wasn't necessarily what
my life was living it.
And so I did something reallyagainst my normal nature.
(04:41):
I just couldn't see any otherthing to do.
I was a scientist.
It was intrinsically part of mynature, it's my identity as a
scientist, and you can't be ascientist without a lab.
So I walked into a science parkand I rented a lab for a year
with no way of knowing how it'sgonna pay for it.
But I figured out.
I just figured that out on theway.
So that was 2014.
(05:03):
Yeah, and then the company'sgrown and grown and grown and
grown since then, you know.
So it was never.
We'd never, I'd never aspiredto do, to be a CEO, I'd never
aspired to own a business.
It all, everything grew aroundthe science and I put a really
good team in.
It was definitely not easy.
There was there's, no clearpath.
I think people sometimes seethe awards and think, well,
(05:24):
she's done that because anybodycould do that.
But it was a labor of love andit was difficult, but it was my
way of staying sane.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
I just want to go back to.
We started off with medicinewoman.
Sean Connery, the Amazon I'malmost throwing 007 in there
because I think you'redefinitely a superhero.
I think you're in secret agentin there, but they're the
letters after my name, 007.
I'm going back to that piece ofpaper or that pack that you
(05:53):
were given with the landscapegardener on Just at what point.
I'm trying to see where thatjump is, or for that massive.
Maybe it is the 007 dive, isn'tit?
From someone trying to put youin a box over here and get you
to go and be a landscapegardener, which is amazing
career, but you knew you wantedto be the scientist.
Where was that bit in themiddle, or that bit that just
(06:16):
went?
I'm just gonna.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Well, do you know what's really weird In my life?
Any of those big decisions thatI've made that have ended up
being life changing have alwayscome because of something that I
perceived at the time as beingnegative, and I'm sure anybody
listening to this who has gotolder relatives or people
advising that are a certain agemy nan used to say to me it's
just not meant to be.
(06:38):
I applied for jobs that I wasabsolutely sure were made for me
and they say it's just notmeant to be.
And now I believe that I thinksometimes these really horrific
things happen in life to test usand to actually give you a bit
of gumption, I guess is the word.
(06:59):
Because I didn't drop out ofcollege.
I just never really went, mygrades weren't that good, I
didn't see the point of it and Iwas doing something I was
really unhappy with and thatforced me to go.
I went and did my undergrad inmolecular biology and that was
it.
Once I got there, so many doorsopened up once I got to
(07:20):
university and I knew that therewere options.
So once I was at university,that was great.
Getting into university knowingthat there were gonna be career
options available for me tookme around a couple of years,
longer than it would have maybetaken Most people who might have
had different advice.
But actually it was right forme.
I was a couple of years older,I was more determined, I was
(07:44):
less likely to listen tonegative comments Because I,
just, I, just I didn't have theenergy for it.
I didn't have the energy for it.
So many people are told maybethe scientist was not a feasible
life choice, and I guess onceyou're on that journey you're
like can I swear on this?
But yeah, you just see, youknow I'm here and I'm gonna try,
(08:07):
and if I don't try I'll hatemyself forever.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Who or what was it that made you believe that you
could we?
Speaker 2 (08:13):
see all of Northern Power Women Awards and all these
awards.
You see these women that areinspirational and incredible.
For years, you know, I'd seethese women.
They'd definitely be women toaspire to be like, but I would
hazard a guess that every singlewoman there's ever one and if
your we are power awards hasgone through something that
could have broken them.
(08:34):
And part of coming out theother side is that self-belief,
and sometimes there isn'tanybody to have you back.
Sometimes it just isn't, andsometimes it's not even that you
believe in yourself, it's thatyou cannot believe in the
alternative.
So it wasn't that there wasthat support, necessarily.
(08:55):
It was that the alternative tome succeeding wasn't an option
that I could let into my reality.
And what would you?
Speaker 1 (09:05):
say to anyone out there who's listening?
Because, like you said earlier,people look at you and you know
surrounded and multi-award,winning, you know lots of
accolades, but what would yousay?
And people like she's all overit, she has it all going on and
we just highlighted thatsometimes you just have to
scratch a little bit and you seethat Actually we don't.
