Latest / CEOs and ABCs / Isabelle Brenton (IPG Media Brands, Meta & Razorfish) A Conversation on: How to Navigate Professional Growth While Embracing Personal Identity and Resilience #041

Transcript

Isabelle Brenton (IPG Media Brands, Meta & Razorfish) A Conversation on: How to Navigate Professional Growth While Embracing Personal Identity and Resilience #041 · CEOs and ABCs

• 0:00
  Speaker A: I became most ambitious and most successful after I became a parent and really importantly, after I embraced being a parent. That's really when my career took off, is when I had two young children. And I wasn't afraid to say that they probably have this idea that we're these perfect people and that probably is an isolating experience when something doesn't go right for them.
• 0:21
  Speaker B: Welcome back to CEO of the Navy Seas. My guest today is Isabel Brenton. Isabel has spent her career in the communications field, most recently as the Chief Communications Officer at IPG Media Brands, one of the largest media agencies in the world. In 2026, she was the recipient of the Working Mother of the Year award, as recognized by. She runs it. In this episode, we talk about how she spent the first part of her motherhood actively concealing her family life from work, the process she went through of bringing her authentic self to the office, and how she used a layoff experience as a learning opportunity for her children. This is a conversation about identity, gender stereotypes in the workplace, and the power of vulnerability in teaching our kids emotional intelligence.
• 1:03
  Speaker A: I move my wedding ring. If I had a picture in my background of my family, I would move that I was removing every sign and making myself seem fully available and fully committed to whatever the opportunity was.
• 1:15
  Speaker B: Welcome to CEOs and ABCs. Real stories from execs who lead at work and show up at home. Career moves, parenting wins and fails and everything in between. I'm your host, Kevin Rice. Here's today's episode. Isabel, thank you so much for being here.
• 1:29
  Speaker A: Of course. Thanks so much for having me, Kevin, I'm excited to chat.
• 1:32
  Speaker B: You've had such an impressive career leading communications across some of the biggest organizations in the world and building up to Chief Communications Officer at IPG Media Brands, which is a space I spent my entire career in being on the agency and consulting side. I know how much of a grind that can be. Tell us about kind of how you got to where you are today. Not necessarily like the job by job overview, but what do you attribute the success of your career to?
• 1:59
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great question. And I appreciate that we come from a similar background. I think that I've always kind of worked in an agency setting for the most part, with the exception of when I was platform side at Meta, first at PR agencies, then later at, you know, major holding companies, working within the media agency space and then kind of representing those brands and the faces of those brands from a B2B agency perspective in the industry. And I think that I have a knack for kind of coming into really matrixed, complicated organizations and bringing clarity for how people talk about the offering that the agency is bringing to its clients, to the industry, to how innovation is being woven in and up leveling. So I think that once I kind of got a taste of the agency setting, I was really enamored with kind of not only the role communications can play in driving business outcomes, but the role in navigating the complexity that exists within these organizations. I find a lot of joy. I get a lot of joy and have a deep passion for bringing a bunch of different stakeholders together. Working cross functionally and getting everyone to rally around a mission is sort of what I'm really passionate about. And that's kind of always come through in some role as I've grown throughout my career.
• 3:21
  Speaker B: Yeah, the agency just kind of pace is really fast. I was spanning maybe 40 clients and I had personal relationships with all the executives. It was 16 hour days traveling, 50% on the road. What has your experience been in terms of the demand of your professional career on you personally?
• 3:43
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think I had an interesting shift earlier on in my career. I grew up very much a people pleaser. So I think earlier in my career I was motivated by external factors. Right. Did my boss tell me you did a great job? That was a great piece of coverage. You got an ad age or you got that award? That was kind of my motivator for a long time. And I was working really hard to get that validation from, whether that be through a client or through my manager or the head of our unit, whatever it be, depending on the organization. And I think there was a shift at some point, probably in my late 20s, and people kind of were happy with the work I did. And all of a sudden it was like, well, who am I doing this for? And I developed this kind of intrinsic motivation, which is way healthier. I now am able to get a lot of my validation for myself. And I'm always kind of raising the bar with. It's not just about checking the box on the plan anymore. It's like, well, how do I outperform that? How do I outperform myself, really? How do I level up and consistently compete with the version of me that did this a year ago now? I think that's, as I said, a lot healthier to have that intrinsic motivation. I also think it's presented some challenges to me, particularly as I became a parent, because there's only so many hours of the day that you can dedicate towards your career when you're managing Children and the household and everything else. But I do think that has been my main motivator. And that earlier on made it really fun to work those long hours and get on that plane and show up and really thrived in that environment. And then later my career was more of, okay, how do I do this in an efficient way without compromising performance?
