The NEW Career & Motherhood Playbook From The Woman Who Ran British Vogue Whilst Pregnant

0:00When you have a child, you go through such a huge psychological transformation, you are almost invincible. And then the world tells you you're not. I had an axe to grind at a point to prove and to excel whilst pregnant, whilst being off. Men are seen as more responsible if they have children. One of the things I was told by a couple of really incredible women was, don't advertise it. This is insane.

0:22Zoe:Yes, because you're just perpetuating the problem. We've been conditioned to hide ourselves and hide the realities. how prevalent it is for men to say i wish i spent more time with my children and how sad is that that they could have we just we didn't sell it to them as part of their purpose everyone wins when men take their leave you did something unbelievable right tell us about that hello my love welcome to mother kind it is me your host zoe and we are proudly supported by Wild Nutrition's Women's Supplements. We are the show for you, the woman behind the mother. This is your guide to modern life as a mother from ambition to relationships, to finance, to healing.

1:06Zoe:We are here for it all. This episode is with the incredible Vanessa Kingori OBE, the trailblazing media executive who became the first woman in over a hundred years to lead Vogue's business in the UK and she did it while pregnant, deliberately refusing to hide her bump. Vanessa shares the advice senior women gave her about disguising her motherhood at work and why she chose to do the exact opposite and in the process reshaped maternity culture inside one of the most iconic companies in the world, Condé Nast. This is a conversation about ambition, about motherhood and the systems that still make make us feel like we're failing on every level.

1:52Zoe:Vanessa opens up about the loneliness of modern motherhood and why selling the joy of caregiving to men really matters and the friendships that have to evolve when you start building the life you actually want. If you have ever felt unsupported or unseen by your organisation, this is the episode that you need. It is a masterclass in believing in yourself, in making those career moves and doing it while feeling incredible about yourself every single step of the way. I cannot wait for you to hear it. You're going to want to send it to every mother in your life. Here it is. Or quickly, before we get to the episode, please subscribe wherever you're listening or watching this.

2:36Zoe:Please share it. This podcast has only grown because of you, my listeners. Be That Woman, lifting other women up by sharing amazing content like this. Right, here's the episode. I'm absolutely buzzing to have this conversation. I have read and listened and watched so much of what you have to say and I cannot wait to unpack some of the things and your perspectives. Something that I think is rare about you is that for someone who's had a career like yours, you say the only thing I knew I really wanted was to be a mum yes 100 % I mean first of all I'm so I love talking about motherhood um but yes and it's so strange when I was growing up I always felt so jealous almost or lost when people would ask my peers and you know other kids of my age kind of what do you want to be?

3:36And they say a doctor, a lawyer, a nurse. And I'd be like, I don't know. I really had no idea. I definitely always had a really strong work ethic, but I just didn't have clarity. It wasn't my focus, but I loved being around children. My mother's a midwife. My grandmother, who I spent my formative years with, was the person whose house was the kind of hub for everybody. And that elder who cared for everyone made the soups, you know, and made all of the sort of tinctures. And so the houses I grew up in were filled with children, and with mothers, pregnant mothers, my mother used to have some of her patients and other nurses at our house.

4:24And I just remember, if a baby was crying, people would hand them to me as a little girl. And And so I thought, I can't wait to do this. And of course, I wouldn't say my career's come easy. That has not, but it's been quite organic for the most part. And motherhood has been a bit harder to come to, which of course makes me value it so much more. But yeah, the one thing I had such absolute clarity on.

4:54Zoe:And was it as you expected? No. I feel like it's amazing. I'm a boy mum and I grew up around a lot of girls and a lot of the stereotypes of boy mum life is true. They are unbelievably loving. It is like a love affair. You know, I do really understand in raising my son the standard I'm setting for him in terms of how he's going to build future relationships with women and just with other people he cares about. And so it's deeply loving, really intense, there's an intensity of love, which I expected, but it's even more. You know, I was saying this morning to a very dear friend who is probably the closest person to my son day to day as well, because she helps with drop-offs and things like that, I honestly feel that the sense of vulnerability with someone you love that much, it is like walking around with your organ outside of your heart outside of your body.