(09:25):
What would you say to that?
You know that individual, orthose individuals like they're
listening today to motor them toknow that actually they can get
through this, they can havethat belief.
That's a really good question,I guess nobody has it all going
on.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
I think this toxic positivity, this social media,
this concept that women have itall, you can have it all but you
can't do it all.
And I feel like you know I'msaying here there was some
hardship, but I certainly don'tthink that you know, if you
scratch onto the surface, Idon't have.
I feel like I have it all but Idon't do it all.
(10:02):
And that is probably my biggestshift in mentality from
probably the last time I was onthe show, probably the last
seven or eight years.
I outsource a lot.
I get people in and I've heardthis on podcasts before from
other people that say you know,when you start an upper business
, employee experts I like tothink how the hell am I going to
afford to employ experts?
(10:22):
I haven't got any money.
But actually it is one thingthat every time we've made a
profit, the profits come backinto employing people to make my
life easier.
So yeah, I do, I do.
You know, I have a really nicework-life balance.
To say it's easy would beuntrue.
But if it was easy, it would beboring and I couldn't do that.
(10:45):
I just I couldn't.
I couldn't do something that'srepetitive.
I'm not built to do the job,where I get up at nine.
You know I'm in work nine tillfive, 48 weeks a year and I have
a few weeks holiday.
I could not live like that.
I've never lived like that.
I'm an all or nothing person.
I go until I burn out and thenI have some time off and then I
go 100% again.
(11:05):
That is my personality and thatsuits me really well.
I think it's quite commonamongst entrepreneurs.
I think you're hyper focused onthings, you get excited about
things and you push past thattiredness.
Any of that sort of normalphysiological things, of that
would normally stop you.
You sort of go through it and Iguess that's what allows you to
achieve amazing things.
I certainly think that's commonamongst scientists and it's
(11:28):
certainly common amongstentrepreneurs.
I am so.
It's just listening to yourself, isn't it?
Listening to your body,listening to your capabilities
and knowing that you can only gofull pelt for a certain amount
of time.
But you can.
Nobody wants to have it all.
You have to be desperatelymiserable.
If you had it all, what elsewould there be to get?
Speaker 1 (11:46):
But I certainly feel happy and fulfilled for sure,
but not because life's easy andwe always talk about things,
those slogans on those tote bagsor these t-shirts and it's, you
know, it's that whole.
It's okay to have it all, butyou don't have to do it all.
You know you can easily, and Ithink that's a big difference.
And we talked just before wepressed record on today's part
(12:09):
about something that you'reintentionally doing.
You spent the pandemic justbeing totally accessible 24
seven and just driving forwardat 4,000 million miles an hour,
and and you're actually nowgoing to actually do a bit more
of that intentional kind oftimeout, aren't you?
Is that a big decision?
Was that easy for you to go?
(12:30):
No, I'm just going to do this.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
No, it was dead easy.
So pre pandemic I was reallygood with my timescale.
So obviously single parent,child at nursery and in school.
So there were very clear hoursas to when I worked.
So I would usually work from 4till 7am.
I get up at 4, I'd plan my dayby 7am.
I could have responded to allmy emails on the day before,
message my assistant or thepeople in the office that
(12:52):
everything's sorted for when Iget in at 10.
And that would give me 7 till 8to get my son get into school,
get to the office for 10.
I would be in their tensile toand it'd be meeting, meeting,
meeting, meeting, meeting.
I do phone calls in the car onthe way to work, nine till 10
phone calls on the car, from twotill three for when I got to
school and then I would switchmy phone off from 4 till 8 or,
(13:14):
sorry, 3 till 8.
And that would be my time withmy son.
I was very, very clear cutduring COVID.
The company just grewexponentially and the stakes
were higher for people's livesthe diagnostic services that we
did and moving into more workthat we're doing around stem
cells, regenerative medicines,neuroscience work.
It has been 24-7, it's beenmore critical.
(13:36):
So generally we had a rule thatmy phone would be off between
midnight and 4am so that I couldsleep those four hours.