• 5:27
  Speaker B: Yeah, I can relate. I've been kind of honest about this. I grew up with maybe lower self esteem and so I really sought out ways to get external validation. And so that was through sports or grades. And then eventually when I got in my career, it was like, oh, I hit the jackpot. I can get so much external validation of winning new clients, hitting revenue targets, speaking on stage. And it was just this machine of giving me all the external validation that I didn't have internally, filling that void of lower self esteem. But then I fall into the trap of kind of being a martyr and it's like, okay, we've got a pitch that's due tomorrow and I'm going to be the one that stays up till three in the morning, four in the morning, whatever it takes to get this done. And yeah, early in my career I could do that and it felt good. But once I became a parent, that really took away from my ability to then have anything left in the tank to show up for my kids. I can definitely relate. And it's interesting how we start understanding ourselves in a more intimate way and realizing, oh, that's why I showed up this way at work, because of maybe my childhood or the way I was raised.
• 6:35
  Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And to your point, this industry in particular, I know many industries are fast paced, but the agency ecosystem and the industry itself is so, so fast paced today more than ever before. And when you feel like you thrive under those conditions, it's really hard adjustment to think about, okay, this is what brings me joy here. But this is not sustainable. So it's a lot of grappling with how do you make this work while continuing to show up in, in these environments that are so exciting and stimulating and motivating for so many of us.
• 7:09
  Speaker B: Yeah, and I mean, it's fun. Cause we get to work across different industries and with different clients and there's always something new and new challenges. And that was the other thing I loved was there's problems to solve so I could go and help people solve their problems and then I get more external validation. Problem was then I'd show up at home and I'd get none of that. My kids aren't telling me great job today, dad. And then that would push me back into work where I would get what I needed. And so I had to spend a lot of time building up my own self esteem, self confidence so that I didn't need to get it externally or from other people or my career.
• 7:41
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I think also part of that is you expend so much energy trying to show up in a certain way at the workplace. Right. And to get that validation and to feel like you're doing a good job and that's exhausting. And not to say it's not important in a way to, to show up at a certain level, but you want to come home and be completely wiped of any energy to dedicate towards excitement over what they did at school or something that happened in their day and just feel completely on empty. Right. I always think about how am I spreading that energy and how am I making sure that I'm reserving the energy for the people that matter most in my life. So, yeah, it's tough to balance, as we all know.
• 8:22
  Speaker B: Yeah. Well, you stepped into one of your most senior roles of your career right around the same time that you became a mom. So what was that like for you as your identity was shifting or just these two significant roles of your life started to converge?
• 8:37
  Speaker A: It's funny, as motivated as I was to kind of keep climbing the ladder earlier in my career, I never thought that I would be in the top seat of a communications function. I never thought that I would be in more senior leadership position. I always kind of thought of myself as a number two. And for whatever reason, it probably was self esteem related to your point. But all of a sudden I was really growing in my career and my husband and I were having a really intentional, almost analytical conversation about do we want children? Neither of us were the kind of people that were born being like, I'm on this planet to be a mother. I didn't have that instinct, which I later learned is common. I always thought that there was all of a sudden supposed to be this moment where I was all of a sudden desperate to have children and my husband was in a similar situation and we kind of had to sit down and say, what do we want our life to look like? Should we have children? Having those conversations. And then I got pregnant and it was all of a sudden these things were happening at the same time. It was like I'm ascending at my, in my career and I'm having my first child. And I really had to grapple with how those identities worked together and how they were Shaping each other and myself. And it was challenging. I believe I was the first person to be pregnant in my office, and I had friends that were at larger corporations that were saying, well, you need the mother's room, and you need these resources, and do you know about these various benefits? And I was like, oh, I have no idea. And the company I worked for at the time was. Was independent and private, and they were very supportive. And I said, can we have a mother's room set up? And they were, of course. We're going to convert this conference room. They were so supportive. But I really felt this pressure to kind of keep ascending, become a mother, model, kind of what motherhood looks like in my office, and figure out how to continue operating in a certain level while stepping into this new role in my personal life. So I felt a lot of pressure, and I think it took me a while to kind of find my path, because I think that pressure came out in ways that right now I feel kind of ashamed about. Not from a workplace perspective, but from the fact that I was sort of hiding my identity as a parent and kind of pushing that down, minimizing it, in order to show up as this person whose life has not changed at all at work, which is kind of crazy to say out loud, because we all know how much parent changes our life. So, yeah, it was. It was a challenging time, I would say, the first couple of years.
• 11:12
  Speaker B: Yeah. I love that you have that very direct vision, conversation with your husband, Because I think a lot, at least people that I've talked to, my social circles, they choose partners based on, oh, we have really strong chemistry, and then avoid the tough conversation of, do we want to have kids? Where do we want to live? How are we going to handle difficult financial situations that might arise in our life? What was that conversation like when you were discussing should we have kids or not? Were you looking at pros and cons? Was it more of an emotional decision, or was it more of a logical conversation?