6:06And that I expected the love, but I didn't expect a lot of the worry. You just worry. And women, we're just worrying all the time. You're worried about, did they make it on time? Are they okay? Are they getting sick? You know, what have you? Am I doing the right things? And I think the other thing was, I have been so shocked and surprised about how unnecessarily hard it is for women, I think, particularly living in Western cultures and in cities to raise children because not undermining in any sense what the generation before me did but what I observed was such an ease in parenthood there was a struggle in terms of maybe running household maybe financial and all of those things but the sense of the village was so prevalent in the spaces I grew up in.

7:14Born in Kenya, everyone's around, extended family and support systems. Grew up in the Caribbean where everyone is your aunt. I mean, I really didn't know who my actual biological aunts and uncles were because everyone can tell you off, everyone can pick you up. You saunter in and out different houses. And so I don't, and even when we moved to London, my mother was so smart in building up a really clever network of other really caring, mostly women and some men. I never remember her arranging babysitting. I never remember her making those calls or we just had this network around us. And I think one of the things I've been struck by is how much that has been ebbed away at, how secluded people are now, and how buying back the network is so much more stressful than being able to afford to live near your friends of all brackets, being, you know, all of the things that make parenting that little bit easier, having grandparents close by and all of those things.

8:30So lots of surprises, but nothing. I mean, it's just the best thing I've ever done in my life. Yeah.

8:39Zoe:And what was so fascinating is that you took this huge job at the point when you just became pregnant. Yes. Yeah. Well, slightly the other way around. I am in my first year of Vogue. so I'd done this publisher role at GQ and I'd wanted my partner and I were trying and you know having a hard time of it I'd sort of psychologically put it to one side you know when you want something so badly and it's not going well and it just consumes your soul and we were doing all the things but I just sort of took the pressure out of the valve I took the next big job and thought I'm just going to throw myself into that the next big job happened to be you know running Vogue publishing director there just that little thing and I thought this is my baby for a bit and I'm going to do all the you know all the other things make sure my body's in the right place um and the pressure came from in terms of work I was the first woman in over 100 years or ever to have the job of publishing director leading the business of Vogue.

9:49And Vogue is the jewel in the crown of Condé Nast and where all the profit comes from. And so it was a really big deal to show women can run the financial side in the business and all of those things. And so I felt this kind of weight on my shoulders, but it was so joyful. I was having such a good time. And of course, everything went smoothly and I became pregnant the first year, you know. So within that first year, being the first and only, I became pregnant and suddenly the pressure felt momentarily less fun because I had people say things to me like, well, this is why. This is why they don't let a woman do it.

10:34You're like, this isn't always on job. And so it really had an axe to grind and a point to prove that we're not just as capable, actually, of doing these jobs. But I think it's incumbent on a woman running a women's magazine to showcase that there is a full spectrum of life. and it's incumbent on me and the organization to make it work and to excel whilst pregnant, whilst being off and all of those things. Like if we can't work this out, then where is humanity going? What are we doing? You know what I mean? It's like, so I became very deliberate about being very visible with my bump out on the road very tight black dresses all the time I was and I talked about it a lot more I increased my social media presence because I felt so frustrated with this narrative of better hide away this doesn't send the right message it looked it was almost as though I was being irresponsible and I just sort of felt like I can hold down two important jobs and I'm doing the most important job in my mind that humankind can do which is create a life and if I can manage that I can run a business at the same time and I just thought rather than hide away I'm going to try to make it that bit less shocking and a bit easier for the next woman um and you know I just found it this was 2018 so crazy the conversations I was having about the inappropriateness of me being pregnant and you phoned some people in

12:33Zoe:your network didn't you tell me about that because I can imagine you being like who do I call and what what did some of those other women who had these big jobs and had kids older what were they saying to you was it was it helpful it was really helpful both in terms of what I could do but also what I wanted to change and so listen I am very um bold in the moves that I make around career but I'm just like everybody else and you know when I close the door I have all the same imposter syndromes and the worries and the so on and I thought I'm going to do what I always do. You know, I always in my life, I've never had, and I say this often, official mentors or, you know, any of those things, but I've always had people I look up to in different, you know, for motherhood, for work, for, you know, what have you.