But you can't keep doing thatforever, so that's been for a
few years.
So for me, I'm taking six weeksjust to grow some, get back
into the habit of being healthyand to have that work-life
balance.
That just wasn't possibleduring COVID.
(13:59):
So for me, six weeks which willallow me to take my son to
school, go to the gym, have acoffee with friends, just reset
and then get back to work andhave the ability to be a bit
more balanced, because thenthat's really important.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
And how do you stop getting ahead of that?
How do you stop planning forsix weeks ahead?
Or are you already there?
Do you already know what you'regoing to come back to with that
?
The bag of great new ideas tochange the world and support
next-gen talent, because that'ssomething you're massively
passionate about.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, yeah, well, to be honest with you, I'm sat on
my other screen at the moment.
I've got my R&D plan for theyear, which we're just sort of
calculating at the moment.
So obviously, we're a scienceresearch company and we have in
one of our companies we have sixR&D projects on at the minute
and the other one we have four,so we have some amazing
scientists.
I employ people with moreexperience and skills than I've
(14:53):
got.
We've got some really excitingthings on, so people are
perfectly capable of runningtheir own departments, the group
to.
Really all I am at the momentis I coordinate to make sure
that the different groups arealigned.
But, to be honest, we have agreat management team that do
that and I go out and speak topeople about what we do.
But, again, we have some reallygreat departments that do that.
(15:16):
So I guess at the moment I ammore of a hindrance to my
company than anything else.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
So everyone's getting a holiday, right, or they're
all, but everyone's just goingto be anticipation.
You know, in anticipation ofthat, right, I've got a pad here
or I've got a file open.
I'm ready to share, do you?
Speaker 2 (15:34):
know what.
I went to a talk and somebodysaid the worst thing ever.
Everybody knows that when anentrepreneur goes on holiday for
two weeks, the list they comeback with is awful.
But, to be honest, our projectsare big.
I mean they're really reallybig organized projects.
So the dendrocyt cellmanufacturing that we're setting
(15:55):
up, the cartes cell therapywork that we've got ongoing and
the Parkinson's research that wehave, they're really well
organized and there's lesschance now, given that the
company is so much bigger.
There's less chance of me justrocking up and going by the way,
although saying that that'sprobably how all six of these
projects started.
So I don't know, wait tillJanuary we'll see, we will see.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
And I'm just talking about you, talked about you have
, you know, we've recognized thefact that you have achieved so
much and you have beenrecognized with so many awards.
But obviously the NorthernPowering Awards, that's
something entrepreneur,inclusive innovation was the
highlight exemplar.
But seriously, what do awardsmean to you?
You know?
Speaker 2 (16:38):
I want to go back to that point of seeing other women
win these awards, and I don'tknow if you've experienced this
as well.
So, as girls, we're often toldto be polite, to stay quiet, to
be calm, to stay within our box,and I think now we're a
(16:58):
generation of women that arereally angry and frustrated and
we're hitting men of wars andwe're just even more sort of
angry, and so we're saying moreabout inequality, we're talking
about it more, we're shoutingabout it more, we're helping
each other more, and it's great.
You know, I see other womenwinning these awards and think,
you know, look at them, they'rea beacon of hope for us.
(17:20):
That's what we can achieve.
But I wonder sometimes, if Ispoke to other women as Zed, do
you ever feel exhausted for theamount of fighting that you have
to do to achieve something thatother people can achieve
without fighting?
Do you ever have self-doubtbecause you feel like you're the
only person doing it?
And do you ever feel like, byshouting about inequality, that
(17:44):
maybe people perceive you as avictim and none of us, I don't
think, perceive ourselves as avictim?
And so I guess for me, what thisaward really did was show me, I
guess, or make me feel whetherit was something like this.
It made me feel like I wasn'talone, that other women agreed
with me and that there was somesort of support there, because
(18:08):
not everybody's voice gets heard.
And I've been lucky over thelast few years that some of the
things that I've talked abouthave been picked up and have
been shared.
And to know that I'm not theonly person that feels like that
and that the work that I'mdoing is in the right direction.
I think that's what the awardmeans to me more than anything,
because it encourages me to keepgoing.
