Former Warner Bros VP: How To Rebuild Yourself After A Difficult Chapter | Viviane Paxinos

0:00Everyone's after attention. That's the currency. I had to block all the comments on my LinkedIn and my Instagram. I had to shut everything off. I've always been comfortable to take risks and try, but I wasn't prepared to be unsuccessful and fail at something. The unfiltered version of your story with the good, the bad, the ugly. Viviane Paxinos is a leading global media executive and one of the most respected voices in the sector. She has held a number of senior international roles at some of the world's largest media companies, including global director of brand, entertainment and content at the BBC and vice president of advertising and partnerships at Warner Brothers.

0:32Most recently, she served as chief executive officer of Albright, a members club and professional network created to support and connect ambitious women through community, content and opportunity. The truth around running a business is hard, right? You have to make a lot of difficult decisions. You have, as a person, ups and downs, and then you also take on the emotional ups and downs of your business. Even if you are the smartest and strongest person in the planet, this is going to affect your mental health. It's the business failure, not my failure. Use that as data and then move forward. And that really helps because...

1:02Is there a particular type of content that performs better from a revenue point of view than others?

1:10Transitioning from one industry to another, you were able to adapt and learn, but also deliver at the same time. How were you able to adapt so quickly?

1:24Vip, how would you introduce yourself in a way that best describes yourself as a person, but also your professional career? So I would say I introduced myself as a growth-focused leader that wants to drive positive change. Growth-focused leader that wants to drive positive change? Is that too much jargon? No, it's an incredibly intelligent answer. Can you simplify this for me? Simplify. So I'm really passionate about driving business growth, right? I've always worked in businesses that are on a growth path. And so that's really what I get really excited about. And thinking about opportunities and taking businesses through transformation.

2:10But I have to do it with something that is driven by purpose. I always think about, you know, when I look back at my career, I want to make sure that I was an asset to my community and the people around me. So I guess it's that growth and that purpose that I try to marry together and how I explain myself. When I was reading the research back that the team produces before every episode, I was incredibly fascinated by a common denominator across all of your roles, which we'll dive into later. But it seems that you're in every role that you've held in the past. You were very focused on making sure that the business is making money.

2:54That was a very important key performance indicator for you, which I think is quite refreshing, particularly in this day and age in which we live in a world that we're told that traction, for example, if we're talking about the tech world, is very important more than the bottom line, for example, of the business or just generating revenue. And then we see so many different companies that after raising hundreds of millions of euros, pounds or dollars at huge valuations, but not necessarily a solid business model, end up crashing. so it's very refreshing to be sitting down with someone that has that mindset so thank you for coming thanks for having me before we deep dive into your professional career i want to walk through your childhood so you're you're greek but you grew up in canada how was your childhood how how was growing up in canada yeah so first generation greek my parents both immigrated from greece separately so they they met on a blind date so you know at the time when a lot of Europeans.

3:52About 50 years ago, we're moving to North America. So Montreal is such a melting pot for different communities. So my parents moved there. My father finished his studies in Greece and wanted, actually, I'll take a step back because my father has a really interesting story. He left his village when he was 13 years old. So he comes from a family of farmers, and he did not want to be a farmer. And he wanted something bigger in life. And so one day, somebody in the village said to him, there's a job in Athens, just working in a shop. Is there anyone from the village that wants to go? So at 13, my father raised his hand, and he decided to move to Athens.

4:34And he lived with an uncle, and he worked during the day, went to school in the evening, and learned to trade, a mechanical engineer. And then when he finished his trade, he decided to go to Canada. My mom is Spartan, which is where I get a lot of my personality from Spartan women. She's the eldest of the family, so four kids, and she wasn't allowed to go to school. As the eldest, she was meant to look after her siblings. And so she eventually moved to Canada with her siblings. And then her and my father were set up on a blind date, got married, and they're still together, which is a lovely story.

5:13So I've been very much impacted by both my parents. My dad's journey, but my mom has been an entrepreneur her whole life. She's had various different businesses. She's made pottery. She's a dry cleaning business, which still works with my auntie. So, I've always been around really hard work. My father, as many immigrants are, you know, you work hard, you buy a house, you pay it off. He always reminds me that he paid off his house in seven years because he was working two jobs. So that work ethic was always around me. But I grew up in a very sheltered neighborhood. So around very much the Greek community.

5:54You know, everyone in the bank spoke Greek. The bakery was Greek. We watched Greek television. And I just wanted more. And I had this burning desire that I needed to see more and do more. And so when I turned 18, I told my parents, I'm going to leave. I'm going to move out of the house, which you didn't do at that time, because, you know, anyone that comes from a Mediterranean family, you know that you're raised to go to school, get married, live near the family, have children and all of that. And I decided to just move out at 18. I wanted to move downtown. And I remember because my father didn't speak to me for a couple of months, which was the first time he was so angry with me.

6:30And he's like the most wonderful person. He spoke to me, but a little bit. He was just really upset with me. And I moved to the center of town. And I also said to my parents, I just don't want you to pay for me. Like I'm, that's, I'm 18 now. I'm a grownup. So I'm going to figure it out on my own. So I worked at a gym, which is where my love for wellness and fitness. So I worked at a gym during the day and then I went to uni in the evening. And that's how I paid for my living, my university and all of that. And then, you know, I studied really hard. I did a double major there, finished university and then grabbed a big hockey bag and moved to London when I didn't know anybody.