13:31And I looked at my network and I thought, oh my God, I know lots of women who have children who are in leadership roles, But I specifically wanted to understand how to navigate being at a pinnacle of your career whilst having a young child. And I realized that in my direct network, I didn't have those people. I had lots of people who could help me and have helped me with the later stage of juggling school and, you know, and all of those things. but not that, you know, postpartum, finding a maternity cover at that level, no one. And so there were not people in my network, actually, they were just, I just sort of looked people up and asked around and reached out to people who are largely perfect strangers and women and said, you don't know me, but this is what I'm navigating.

14:27I've read or I've seen or I've heard that you, I would love just 20 minutes of your time every single woman said yes I was gonna say there's

14:36Zoe:such a lesson in that amazing I don't think I do that enough it's like when I have done that 90 positive and I think it's something that women really care about speaking about yes because there are things that are in the shadows a little bit yeah and I think this idea that you know sort of women are not helpful to each other and things has not been my experience it's not been mine neither particularly at that level you know sometimes maybe at a lower level where people are fighting out but the types of people who've kind of made it to the top have broadly done that through discernment through collaboration and they want you to do well yeah they want they see a chance of almost do-over you know everyone said yes and these you know there was a baroness there There were these were really colossal people.

15:27Many of them had had their kids a long time ago, but it was more about the pivotal point. And they gave me brilliant advice. No, the things that I learned were no one person had the silver bullet for me, you know, because everyone is useful to know in itself.

15:46Zoe:Yeah. That actually you're not missing anything. Exactly. That whole thing of like, what's the trick? Oh, there is no trick. damn give me a blueprint there is no blueprint but on the other hand it's like we're all just muddling through and trying to figure stuff out um and also all of our situations are slightly different and so you need to tailor things for your scenario um the other thing was um that like i said there was as much of here's what to do as as there was i don't think i want to do that anymore that served that time so some of the things I was told were do not turn down help you know if someone says can I make that don't do that oh I've got it thing this is not a competency competition take all the help anyone who offers and says I can pop around and do this take it some of the brilliant advice I was given were have a conversation with your partner what practically are they going to do?

16:47Because it's very hard sometimes for men to understand where do I, what is it that you need? This is, especially with the first child. And so take some time to really think about the division of labor in your household, the division of time and so on and so forth. Take time to talk to the most trusted colleagues, who's going to hold the fort emotionally, socially, culturally as well as practically when you're not there, which was brilliant. That was great advice. It's not one person usually as well. But then there were and those things were so centering. It's like, oh, I can make a plan. There's tangible things I can do.

17:28And you find that your sort of worry dissipates when you have action plans. But there were other things that I remember being told that were well-meaning and told with love, which were, don't talk about it too much. Because the reality is, whether you like it or not, that for men, being a family man is enhancing. Men are seen as more responsible if they have children. So for men, it's really important to have pictures of their wife and children on their desks and around. It is important for them to say, I was at the game this weekend or this afternoon, I'm going to go and pick them up from because people think there's a responsible man, he's got his life together.

18:14And one of the things I was told by a couple of really incredible women was don't advertise it. Don't have a picture on your desk. Don't talk about it too much. Make sure that your infrastructure is such that you do not have to be the person who's running off for things. And if you are, call it something else. And as sad as that sounds, that's the way the world turns. And as I say, all of them were right. They were absolutely right. And that because that was their lived experience. And they were telling me it with love, as a kind of protection. I felt such a sense of sisterhood. But I also felt a sense of this is insane.

18:54Zoe:Yes, because you're just perpetuating the problem. Well, I didn't feel bad on them. I just felt that how do we get the system to shift when we are beholden to it and feeling vulnerable? You know, they were talking to me about vulnerable moments in their lives and how they navigated that. And I was thinking about how do I change it, which is always my approach, which is a bit nuts sometimes, but sometimes it really works in that I now have this relative power. I'm running teams of women. I was running teams of men before, many of whom are mothers, are going to be mothers, don't want to be mothers and don't want to be, you know.