(18:29):
And I think if I hadn't won theawards and this sounds awful I
thought that self-doubt isalways there, isn't it?
And you think am I doing theright thing?
Am I too loud?
Am I too obnoxious?
Am I irritating too many people?
Am I too much of a disruptor?
And these awards, I guess, givea barometer for general society
(18:49):
to show that actually, no,there's a lot of support for
disruption when we're talkingabout quality.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
And absolutely not.
Every Northern power womancomes in one size, shape, voice,
background.
That, for me, is always a thing, and you talk about platform
and using that voice for good.
That's where it's about thatdisrupting, then, using that
power for good and having yourvoice heard and really
accelerating that.
Dr Natalie, medicine woman,superhero, agent of change,
(19:17):
disruptor, entrepreneur,defender of the good, and about
to be, I'd like to say, a ladyin a leisure but I'm literally
kidding myself for laughinginside and saying that outside
but actually you're gonna comeback with salsa skills, because
that's one of your things thatwe talked about before.
You're gonna do a few littlesalsa moves and we will see that
on stage.
(19:38):
It's strictly come Northernpower women, maybe next year.
Yeah, natalie, thank you so somuch for joining us today.
We didn't get even through ahalf of the questions, but we
had a great rich discussion, asI knew I would, with you.
Thank you so much for joiningme.
Thank you for having me.
I thank all of you forlistening.
Please do stay connected on allof our socials at North Power
Women on Twitter or X andNorthern Power Women and all the
(20:01):
other socials.
Leave us a review podcast atnorthernpowerwomencom.
That's old school, isn't it Agood old email?
And don't forget to sign up toour digital hub at wearepowernet
, where you can absolutely lookup all of our fantastic role
models, including Dr Natalie,and watch out for our
forthcoming power profiles,which are video bite size
(20:22):
snippets of the brilliant rolemodels that we've got across the
Northern Power Women community.
My name is Simone.
This is the Northern PowerWomen podcast and what goes on
media?
That's old school.
The Northern Power Women podcast for your career
and your life, no matter whatbusiness you're in.
Hello and welcome to theNorthern Power Women podcast.
My name is Simone and everyweek, I speak to amazing,
remarkable, inspiring and justkick ass individuals who are
using their power for good.
As we continually over here weare Power HQ strive for that
(00:41):
more equal, diverse andinclusive world, and this week I
am chatting to the incredibleDr Natalie Kenny.
I always think that then thereshould be letters.
They've got to be coming.
Dr Natalie Kenny, who is theCEO of Biograd and the winner of
not just the outstandingentrepreneur category this year,
but a cheeky little commendedfor inclusive innovation at this
(01:02):
year's 2023 Northern PowerAwards.
Natalie, natalie, natalie,welcome.
What do you think about theletters?
Welcome to the podcast, let'stalk about them.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Letters I'll take whatever I can get to be honest
with you.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
It's nice to be here finally, oh, it's great, it's
great to see you and you havesuch an amazing story which
we're going to jump into andwe're going to sort of navigate,
sort of from the Amazon jungleto extra Madura to where else
are we going to go?
Neurological research,respiratory diseases and
everything in between.
(01:36):
Talk to us about how you got towhere you are now as the chief
exec of the Biograd group, noteven company a group.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Do you know what?
It was never a conscious plan.
So when I was a kid right, Idon't know if you remember this
Do you ever remember seeing afilm called Medicine man?
It was Sean Connery and he wentto go live in the middle of the
Amazon jungle and he lived withthe tribe and he found a cure
for cancer.
I was a little girl growing upin Birkenhead and I said to my
mom that's what I want to do.
Mom, I realized that and DrQuinn medicine woman, you know,
(02:07):
when she traveled around, likeyou know the wild west, and
cured people.
So I always wanted to be ascientist.
But it's really difficult, isn'tit?
Because you say to your parentsor to your teacher I want to be
a doctor, a nurse, a teacher, alawyer, a dentist, a police
person, all of this, and theycan give you a plan because we
(02:29):
see what those people do.
But I didn't want to do any ofthose.