7:09I had absolutely no contacts here, but I just had this burning desire that I was, or this feeling inside me, and I cannot explain it, that I was just meant to do more and see more, and that Montreal wasn't big enough for me. I had some friends that I moved over to London, and I thought, well, why don't I just go? Two people that I didn't know very well, but they were in London, and I just, yeah, I packed my hockey bag, and I came into London with just lots of big dreams. Wow. Love this story. And I guess what I really want to know is you're definitely a very successful woman right now, but I think something happens in people's youth that triggers something within you that sort of like boosts you to pursue more in life.

8:04and in your case you've always wanted more. How was success defined at home? So success for my parents was having a roof over our head, having food on the table and just being together. So in a very simplistic way. I went to private school. So I'm the youngest of three girls. I went to private school and my sisters went to state school, but I was quite strong academically. So my parents decided to send me to a private school, the lycée in Montreal. So I think that created my, you know, maybe changed my definition, but also maybe created my desire to achieve more because everyone had more than me.

8:45Right. So I thought, oh, I need to do more. Right. Because everyone came from really wealthy backgrounds at that school. And that wasn't the case. If I wanted to buy something for my first day at school, my father would say, OK, well, what are you going to do to work for that money? And that was my upbringing. And then you came to London. And then I came to London. And what happened? I came to London. I came to London with, yeah, just like a backpack. And I looked for work. I had random jobs in like photography and all the like just the creative industries. And then I saw an ad in a magazine for a job at MTV, which I thought, oh, that's going to be really cool.

9:26I'm in my 20s. How great would it be to work for MTV? and I got an interview. I don't know how I managed to get this interview because I had no experience, but it was a sales role. So my commercial experience started. And when I went in, the person who was supposed to interview me was ill. So I got interviewed by the most senior person on the team and I worked with him for 13 years. And so I remember the interview as if it was yesterday. I remember presenting to him and all of that. and I was like, you're just going to hire me. I'm going to work with you. I had decided in my head, that's who I'm going to work with.

10:05And then I got the job and I worked my way up within his team. And that's how my career in media started. And I worked with him for 11 or 12 years, quite a few roles. And then I navigated the media world. I helped launch MTV brands. At the time, people were watching MTV around Central and Eastern Europe. I launched MTV in the Middle East. all these amazing markets. Then I moved on to go to the BBC and help them launch their content studio. I worked for, and then I went to Discovery as well when they acquired the rights for the Olympics. So that's how I kind of, that's my entry point into media and the commercial and marketing world.

10:48What I really like about your story is that you were very ambitious, but you didn't have a plan. And I think many times when we look at success stories online, we're being told that everyone had this master plan from day one. And for anyone watching this, they may be thinking, well, I don't have a plan, so I may not be destined to do great things. But I don't think that's the case in most cases, like in yours. So you were incredibly ambitious. You knew you wanted something more. You came to London, but you didn't know what was going to be the things. You tried a number of things. You just kept your eyes open for that opportunity.

11:24And then that opportunity was MTV, which then led you to become a widely successful executive in the media sector. What is the greatest lesson that you have learned from the media industry? Such a good question. I thought you were going to ask me something else. The greatest lesson from media is, so I learned in media was a great school because I learned the importance of understanding your audience. And it's where I became obsessed with understanding viewers, their habits. And that's been a common thread for every role I've had in my career. But it's been, you know, and I also understood the, actually, the, how do I articulate, how you can create perception.

12:17You know, when I was at MTV, nobody really watched MTV, but it was wildly successful because we created this perception of it. And so I started to understand how branding and perception plays a role in building the success of an organization, but also yourself as a brand. Because, you know, we created this perception that we were the youth experts. We sold that to brands. They believed us. But when you looked at sometimes the numbers, they didn't back it up at that time, right? But it didn't matter because everyone wanted to be around that vibe and that energy. So that perception, I guess, that energy that I understood how valuable it could be.

12:55So, right. So if I were to simplify this into an example, you would have a conversation with a potential brand or a sponsor for MTV. And obviously they want to look at key performance indicators, like how many people view these, their demographics, and then understand if they can pair those with their potential customer segments. And you didn't have strong figures, but you guys were very good at creating a facade? We didn't have the strongest figures, but we were very good at creating stories and telling stories. And I think that's what resonated, right? So it wasn't so much about reach, but it was depth.

13:28So we had the right audience. We just didn't have lots of it. So when we create an event, you would have the right type of audience where brands can build loyalty. And so what you're seeing now in a way that the industry has moved, it's not so much only about reach, but it's having that right audience and the context and the relevance. So we became really obsessed with being those experts when it came to youth. And that's really how we built the brand. Let's talk about content. What is the definition of good content in this day and age? What is good content? I think good content drives conversations, can impact you individually.

14:11It brings people together. and it's, you know, great content is storytelling, isn't it? And I love the way it's evolved now because I had this conversation the other day. I was with a creator who's got 2 million followers on TikTok and all these other platforms. And I think that's today's media platform, right? She's a media platform. And I think because she can tell stories. So I think the underlining success of great content is your ability to tell a story that connects with that. Because that's how we all connect is through stories. It's what you're doing, right? Telling people stories. And if you're creating great content, that means you're a fantastic storyteller.

14:51And how has social media disrupted the media world? It's just made it more accessible. So I think social media means that content is everywhere, that it's accessible to everyone. It's been interesting to see that I think maybe some of the legacy players should have thought about how they extend their stories on social earlier. Because now you're seeing the likes of Netflix commissioning creators to create shows for Netflix, right? So you're seeing that kind of model flip on its head. So I think it's disrupted legacy media in the right way. But I also think there's a lot that creators can learn from legacy media.