19:33And how do I change this narrative again around this idea, double standard of competency around parenting, whilst also trying to establish myself? So that was something for me to grapple with. And I decided to go the other way with that.

19:54Zoe:Because you did something unbelievable, right? So you then do go back into that big job and you made it, the changes that you made for the women on your team and the women in Vogue and Condé Nast. Tell us about that, how you supported those mothers. really incremental there was no big flagship I'm changing everything let's sit down and have a meeting because workplaces don't really like that you know I think sometimes the theory I mean one thing that Edward Enniffel really underscored with me I was going to say taught me but it was already there was let the results talk before you talk about an idea I remember when we first started working together and I was saying, it's going to be so amazing.

20:40We should do lots of press. And he was saying, we don't have our first couple of issues out. You have to let people see something new in action before they can get behind it. Otherwise people stay skeptical. And so there were lots of incremental things I did, which I just noticed even before I was pregnant, because I'd gone from being the first and only woman running GQ, which was a very male space, and then thought, oh, I'm going to be with women. I loved working with men, but, you know, we're going to have, we're going to be skipping through the fields together. Yes, sisters. And I just noticed first, even before the pregnancy thing, one of the first things I noticed was, and it's like a different ecosystem completely, the way Vogue House was laid out then was, if you worked on the first floor in GQ, that was your life, really, if you worked on the fifth floor.

21:31And so it was still quite fresh to me, even though I'd been working in that building, was that in a room full of all women, women still put their sanitary products up their sleeves and went to the loo and still pretended that they weren't on the period when they were. And I thought, isn't this why we all sort of, you know, braid each other's hair and talk about it? No. And so we've been so conditioned to hide the reality of being a woman that even before we've got on to maternity and parenting, we're already so used to covering up our realities. And so one of the first things I did was just say, girls, we're all sinking.

22:14We all know. Let's be open about this. Let's share products. If you want to, don't say, oh, I need to pop out to make a call when you're actually making a run for it to Boots to get. So giving people the space to be themselves, saying to people, it's absolutely fine if you want to leave early because you want to pick your kid up. That's fine because you have a job where you are accountable, right? You'll get the job done. So I think even before we got to the maternity bit is allowing good people to be themselves and be real is the first step to allowing women that piece. You can't just get to maternity bit and say, switch off everything you've learned since you started adolescence.

22:58We've been conditioned to hide ourselves and hide the realities. And then when it came to maternity, I just realized that there had been the stigma. You know, the person who'd run Vogue before was 74 years old, had been there for 25 years, was very old school. And so women would go away onto maternity almost anxious and tightly wound that their jobs wouldn't be exactly the same when they got back and so willing to work hard. So one of the things I did is for when I had really good staff, which actually turns out to be all of them because I did a huge amount of work to reshape the team, going off on maternity, I would promote them.

23:42And Edward did the same actually with Sarah Harris. He promoted her while she was away. And the promotion was my way of showing internally the organization, the value I place on those women. I'm given free reign to run this. I believe that when you have a child, you go through such a huge psychological transformation, you are almost invincible. And then the world tells you you're not, right? You become a better time manager. You become much clearer about what your objectives are, despite the fog and all of those things that are talked up. And I knew if I re-energized a lot of these women whilst they were away, they would feel less badly about leaving that gorgeous little bundle, you know, and coming back.

24:26It's hard coming back.

24:27Zoe:Brutal. But if you have a new challenge, and if you have someone who really believes in you, then there's something like, okay, I can do this. And so it was a really deliberate tool to have those women feel great about their dual roles and about the fact that they were supported also to maximize them I wanted them to be like I need you firing on all cylinders new challenge and so not something that was so different it was terrifying but just enough so they could puff their chests up when they were going out and they had a little bit of throw up on their shoulder but also without saying too much I knew that everyone in the organization was watching me really closely how is she getting these results and we had all of this growth and I wanted to be able to say this is one of those reasons do you know the people who are performing really well these women who are new mothers are part of that really high performance and this is how you unlock that and so you know like I said um I'm not some kind of genius I just grew up around a lot of women who are navigating that because of my mother's jobs and all of my aunts who were maternity nurses.