I wanted to be a scientist.
I wanted to change the world,make a difference, help people,
explore the world, do reallycool things.
I didn't really want to carefor people, I wanted to go, I
wanted to see things, and so mycareers advisor at school gave
me a full plan to be a landscapegardener because I said I
wanted to work in the jungle.
(02:49):
So it was a little bit lost.
Really I didn't see the pointin doing my.
I didn't see the point.
You know, I was doing A-levels.
I could not see the pointbecause I didn't want to be a
science teacher and I didn'twant to be a doctor and, yeah,
I'd never met a scientist, seena scientist other than what you
see on TV.
So you know, I sort of got toit in a roundabout way, much
(03:10):
like probably most otherscientists.
I did my A-levels, didn't doparticularly well, moved to
Ireland for a year, worked in ashop, knew I wasn't where I
wanted to be but didn't know howto get to where I wanted to be.
So did my undergrad, did mypost-grad and then ended up
working in Peru for JohnsHopkins Medical School as a
(03:32):
neurological parapsytologist.
I was working in Lima and thenup in the Andes as well.
Then I ended up in the middleof the Amazon rainforest.
That was my dream job, workingfor St George's Medical School.
Then funding fell through.
We've back to the UK, worked atPfizer for a few years, then
did my doctorate intranslational medicine.
Oh, I worked in Ectromodora inSpain as well.
You mentioned that for a bit.
I forgot about that Sort of Ialways wanted to be a scientist.
(03:56):
It's all I ever wanted to do.
And then I did a couple ofpost-docs in the Institute of
Environmental Health.
I worked in Cambridge for a bit, was really happy as a
scientist, never wanted to beanything else.
I was very happy with my life.
But you know, strange thingshappen then and life is never
linear.
You have your ups and downs,and remember somebody who wants.
One of my cousins once told melife is like a wheel and
(04:17):
sometimes you're at the top andsometimes you're at the bottom,
but you will never stay whereyou are.
And then I felt like, you know,I sort of went from the bottom
and over sort of 10, 15 years,sort of far away, up to the top,
and then my life from theoutside wasn't necessarily what
my life was living it.
And so I did something reallyagainst my normal nature.
(04:41):
I just couldn't see any otherthing to do.
I was a scientist.
It was intrinsically part of mynature, it's my identity as a
scientist, and you can't be ascientist without a lab.
So I walked into a science parkand I rented a lab for a year
with no way of knowing how it'sgonna pay for it.
But I figured out.
I just figured that out on theway.
So that was 2014.
(05:03):
Yeah, and then the company'sgrown and grown and grown and
grown since then, you know.
So it was never.
We'd never, I'd never aspiredto do, to be a CEO, I'd never
aspired to own a business.
It all, everything grew aroundthe science and I put a really
good team in.
It was definitely not easy.
There was there's, no clearpath.
I think people sometimes seethe awards and think, well,
(05:24):
she's done that because anybodycould do that.
But it was a labor of love andit was difficult, but it was my
way of staying sane.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
I just want to go back to.
We started off with medicinewoman.
Sean Connery, the Amazon I'malmost throwing 007 in there
because I think you'redefinitely a superhero.
I think you're in secret agentin there, but they're the
letters after my name, 007.
I'm going back to that piece ofpaper or that pack that you
(05:53):
were given with the landscapegardener on Just at what point.
I'm trying to see where thatjump is, or for that massive.
Maybe it is the 007 dive, isn'tit?
From someone trying to put youin a box over here and get you
to go and be a landscapegardener, which is amazing
career, but you knew you wantedto be the scientist.
Where was that bit in themiddle, or that bit that just
(06:16):
went?
I'm just gonna.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Well, do you know what's really weird In my life?
Any of those big decisions thatI've made that have ended up
being life changing have alwayscome because of something that I
perceived at the time as beingnegative, and I'm sure anybody
listening to this who has gotolder relatives or people
advising that are a certain agemy nan used to say to me it's
just not meant to be.
(06:38):
I applied for jobs that I wasabsolutely sure were made for me
and they say it's just notmeant to be.