15:33So I think both industries should really collaborate. Both digital creators and legacy should really be working together because our definition of content and television, it's almost platform agnostic now. So I think before TV was so tied to the platform, but now content and storytelling doesn't really have a platform. It's wherever you want it to be. And what have you learned from many years in the media industry in terms of what people like? Because I'll give you an example in my industry. What fascinated for me, what was fascinating for me to see from my industry, the hospitality industry. Now we give around 2 ,000 meals every single day.

16:17And seeing what people really like and what are people's choices, which are very, very, very different to what we see online and social media. for me, I find it fascinating. And it tells you a lot about, you know, human psychology. So what do people like? So what makes them engaged? Yeah, people like characters or stories they can connect with. And that's because I've worked in entertainment and I've worked in sports. And I remember when I was working on Eurosport and we acquired the Olympic rides, we extended everything we're doing onto social. We launched a Snapchat channel. It was the first one across Europe for the Olympics.

16:57But that was all about telling the athlete's story because that's what people wanted. You know, people want drama. They want the ups and downs. They want to get closer to the character. So I think people want characters that they can relate to that are interesting that will take them on a journey. So, for example, in this podcast, if I always start by shedding light on the story of my guests so people can relate to that guest, the more personal aspect. Absolutely. That's the best way to go. Yeah. Interesting. Do you disagree? I completely agree. In fact, we started with that. Especially today, I find people, you know, we spoke about it earlier, like life's tough.

17:39People look to learn from others, to lose themselves in a story. Sometimes, you know, and you watch television or great content because you can escape for a few hours or you listen to somebody because you can get some nuggets of information that you can apply. or give you some inspiration for a difficult day or something like that. I agree. I mean, I'm a person that I really like good content, good quality content, and I'm happy to watch less content as long as it's good quality. But then if I look at what huge platforms like Netflix are doing, it seems to me that the strategy is quantity rather than quality.

18:18I very much would believe that that is a data-driven decision, but why do you think they're doing this? I think they want to keep people on the platform, which makes sense. I think their algorithm will pick up on what you're watching and it's constantly serving. And I think they want to increase their market share as much as possible, right? So having a breadth of content, where you can go on and you can get everything. Like I know they introduced games for children, which I didn't like, because it was the place where my children can go on and just watch some content without having to play games.

18:52So that I didn't like. But from their point of view, they're trying to create attention, right? Everyone's after attention. That's the currency. So in order to get your audience attention, whether you're 10 years old or 50 year old, you need breadth of content and choices. So you don't have to go anywhere else. Let's think about monetizing content, because I think it's probably one of, you know, the most relevant topics when it comes to this industry. I think creating good content is becoming easier, particularly with the help of great tech platforms or AI tools. But generating revenue from the content is something that a lot of people perhaps don't know how to do or don't understand.

19:33So what's your approach to this? I mean, generating revenue around content is in two ways. One is through subscription, right, or through advertising. And so those are the two options that I can think of, or product placement and so on. So I think their funding content has become more difficult in the UK, especially as production budgets decline, inflation, costs rise. Funding content has become a bit more difficult. But to monetize content, you need to have high reach or you need to make sure you've got advertising revenue around it. And it's tricky. I always think about women's sports, right?

20:17Why don't we broadcast that more? and there's so much success around it, there's so much energy around it, but it doesn't deliver enough audience on TV to then to warrant enough space on television. And then if it doesn't have reach on TV, then not enough of the brands will advertise around it. So you almost have to work together with the brands, with the platforms to be able to monetize content. So you need to have great, first of all, great storytelling, great content, And then you need to make sure you're promoting it enough to drive subscribers and then to be able to sell it to advertisers.

20:53And I think it's become more difficult to monetize content because it's everywhere. And so you're getting a share of less viewers and it's so fragmented. Is there a particular type of content that performs better from a revenue point of view than others? Gosh, I don't know. I don't know if there is. I guess I would always say, and I've been outside of the content sector for a few years, but I would say the most success is usually driven by your viewership and your engagement. And sometimes there's clickbait content. You see it with podcasts, right? You can have clickbait titles that are used to drive audiences in.

21:40and then you go in and you listen to the episode and it's really great. So there's all different methods that people are trying in order to drive audiences. And I think you see the clickbait titles and approach because you're trying to grab attention because it's just attention so scarce these days. And then if I rephrase the question through a different angle. So is there a type of audience demographics that brands are more open to sponsor that brand? So in the form of if my audience are people in between 18 years old and 34, is that more lucrative for a brand or harder to tackle maybe than maybe an older demographic or a much younger demographic?

22:27Yeah, I mean, that's a good question. And so a lot of brands are often trying to target the younger demographic, which are really fickle and hard to reach because they're the ones that are on the most different, you know, they use a lot of different platforms. And building that relationship with them early will then drive your loyalty and high LTV and all of that stuff. So I think I would probably say that younger demographic is probably the one that's really desired. However, women make, you know, that the female audience makes, you know, 80 % of those consumer decisions. So making sure you can reach that female audience, I think, is really important for brands.

23:07How come they make the, explain. Yeah, so 80 % of consumer, like, buying decisions are done by women in the household. Because it's just the nature of, you know, how decisions are made. Women will make more of the decisions. Of household consumer goods. Yeah. Fascinating. So targeting women in the right way, I think, is so important. How can we target women in the right way? So content that represents them, that speaks to them, that's relevant, making sure that they're well represented in advertising. Often, you know, you look at women, if you look at women over 45, the representation you see of their age group in advertising, I don't remember the exact percentage, but it's low.