25:42And some of the things I overheard when I was waiting in the break room for my mum were these women talking about, how am I going to cope with this and going back to work? And just hearing that again and again and again and again. But seeing this competency level of like, you're doing all of that on no sleep, running the house and turning up, we need to flip the narrative. And I can't explain that to anyone else. I have to use the platform I have now to quietly just do it. I couldn't even explain it to the women because I didn't want them to feel that they were guinea pigs. I wanted them to feel truly empowered and I wanted it to be a meritocracy as well.

26:24And so it was just something I did quietly. And it being honest, it was not a charitable act. It really helped my role and helped me deliver. It's one of those brilliant win-wins.

26:37Zoe:do you wish more corporates understood about women and motherhood and paternity and maternity so many things so so so many things I don't even know where to start one of them I guess is that you women who are highly engaged and excited about their jobs and have children are one of the biggest assets you can have. I really feel that that being able to switch from that maternal caring bit to the, it's a gift to them. And if you can unlock them and support them, you will get so much more. Women who are mothers are brutal time. They are so good at time management. They are not going to let things run over.

27:30They need to get out a certain time. they're not going to mess around. There's also so much that happens within the workplace when women are supported well in terms of the wider nurturing that happens within teams that maximizes a team. And I think it's really important. And I think that the other side that I think is really important is that what men are doing is really, really important. And having men feel that that same level of support in taking their leave as well is vital for the whole organization. And it's not just men using this time. I had a conversation the other day with someone I really respect who's running a business that under a huge amount of pressure and I get this and they were saying the one of their key members of staff is frustrating him because at their most pivotal time he's taking his full amount of leave when he's got really nothing to do with the baby coming out and I was just like sort of without even thinking just blurted out like this is crazy you are looking at things in such a short-sighted way everyone wins when men take their leave and I'll tell you why I saw this running GQ I've seen it at Google I've seen it at Vogue men need that time as well their partners need that support but men come back into the business with a different fire under them when they've had time out they start to understand they start to understand what the job means to them in a different way.

29:21I feel like this is stereotyping a bit, but in my experience, they come back more empathetic, better team players. They understand women who've taken the time out better on their team. There is less kind of trying to bum rush and grab the roles. What I saw a lot of times at GQ is when the few women who went off on maternity did who had great roles, there was a sort of gnawing to get part of her role while she was off. Men who go on leave don't do that when they get back. They get like, I want the protection that you offer everyone else. And I want to support this person because I know what it means to leave a job you love, to go and do something else you love.

30:03And it just improves the ecosystem. I think that there's just a different kind of fire under people who've taken time out, loved it, but come back more in love with what they were doing before. I think there's a lot more we can do to PR, not just mandate men to kind of take this time because their partners need it. But I think around the whole parenting space, the way that we've spoken to men around caregiving has been a huge disservice to men and to women and to businesses. And I think what we've done is we've said women need help with the burden of caregiving. And, you know, you sort of got to do this because you've got to play your part and you've got to help her.

30:59and it's akin to you know fathers looking after their kids and calling it babysitting you know it is like there is another sense of purpose for you that is incredible that you need to unlock because women are incredibly lucky in that we can have this duality of being incredible locked in caregivers and building our careers. And right now, what we're saying to men societally is there's really only one way for you to be valued in society. And that's primarily through paid work. And then there's this thing over here, which you kind of should be involved in. And what we see is that men are having crises around masculinity right now, because, well that's a complex thing to unpack but one of the reasons I think is that if your sole value is something another group of people can also do just as well it's scary whereas actually if you can be valued in multiple ways because you are a key caregiver to your wider family those older family members your children you can run a home incredibly and you are valued and praised for that and it's part of how you access respect in this life then perhaps women excelling in work and in education wouldn't feel quite as scary to men and equally there is a pressure that's being taken off women but selling it as here's how you take pressure off your partner rather than there is this beautiful incredible unlock sense of love and purpose you can have beyond your financial output I think we can change our world I really