And now I believe that I thinksometimes these really horrific
things happen in life to test usand to actually give you a bit
of gumption, I guess is the word.
(06:59):
Because I didn't drop out ofcollege.
I just never really went, mygrades weren't that good, I
didn't see the point of it and Iwas doing something I was
really unhappy with and thatforced me to go.
I went and did my undergrad inmolecular biology and that was
it.
Once I got there, so many doorsopened up once I got to
(07:20):
university and I knew that therewere options.
So once I was at university,that was great.
Getting into university knowingthat there were gonna be career
options available for me tookme around a couple of years,
longer than it would have maybetaken Most people who might have
had different advice.
But actually it was right forme.
I was a couple of years older,I was more determined, I was
(07:44):
less likely to listen tonegative comments Because I,
just, I, just I didn't have theenergy for it.
I didn't have the energy for it.
So many people are told maybethe scientist was not a feasible
life choice, and I guess onceyou're on that journey you're
like can I swear on this?
But yeah, you just see, youknow I'm here and I'm gonna try,
(08:07):
and if I don't try I'll hatemyself forever.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Who or what was it that made you believe that you
could we?
Speaker 2 (08:13):
see all of Northern Power Women Awards and all these
awards.
You see these women that areinspirational and incredible.
For years, you know, I'd seethese women.
They'd definitely be women toaspire to be like, but I would
hazard a guess that every singlewoman there's ever one and if
your we are power awards hasgone through something that
could have broken them.
(08:34):
And part of coming out theother side is that self-belief,
and sometimes there isn'tanybody to have you back.
Sometimes it just isn't, andsometimes it's not even that you
believe in yourself, it's thatyou cannot believe in the
alternative.
So it wasn't that there wasthat support, necessarily.
(08:55):
It was that the alternative tome succeeding wasn't an option
that I could let into my reality.
And what would you?
Speaker 1 (09:05):
say to anyone out there who's listening?
Because, like you said earlier,people look at you and you know
surrounded and multi-award,winning, you know lots of
accolades, but what would yousay?
And people like she's all overit, she has it all going on and
we just highlighted thatsometimes you just have to
scratch a little bit and you seethat Actually we don't.
(09:25):
What would you say to that?
You know that individual, orthose individuals like they're
listening today to motor them toknow that actually they can get
through this, they can havethat belief.
That's a really good question,I guess nobody has it all going
on.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
I think this toxic positivity, this social media,
this concept that women have itall, you can have it all but you
can't do it all.
And I feel like you know I'msaying here there was some
hardship, but I certainly don'tthink that you know, if you
scratch onto the surface, Idon't have.
I feel like I have it all but Idon't do it all.
(10:02):
And that is probably my biggestshift in mentality from
probably the last time I was onthe show, probably the last
seven or eight years.
I outsource a lot.
I get people in and I've heardthis on podcasts before from
other people that say you know,when you start an upper business
, employee experts I like tothink how the hell am I going to
afford to employ experts?
(10:22):
I haven't got any money.
But actually it is one thingthat every time we've made a
profit, the profits come backinto employing people to make my
life easier.
So yeah, I do, I do.
You know, I have a really nicework-life balance.
To say it's easy would beuntrue.
But if it was easy, it would beboring and I couldn't do that.
(10:45):
I just I couldn't.
I couldn't do something that'srepetitive.
I'm not built to do the job,where I get up at nine.
You know I'm in work nine tillfive, 48 weeks a year and I have
a few weeks holiday.
I could not live like that.
I've never lived like that.
I'm an all or nothing person.
I go until I burn out and thenI have some time off and then I
go 100% again.
(11:05):
That is my personality and thatsuits me really well.
I think it's quite commonamongst entrepreneurs.
I think you're hyper focused onthings, you get excited about
things and you push past thattiredness.
Any of that sort of normalphysiological things, of that
would normally stop you.
You sort of go through it and Iguess that's what allows you to
achieve amazing things.
I certainly think that's commonamongst scientists and it's
(11:28):
certainly common amongstentrepreneurs.
I am so.
It's just listening to yourself, isn't it?