23:55Yet they have disposable income, they can spend, and everyone will target the younger generation. So being aware of who your customer is and making sure that they're represented in the creative and the advertising you're using.

24:14One of the experiences that you've had during your career that I found incredibly interesting to learn from were your years at Warner Bros. What did you do? What did your role entail? Yeah, that was great. So I joined there just after they acquired Eurosport, which they've rebranded since then. But I joined to really help them with the acquisition of Eurosport, change its perception in the market here. And also they had just acquired the Olympic rights for Europe. So help them monetize those Olympic rights. So I was working with a lot of the sponsors, which was so fun because I was looking after Samsung.

24:52So I got to go to Korea all the time and work in a different country and learn a different culture in terms of the way of working. And my role was to make sure that the sponsors had everything they need around the Olympics and then monetize the audiences through the Warner Discovery channels. And I loved it. It was great. It was at a really dynamic time. And then I also helped them launch some of their new social offerings and things like that. Well, you definitely had a stellar career in the media sector, but at some point you decided to change career paths and you became the general manager at Unidaze.

25:30So for those who don't know what Unidaze is, can you explain it in simple terms? And also, can you tell me why did it change careers when you were doing so well? Yeah, so Unidaze is a marketplace business and it connects Gen Z students with brands through discounts. And the reason why I moved, I was really, really intentional, actually. It wasn't about having a plan, but I could see that the media sector was going through a lot of challenges, that a lot of the investment was going into tech-driven platforms. And I always wanted to make sure that I wasn't put into a box, that I was just a media expert.

26:09I know we always love putting people into boxes, and it makes us comfortable. But I wanted to make sure that I had a breadth of experience in my career. And I wanted to learn more about tech. And I wanted to learn more about data and how do you use that to monetize and to grow audiences. So when I started looking for work, I said no to anything that was in media, which would have been the natural next step for me. But I was very clear with recruiters and people in my network that I really wanted to move into a tech-driven business. and that's what attracted me to uni days. Also that it was youth audience which kind of brought me full circle with what I did at MTV which was an audience that I love so much and I love understanding and it was great because I got to understand platform economics.

26:57I got to understand how to use the data and the insights better to drive growth. What I really like from the way you're explaining it is that you're using words like or sentences like what I got to learn was. And that's fascinating for me to listen to. And I think our audience would also find that very interesting because when we're looking at transitioning from one industry to another, and even though from a purpose point of view, from a motivational point of view, we really want to make that change. Maybe we don't do it because we don't believe that we have the capabilities and skills to make that transition because we've been in the media sector for our whole career.

27:34How am I going to deliver or perform in this completely different industry? but you definitely delivered and you were able to adapt and learn but also deliver at the same time so it's almost like learning on the go but also deliver value to the business. How were you able to adapt so quickly? One I really believe in myself and I think that's really important you know I don't expect to get everything right but I back myself I know that I'll do a good job. I know that I work hard and I'll learn. And to be honest, once you understand the economics of a business, you can apply those skills anywhere.

28:12And I'm sure we'll talk about Albright, which had partly a hospitality side to it, which I had never worked on, right? So I'm not afraid of transition. In fact, I embrace it because I think it's how I keep growing and how I keep learning. And uni days was a steep learning curve for me because I never had access to so much data. And my role wasn't to understand all the data. My role was to question and ask the right questions for my team to then be able to make the right decisions about how do I grow the business and not to put so much pressure on myself. I think it's important to just believe in yourself.

28:51And then I think about careers always about how do I create leverage? And creating leverage is about value creation. How am I going to add value to this business in this sector? So by asking the right questions, by understanding the economics of a marketplace, I was able to really just gain those skills at a very fast pace. I joined, I was looking after EMEA, then I took over Australia and New Zealand, then I took over the US. So I became the global GM. And that was really down to just understanding the understanding the economics of the business understanding the triggers work whereas the growth aligning the team with the right opportunities but a lot of it came to just you know giving it a go and just believing in myself which it sounds so simple and probably not a technical answer but it is a lot of self-belief and I think that's you know you really have to back yourself in all the changes you make and if it doesn't work it doesn't work So I tend to be quite, not relaxed, but I tend to believe that we're always in the right place.

29:57So I got that role for a reason. And I knew that it was up to me to make it a success. I find this incredibly inspirational. I think the best way to summarize this is to say that if there is a real will, there will always be a way. And what I can see in your journey is that there's always been a full circle. So you applied the same mindset in the initial stages of your career, which served you very well all the way until this stage in uni day. So you came to London, you knew you wanted to become successful. You knew you wanted something more for your life, but you didn't know what that was going to be.

30:31But you had self-confidence that it was going to be something. And then you found it. And with uni days, in my opinion, reading this from the outside, it pretty much had a similar approach. So I may not be an expert in this particular industry, but I know that perhaps through my previous experiences, I can apply them in a different way. But I'm also a very confident and capable person to learn and deliver value. I think about it. If my father was able to move from Athens to Montreal to figure it out without a network, without money, with a bit of an education, and he did well, then I should be able to figure it out, right?

31:08with a network, with stability, with everything that I've got around me. So I think that story, that mindset comes from there. Yeah, absolutely. This is exactly what we were sharing and discussing earlier. There's always a number of stimuli that happen throughout our youth, our upbringing, that instill a mindset in our brains that stays with us for pretty much our entire lives. And in your case, I mean, it's definitely a very, very progressive, confident, and I would say useful mindset. Let's talk about your last corporate role as the CEO of Albright. So again, for those who don't know what Albright is, what is it?

31:56And then what was your agenda as a CEO? Yeah, so Albright is a global community for women. And it has a really high reach, close to 10 million women around the world. And it comes to life through events and learning programs. Now, when I joined, it was a physical club, a members club, and it had a few clubs. It had one in LA, about to open one in New York, two in London, which shut down during COVID. Now, I joined as COO for the business, and that was the most unusual move I made. And that was definitely not planned because I had I left uni days after I had my second child and it was post COVID and I felt I wanted to do something different.

32:38And I met one of the founders of Albright in my communal garden. And we just got chatting and I kept brainstorming ideas of what she could do for the business. And she said to me, why don't you come and join? I was like, it's just so different. You know, that's not what I want to do. And then after a little while, I just thought, well, why not? Right. One role doesn't make my entire career. It's like I have a long career. This is different, but let me give it a go. So I actually joined as COO for the business. And I came in to help operationalize the business. Had been going for five years. Wonderful mission, but had some challenges in terms of where goes next.

33:21And I actually, when I came in, I then, I moved up to the COO about three months later. So it was quite a fast overnight move for me. And my goal was to build it into a global brand, but also commercially successful businesses. Communities are by nature really hard to monetize, and especially female-led communities haven't really succeeded. So I had to, it was the most challenging role I've ever had because I had to really strip it back and think about how do I grow this business and what do I need to change? But also it was very much a public facing role. And so you have to balance external pressure and internal pressure.

34:05And I had lots of investors. So it was definitely, I've learned the most there, but it was definitely the most challenging role I had. Talk to me more about the challenges. The challenges. So when I came into the business, it was a business that had financial challenges, post-COVID, some strategic decisions, people working from home. So when you have a hospital, it was pretty much the entire revenue line was hospitality. and when you have a building in Mayfair with high rent, high business rates, when you're catered to women who don't socialize in the same way as men do and don't spend. And I learned very quickly in hospitality, your margins is all around your alcohol.

34:46And women just weren't coming out and drinking like that, right? And I had five-story building that I needed to fill and we just couldn't do it. We tried different ways and we really struggled. We were doing like five different businesses to make sure that we were driving footfall. And then we started to do more events and events were successful. And then we had learning programs. So women would come in and we put them on a coaching program. So that allows us to drive more revenue. But then I quickly realized that actually learning in events was more successful than the hospitality part of the business.

35:21And I had to make some decisions. I had to let go a lot of people on the hospitality side. I had to reposition the business. I took it through a prepack, which I didn't even know what a prepack was. And for those who don't know, you take it through an administration and then you bring it back to life, you know, and reposition it. So that was really difficult for me. And then I had to go out and fundraise because the business wasn't well capitalized, which and then that allowed me to acquire another business called Every Woman, which was a learning business. I was able to merge that with Albright and reposition it as a learning and events business.

35:58And then once I did that, I decided to close down the hospitality business, which was quite difficult and provocative because it was, you know, when women are attached to a club, it's their club, it's their space. And so that got a lot of public attention, but it was the right thing in order for the rest of the business to survive. How did you feel personally during this period? Oh, it was awful. I remember when we announced that we were closing the space, it got picked up by the media in the wrong way. Like the entire business was closing. So I remember my WhatsApp going nuts and people just checking in with me.

36:37And then, of course, you damage relationships with suppliers when you go through liquidation. And they were chasing me. So I had to block all the comments on my LinkedIn and my Instagram. I had to shut everything off. I actually went to Scotland to visit a friend. And I literally was under a duvet for a week because I just did not want to talk to anybody because it was such a hard time. And then when we went through that transition and through that process, I've never, because the way I shut down the physical space was through a bankruptcy, which I had never done before. Right. I was a corporate person.

37:10And here I am taking hospitality business through bankruptcy. So that was so difficult. And then I had a team, the rest of the team that I needed to lift. right so you almost have to put your own feelings aside and look after the team and the business and that was that was really difficult that's when after you know I took some time off to then just recalibrate and not burn out but I had to stabilize the business first before I could do that what have you learned from this experience gosh I've learned so much I've learned that one that I'm so resilient, but I've also learned that we can get through anything.

37:54It was a moment in time. And in my head, and as a CEO, and I don't know, I don't want to generalize that maybe women feel this more, but we tend to internalize our failures or our struggle. We connect so closely with them, like they're ours rather than the business. and I learned the importance to actually use that as data. This is what I learned from that transition or that experience. Use that as data and then move forward. I took it so to heart, right? Because I was like, it was my failure. So I learned that actually it's so important that we don't internalize our struggle and it's the business failure, not my failure.

38:35And I see a lot of women do that. And I've been talking a lot about that too. And just separate yourself. because our identity is so much linked to work. And if something goes wrong, then it affects your identity, but actually your identity is so much more than work. I completely agree with you. I was having that discussion with a good friend of mine whose business is not doing very, very well right now. And he's suffering from an emotional point of view. And that was precisely my recommendation to him. You are not your business. You are two separate entities. and if you think you're your business, that's going to become your whole life.

39:12And if you as a human already have ups and downs, business is a living and breathing thing, particularly if it's not a huge corporation like the ones that you were working for. Like, you know, it sounds like this was also in a way defined as a startup and they have ups and downs. If you have as a person ups and downs and then you also take on the emotional ups and downs of your business, even if you are the smartest and strongest person in the planet, this is going to affect your mental health. And I think this is something that they don't teach you at school or university or perhaps even your parents to detach yourself from an identity point of view from your professional career.