Listening to your body,listening to your capabilities
and knowing that you can only gofull pelt for a certain amount
of time.
But you can.
Nobody wants to have it all.
You have to be desperatelymiserable.
If you had it all, what elsewould there be to get?
Speaker 1 (11:46):
But I certainly feel happy and fulfilled for sure,
but not because life's easy andwe always talk about things,
those slogans on those tote bagsor these t-shirts and it's, you
know, it's that whole.
It's okay to have it all, butyou don't have to do it all.
You know you can easily, and Ithink that's a big difference.
And we talked just before wepressed record on today's part
(12:09):
about something that you'reintentionally doing.
You spent the pandemic justbeing totally accessible 24
seven and just driving forwardat 4,000 million miles an hour,
and and you're actually nowgoing to actually do a bit more
of that intentional kind oftimeout, aren't you?
Is that a big decision?
Was that easy for you to go?
(12:30):
No, I'm just going to do this.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
No, it was dead easy.
So pre pandemic I was reallygood with my timescale.
So obviously single parent,child at nursery and in school.
So there were very clear hoursas to when I worked.
So I would usually work from 4till 7am.
I get up at 4, I'd plan my dayby 7am.
I could have responded to allmy emails on the day before,
message my assistant or thepeople in the office that
(12:52):
everything's sorted for when Iget in at 10.
And that would give me 7 till 8to get my son get into school,
get to the office for 10.
I would be in their tensile toand it'd be meeting, meeting,
meeting, meeting, meeting.
I do phone calls in the car onthe way to work, nine till 10
phone calls on the car, from twotill three for when I got to
school and then I would switchmy phone off from 4 till 8 or,
(13:14):
sorry, 3 till 8.
And that would be my time withmy son.
I was very, very clear cutduring COVID.
The company just grewexponentially and the stakes
were higher for people's livesthe diagnostic services that we
did and moving into more workthat we're doing around stem
cells, regenerative medicines,neuroscience work.
It has been 24-7, it's beenmore critical.
(13:36):
So generally we had a rule thatmy phone would be off between
midnight and 4am so that I couldsleep those four hours.
But you can't keep doing thatforever, so that's been for a
few years.
So for me, I'm taking six weeksjust to grow some, get back
into the habit of being healthyand to have that work-life
balance.
That just wasn't possibleduring COVID.
(13:59):
So for me, six weeks which willallow me to take my son to
school, go to the gym, have acoffee with friends, just reset
and then get back to work andhave the ability to be a bit
more balanced, because thenthat's really important.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
And how do you stop getting ahead of that?
How do you stop planning forsix weeks ahead?
Or are you already there?
Do you already know what you'regoing to come back to with that
?
The bag of great new ideas tochange the world and support
next-gen talent, because that'ssomething you're massively
passionate about.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, yeah, well, to be honest with you, I'm sat on
my other screen at the moment.
I've got my R&D plan for theyear, which we're just sort of
calculating at the moment.
So obviously, we're a scienceresearch company and we have in
one of our companies we have sixR&D projects on at the minute
and the other one we have four,so we have some amazing
scientists.
I employ people with moreexperience and skills than I've
(14:53):
got.
We've got some really excitingthings on, so people are
perfectly capable of runningtheir own departments, the group
to.
Really all I am at the momentis I coordinate to make sure
that the different groups arealigned.
But, to be honest, we have agreat management team that do
that and I go out and speak topeople about what we do.
But, again, we have some reallygreat departments that do that.
(15:16):
So I guess at the moment I ammore of a hindrance to my
company than anything else.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
So everyone's getting a holiday, right, or they're
all, but everyone's just goingto be anticipation.
You know, in anticipation ofthat, right, I've got a pad here
or I've got a file open.
I'm ready to share, do you?
Speaker 2 (15:34):
know what.
I went to a talk and somebodysaid the worst thing ever.
Everybody knows that when anentrepreneur goes on holiday for
two weeks, the list they comeback with is awful.
But, to be honest, our projectsare big.
I mean they're really reallybig organized projects.