39:49And in my opinion, I think the most important KPI is not the result, but it's the effort. And I find a lot of comfort in that. Like at the end of the day, if I go to bed and I think that I've done everything that I can humanly possible. And I think the word human there is quite important because you understand that you are limited. and you will always be limited. Like the smartest and brightest and most successful people in the world are limited. And then that allows me to sleep and to feel good with myself. Absolutely, yeah. And you can somewhat, in a way, I learned a few, from a business point of view, I learned that sometimes you have to make the harder decisions faster and you try to delay them, right?

40:32So I always, now I say, be kind to the people, but hard on the problem, right? right? Tough on the problem. So maybe looking, you know, making more those difficult decisions earlier, but you know, I don't look back, but it's, what do I learn? What are the data points that I can take with me as I move forward into my next career phase? And then, you know, again, the biggest was the identity shift, because also I was so used to being externally. I was always out interviewing people. I had all this PR around me. And then like this, you know, I shut it down. And so you're like, well, who am I without that?

41:06Who am I without that title? And you learn so much that it was the business going through a difficult time and it's not me, right? And that was such a great lesson for me that is just so important to, as you said, to make sure that you don't attach yourself or internalize those failures. and also how people are uncomfortable to talk about failure. People would say to me, no, no, no, no, it didn't fail. I'm like, but it did, and that's okay. The other part of the business succeeded, but we should talk about failure and we should be comfortable with calling it out because we're not always going to win in every part of business.

41:42And I remember when I would talk to people at first about, oh, the club failed, didn't work well. They're like, no, no, it didn't fail. I'm like, well, it did. I shut it down, so it failed. It made people really uncomfortable, that word. And it still does. But I think it's because people say, oh, there's no such thing as failure. There's just lessons. That doesn't mean I didn't take a lesson from it. But that part of the business didn't succeed. And that's okay. I completely agree with you. And this is, as we were discussing earlier, one of the prime reasons why we launched the show originally under a different name.

42:14But it was to normalize failure. And I think there cannot be any success in life if we don't fail. And I think this can be in the form of a personal life and professional life. How are you supposed to value a good relationship if you didn't have a bad one? Or perform a good business if you didn't underperform in a business that ended up failing? So I do agree that failures are lessons, definitely. I think a failure without a lesson is just a failure. And I very much would like for people to avoid that. I think there's always something to be learned. But I think lessons are also to be celebrated because that's the only way we learn.

42:51And I think we learn anything from succeeding. Yeah. And, you know, I talk a lot about it openly. And because we're sometimes ashamed of it. And I remember after the whole event happened and I didn't even know how to post on social. I would edit everything like 20 times. Is this the right tone? Am I saying the right thing? Will people criticize me? And it took me quite a while to get back on my feet. And that's why it's so important we normalize it. It was a business decision. And the reason why I think men sometimes can be different than women, I remember shortly after it happened, I went to an event at the London Stock Exchange and I was around some CEOs and I was telling them about the story.

43:35And they're like, oh, that makes sense. Yeah, you shut down that part of the business to focus on the other two. And they moved on from it. And I'm like, how are you moving on so quickly? I need to talk about this. But they're like, it's just business. business and so and and that was like an aha moment for me to say oh actually it was just business and you know of course people were affected because people lost their jobs but you know and that's that's the hard bit you know um and that's the the thing that people don't think sometimes you you see a leader make a difficult decision and people you know don't realize actually how difficult it is right for them i think that's such a great point because i remember when we finished the first season of our show, we draw a clear conclusion on the different style of entrepreneurship that women have versus men.

44:23And I think both have advantages and disadvantages. They're just different. What we have seen, and again, this is a way of generalizing, but this was a sample test of, I think, 30 interviews, roughly 15 men, 15 women, of very successful entrepreneurs in different sectors. And what I have seen is that men entrepreneurs, they have a much more logical reason why they are in that particular business, how they have identified that market gap, and they want to exploit it and expand it and make money from it. But it's quite a logical approach towards their attachment in that business. And then what at least I have seen in the people that I have interviewed during that season is that women are building a business, a product or a service because they feel like they would have been the perfect consumers for it.

45:11And therefore that has tremendous value because A, when you launch your business, because you would have been the perfect consumer, you unconsciously have done tons of research and you're doing it because it doesn't exist already out there. And you're already a perfect sort of sample test as customer segment that would cater for that service. and then another great benefit of that is the fact that because you believe in the idea in the service in the product so much because you would consume it then it's going to allow you to not quit in the days in which every single fiber of your being is telling you you gotta quit but then the downside is that when you actually need to be a bit more logical and pragmatic and say well i need to chop an arm to save the body you're still very emotional about it so i i think that both have tremendous advantages and both have also disadvantages.

45:58And in my opinion, the best of both would be having both people in the business. Yeah, and surrounding yourself with the right team. And, you know, I spend a lot of my time working with female founders and I have for the last four years and advising on different businesses at different stages and having the right people on your side to question and challenge you. and you know I because it was a smaller business and it was a bit startupy I also got really attached of course to the people around me and and I had to let go people that were really close to me and and that's that's hard but it was the right decision for the business um and you know and that's why you need the right team um around you to really help you make those decisions because sometimes and I wasn't the founder but sometimes you always have a founder's mindset right when you're managing any type of business, but you have to make sure that what you're doing is right for the business long term and you come back to that.

46:56And the truth around running a business is hard, right? You have to make a lot of difficult decisions. I also fundraise, which, you know, I had never fundraised before. And having to go out to the investor community and pitch, I think that also allowed me to just get, have so much more empathy for female founders and the challenges and, you know, and also how to pitch yourself, how to pitch the business. And I learned so much around that as well. So I'm so passionate about helping female founders raise because it is difficult. They don't, you know, having access to network and having access to the right capital is really challenging.

47:36What did you do at the personal level that enabled you to pull through? So did you go to therapy? Did you go on walks, visit friends? Yeah, I mean, for a long time, I didn't. And I just was so consumed by work. In fact, I had a friend that invited me to dinner. And she said to me, I'm going to say this to you because I really love you. She said, you're just not yourself. You're just not the Viv I know. You know, you're constantly thinking of work, work, work. And something just seems off. and she's still a very close friend. And you have to be open to get that feedback. And so then I was then scrolling on Instagram one day and I got tagged, targeted with this ad to go to this unstressable retreat.

48:24And I thought, oh, I'm stressed and I would really like to be unstressed. Like, how do I do that? And I just booked it. And it was like last minute impulse decision. It was a few days outside of London. I think I just needed to get away. and you weren't allowed to have your phone. So I thought, that's amazing. Nobody can reach me. And it was on the weekend when I knew the press was covering a story. And I thought, I don't want to be around, you know, when that story comes out about the business. So I went on to this retreat and I met Mogadat, Alice Law, who I had never heard of before because I must've been living under a rock.

49:00And I was like, I hadn't read any of his books, any of that. And I was probably the only one there that did not know. So, but I got to spend some really nice time with them one-on-one as well. And they taught me a lot around like using mind hacks and tools to manage my mindset, manage my stress. And then I was, you know, I met the most amazing people who didn't care like about my job and what I did. They didn't ask me, you know how when you meet somebody, like, what do you do? I didn't get asked that like once that whole weekend. And then it was just about connecting with people around the stresses and challenges we were going through life.

49:38And that just allowed me to take a step back. It was almost as I was going into like this black hole of stress and I could see myself and I needed to be pulled back. Right. So when I went on this retreat, it was great. I did a lot of writing. And in fact, I remember because at the end of every session, I would just go to the side on my own and just write. And everyone would go around and talk with Mo and Alice. And Mo came up to me and he said to me, like, tell me about you because you're the only one that sits on her own. And it was a small, it was like 20 people. And then we got chatting and then I was sharing some of my challenges and all of that.

50:13And that just helped me just look at life and a little bit differently in terms of the way I was managing the situation. Because I was internalizing all that stress. It then prompted me to get a nutritionist. And I was always really fit and healthy. and in fact growing up we were three girls and my father it was mandatory to do sports you know we had to do three sports it was always part of my life but during those years because I'm so focused on the business I kind of lost my way a little bit but that was almost what I needed it was like ripping a band-aid off say actually prioritize yourself so I then got a nutritionist I went back to the gym, got a PT.

50:53And since then, I completely changed my lifestyle. And I think I always had like a positive mindset. But I guess because the business had been going through so many challenges, I didn't have the tools to deal with all of it. I can deal with them for the work, but I couldn't deal with them for me. And I just needed to build those tools again. And now I do a lot of, you know, I do a lot of affirmations. I do a lot of like, you know, journaling, I exercise every day, I see my friends a lot more, and I made sure I make those changes. And I, you just feel so much more grounded and balanced. Yeah. The first thing that I would say is, I highly recommend for anyone listening to this, that is under a lot of stress, or close to burnout, to buy the book from Alice and Mo, called Unstressable.

51:46Alice came to this show and she also changed dramatically my perspective of how much control we can have over our stress because everything is a matter of perspective. And it's just a matter of having the right tools to be able to change your perspective. And there's one thing that she told me that then I read again in the book for a different example, her book from a different example, that really helped me, which is that our brains cannot differentiate from what is an imagination and reality. So we suffer much more from our imagination than from what is actually happening. So for example, in the case of you maybe closing the hospitality site of Allbright, you're imagining tons of things like what would these people think of me or maybe my future career or my future.

52:36And these are things that are not happening right now. They're not happening in the world actually. they're happening in your brain. But what I was told by Alice is that our brain cannot differentiate from reality and imagination. And it does segregate and release the same neurochemicals that make us feel stressed, like cortisol and so on, and also feel pain. And I found that very helpful. And my solution towards that was to bring myself to the present moment. And for me, what really was incredibly transformative, I don't know if you tried it, but I would love to know if you tried it, is meditation.

53:10Yeah. You meditate? I don't meditate, no, but I should try it. But, you know, Alice taught me during that weekend. Alice and Mo gave us an exercise that weekend. So, you know, obviously everything you said is so true, but our brain's meant to protect us, right? And thoughts are coming through. And what I remember, and I do this quite regularly now, when I get, you know, I was afraid, like what's it going to mean for me, my future career, what are people going to think? People are going to think I failed. And so when one of those thoughts come through, you take a moment and you acknowledge it. And you say, is it true or not?

53:47Right? If it is true, what can I do about it? So you start to think, okay, well, if it's true, then I could do X, Y. But if it's not true, then my brain needs to give me another thought. Talk to your brain. Say, you know what? It's not true. Can you give me another thought? And so I try to do that all the time now. And that really helps because actually, is it true that because I made a business decision that was tough but good for the business that people are going to think I'm a failure? Well, no, it's not. So can you give me another thought? It's talking through it, right? And I think, and that really helped me is to take that moment's stop.

54:22And I guess it's the same as coming back to the present moment, right? But I don't meditate, but I should. I do a lot of mindfulness. So I do listen to, you know, 10 minutes of like affirmations and mindfulness exercises in the morning. And I do that usually beginning, like before I work out or after I work out. And I think that really sets me up for the day. I want to talk about success and failure. So what is your relationship today with both? Yeah. So I would say my relationship. I think my relationship is always evolving with both. my definition of success has changed because success to me now is not just about a title.