So the dendrocyt cellmanufacturing that we're setting
(15:55):
up, the cartes cell therapywork that we've got ongoing and
the Parkinson's research that wehave, they're really well
organized and there's lesschance now, given that the
company is so much bigger.
There's less chance of me justrocking up and going by the way,
although saying that that'sprobably how all six of these
projects started.
So I don't know, wait tillJanuary we'll see, we will see.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
And I'm just talking about you, talked about you have
, you know, we've recognized thefact that you have achieved so
much and you have beenrecognized with so many awards.
But obviously the NorthernPowering Awards, that's
something entrepreneur,inclusive innovation was the
highlight exemplar.
But seriously, what do awardsmean to you?
You know?
Speaker 2 (16:38):
I want to go back to that point of seeing other women
win these awards, and I don'tknow if you've experienced this
as well.
So, as girls, we're often toldto be polite, to stay quiet, to
be calm, to stay within our box,and I think now we're a
(16:58):
generation of women that arereally angry and frustrated and
we're hitting men of wars andwe're just even more sort of
angry, and so we're saying moreabout inequality, we're talking
about it more, we're shoutingabout it more, we're helping
each other more, and it's great.
You know, I see other womenwinning these awards and think,
you know, look at them, they'rea beacon of hope for us.
(17:20):
That's what we can achieve.
But I wonder sometimes, if Ispoke to other women as Zed, do
you ever feel exhausted for theamount of fighting that you have
to do to achieve something thatother people can achieve
without fighting?
Do you ever have self-doubtbecause you feel like you're the
only person doing it?
And do you ever feel like, byshouting about inequality, that
(17:44):
maybe people perceive you as avictim and none of us, I don't
think, perceive ourselves as avictim?
And so I guess for me, what thisaward really did was show me, I
guess, or make me feel whetherit was something like this.
It made me feel like I wasn'talone, that other women agreed
with me and that there was somesort of support there, because
(18:08):
not everybody's voice gets heard.
And I've been lucky over thelast few years that some of the
things that I've talked abouthave been picked up and have
been shared.
And to know that I'm not theonly person that feels like that
and that the work that I'mdoing is in the right direction.
I think that's what the awardmeans to me more than anything,
because it encourages me to keepgoing.
(18:29):
And I think if I hadn't won theawards and this sounds awful I
thought that self-doubt isalways there, isn't it?
And you think am I doing theright thing?
Am I too loud?
Am I too obnoxious?
Am I irritating too many people?
Am I too much of a disruptor?
And these awards, I guess, givea barometer for general society
(18:49):
to show that actually, no,there's a lot of support for
disruption when we're talkingabout quality.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
And absolutely not.
Every Northern power womancomes in one size, shape, voice,
background.
That, for me, is always a thing, and you talk about platform
and using that voice for good.
That's where it's about thatdisrupting, then, using that
power for good and having yourvoice heard and really
accelerating that.
Dr Natalie, medicine woman,superhero, agent of change,
(19:17):
disruptor, entrepreneur,defender of the good, and about
to be, I'd like to say, a ladyin a leisure but I'm literally
kidding myself for laughinginside and saying that outside
but actually you're gonna comeback with salsa skills, because
that's one of your things thatwe talked about before.
You're gonna do a few littlesalsa moves and we will see that
on stage.
(19:38):
It's strictly come Northernpower women, maybe next year.
Yeah, natalie, thank you so somuch for joining us today.
We didn't get even through ahalf of the questions, but we
had a great rich discussion, asI knew I would, with you.
Thank you so much for joiningme.
Thank you for having me.
I thank all of you forlistening.
Please do stay connected on allof our socials at North Power
Women on Twitter or X andNorthern Power Women and all the
(20:01):
other socials.
Leave us a review podcast atnorthernpowerwomencom.
That's old school, isn't it Agood old email?
And don't forget to sign up toour digital hub at wearepowernet
, where you can absolutely lookup all of our fantastic role
models, including Dr Natalie,and watch out for our
forthcoming power profiles,which are video bite size
(20:22):
snippets of the brilliant rolemodels that we've got across the
Northern Power Women community.
My name is Simone.
This is the Northern PowerWomen podcast and what goes on
media?
That's old school.
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