55:10It's not about that validation, anything like that. And I thought I had to get to that CEO role and that's success, right? Actually, success is being really happy and content with myself. and that's work, personally, health, everything. And I have different ways to measure that. Am I looking after myself? Am I nurturing the relationships around me? Am I nurturing my career and my growth? And it's not so much defined by a title or money, but that's important. I want to do well and all of that, but it's not necessarily defined by that. I think failure, my relationship with failure has really, really improved.

55:54before I think success, I'm still building there. But my relationship with Baylor has improved. I've always been comfortable to take risks and try, but I wasn't prepared to be unsuccessful and fail at something because I had been so successful in my entire career. If you look at my career path, I kept moving. I kept being promoted all the time, even not asking for it. I was constantly being promoted. I've won many awards. When I was at Discovery, I was a rising star award. You know, BBC's funded my, you know, LBS education. And I had so much backing from companies that I worked with. I felt that I'm really good at everything I do, right?

56:34I'm good. I had, you know, I think confidence comes from those proof points, right? You know, you don't start with confidence, but as you accumulate, it's evidence, right? As you accumulate success stories, that builds your confidence. so I wasn't prepared to fail on something and then to fail publicly was like a double failure for me so now I've I feel so much stronger for it and so much more resilient and that probably the whole energy around me has shifted you know my friends were like you're so intense before I mean I'll always be a little bit intense it's my personality but I'm much more comfortable with you know failing and I'm much more comfortable with not getting things right and I think that's been part of the growth that I had to go through.

57:25If you could go back in time and choose a career path and you would need to be very honest here with yourself would you choose differently would you choose a different industry? I don't know I always think those questions are really tricky um because I just think you're um if I chose a different path then I would have a completely different life I would have met different people right um I would have um I would have probably started maybe entrepreneurship or do something for myself earlier. I recognize now that I have such a strong ability to build brands and businesses and drive growth. I probably would have thought about how do I do it for myself earlier?

58:15But you're never too late to do it, right? But I would have probably backed myself in that way earlier. Now I'm doing quite a lot of advisory work for businesses. I'm a private equity firm, a marketplace business, a community business. And you just realize how much you know and how much value you add to a business. So I didn't know much, even though my mom was an entrepreneur, I never thought about what I could have done something on my own earlier on, but I probably would have loved to have explored that. If you could talk to your younger self, the Viv that was in her 20s, what would you advise her?

58:58I would advise her to know that you are exactly where you need to be and everything works out. you know that and that's like I realized that when I had my second child because we had many rounds of IVF to have Matisse our second child and I you know as a Greek woman when you you know you only have you don't have you have one child there's something wrong right they always you know they want you to have many many children I had so much pressure for my Greek family to have more children more children and I did five rounds of IVF And then I thought, that's it. I'm going to give up, right? And then I got a call from the doctor.

59:43And he said, well, you have this little embryo that's left. It's not a perfect embryo, but I would transfer it if I were you. It's just, it's, you know. And I said, well, what are the risks? He's like, if it's strong enough, it survives. If it doesn't, that's that. And I thought, should I or should I not? And I remember walking up to the clinic and facing the clinic. I thought, oh, gosh, I really don't want to do this again. It's that excitement and the disappointment, right? And I did, and we were successful. And it taught me that actually you are exactly where you need to be in life all the time.

1:00:17I got goosebumps from this. What is the best piece of advice that you have ever been given? The best piece of advice would have been from Dean, who I'll make sure he listens to this, who I worked with for 12 years. he really something I've always admired and learned from him is his belief in himself and to and I know it's a bit cliche but I was always I learned from him the like to always back myself and he taught me that because he always always backed himself and he would he would tell me you just have to back yourself because if you don't others won't in life right you need to back yourself first.

1:01:01Biff, my last question to you. It's my favorite one, because it's the one question that is homogeneous across every episode. So it's interesting to see how the answers can differ from one another. If you had to compress all your knowledge into one essential piece of advice that we must implement in our daily lives, what would it be? Gosh, that's a good question. I would say it was probably linked to what I just said in terms of it. I just said now around the story around my fertility is that the best advice I would give is to know that, you know, the universe has your back and you just have to keep trying and moving forward one step at a time, which is what I've done.

1:01:49And you have to just know that actually the universe will conspire towards you. And that's hard because it doesn't mean things are not difficult and you don't go through challenges, but you just have to have that mindset that it's working in your favor eventually. Thank you for one of the most inspiring conversations that we've had on this show. So your ability to adapt into new environments and to rebuild yourself personally and professionally, it's, I would imagine, an endless source of inspiration for your two children. So I hope that that does exactly the same thing for our audience because it definitely did it with me.

1:02:30I'm going to leave this room with so much food for thought, but also so much hope and inspiration and energy. so all I can say is thank you on behalf of myself my team my audience for sharing your story the unfiltered version of your story with the good the bad the ugly which is really the reality of everyone's story but we just like to shine some light on the nice part but that's not life this is really the reason why I do this show stories like this one bringing to life stories like this one because I truly believe that the world needs to hear more this type of content. And unfortunately, I think there's a lot of, I'll say this on camera, garbage content out there that does nothing.

1:03:15It doesn't serve any purpose whatsoever, real purpose. And we do this because we know that this has the power to transform people's lives. So thank you for being part of this journey with us. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. You're such a great host.

1:03:33You