• 11:48
  Speaker A: It felt very logical, which probably sounds very cold, but again, I didn't feel this burning to become a mother. And I think it was sort of like, okay, if we didn't have kids, what would our life look like? Like, when we're in our 60s or 70s, how would we feel about it then? And I think that we kind of arrived on the fact that we would love to have a family of our own. We were living in New York City at the time, so we were like, okay, let's see how this goes. Living with children in the city, which many of my friends still do. And it's a great experience. It's just making a decision of where will we live? To your point, of, what will this life look like? And it was funny because we decided we did want to have children. We kind of agreed on two if that was possible for us, and it was. But we were not expecting them to be 20 months apart. So here I went into being the first pregnant person in the office and having the mother's room set up and coming back and acting like everything's normal and trying to minimize what's going on in my personal life and really not giving myself permission to kind of feel overwhelmed at times. Like, I went to Asia when my son was six months old and my husband was like, you gonna feel okay about that? And I'm like, of course I will. Of course I'll be okay with this. Why are you even ask. Why are you even questioning this? And I think I was questioning myself. Right. And I didn't want to go there. So it was easier to be like, everything's fine, and then fast forward. I'm doing it again not even two years later. So that was unexpected. So we're like, we'll have two kids and they'll be five years apart or whatever. And that didn't happen. But also it thrust me into kind of this environment where I had two very young children. And whether I wanted to or not, eventually I kind of had to come around to owning that and not being, I don't wanna say ashamed, because of course I'm not ashamed of my children, but not feeling like people are going to judge my abilities based on the fact that I had young children.
• 13:43
  Speaker B: Yeah. What was it actually like being one of the first women in your office to navigate pregnancy or motherhood? Did you feel either was pulling you away, like, career was pulling you away from being a present mother in those early years, or vice versa? Did you feel like you were missing out some of the work activities?
• 14:00
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 14:01
  Speaker B: Because you needed to be home. I certainly felt that way. I mean, I remember I maybe took a week or two off when my first son was born, and I was still checking emails, and I was still probably more involved than I should have been at the time. And it wasn't until my second or third son that I actually was able to take some time off, But I felt that tension of, oh, I'm missing out. There's a big pitch that I really should be on because I worked for this for the last six months, but I'm not gonna be there. I'm so curious. Did you feel that missing out on one side or the other?
• 14:32
  Speaker A: Yes. I remember I had several friends who. It's really funny how you expect you'll feel in a certain situation versus how you actually feel. And I had some friends that were like, I'm gonna be so fine going back to work. And then they were a disaster, bawling their eyes out the day they went back. And for me, I wasn't sure how I was going to feel. And I don't think I cried returning from either of my maternity leaves because I think. I think I felt so. To your point, I did feel very anxious about. I've missed all this time, and, like, I need to get back or these things might be taken away from me, or I might not get to the next level. And I really didn't let myself feel the sadness. I remember then being in the office. Cause, you know, this is pre Covid. I had my first child, my son, in 2016. And I'm staring at the pictures on my phone and I'm looking at the monitor and during his nap, and I'm missing him. But it felt like I was really compartmentalizing the two huge areas of my identity, which was my identity at work versus my identity at home. And I did feel very anxious about missing out. I remember sending emails the day both my children were born. I was at the hospital, and everyone was like, put your phone down. What are you doing? I remember really feeling this pressure, and I think a lot of it just like the motivation piece that was put on myself. I don't know that anyone else was really excited, expecting me to show up in a certain way or to go to Asia. I think it was an opportunity that was presented to me. And I had been going to Asia pretty regularly before my kids were born. But then I probably could have said, no, I'm not going to go when my kid's six months old. And maybe I still would have. Right. But I don't think I even gave myself the permission to think about that as a choice. I think I was exclusively, like, I was asked to go. I will go. So I did. To answer your question about being the first person in the office, I think I did put this pressure on myself, but there was a lot of tension at the same time between, how do I model this for other women who might be more junior than me or coming up or starting to think about having families of their own, but also this fear of jeopardizing my career potential. So that was tough to kind of hold space for both of those things.
• 16:52
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, I can relate to that. I mean, even now, I'm not operating a business. I'm doing the podcast, I'm writing a book. So I feel that tension sometimes, too. And I constantly have to remind myself that I'm not going to regret taking some time off to help my kids through this adolescence period. My career is. Is always going to be there for me if I want to get back into starting a new company or operating a business.
• 17:19
  Speaker A: Exactly.
• 17:20
  Speaker B: You kind of shared earlier a little bit about how maybe you felt like you needed to keep your identities compartmentalized. Was that a pressure that you put on yourself? Or was there something that made you feel like, I need to keep these parts of me separate, like, I can't bring my personal life to my career?
• 17:37
  Speaker A: Yeah. I remember someone saying to me, I think it was day one, I was back from having my first child. They were like, we're so excited you decide to come back. And I had never indicated I was not coming back. So I think I was already putting pressure on myself because, to be fair, like, I know who I am, and I know highly motivated high performer who shows up and does her best every single day. But I think that there were instances like that where I. I'm sure that person meant that as warm welcome. Right?
• 18:07
  Speaker B: Sure.
• 18:07
  Speaker A: I don't think that was their intention, but I did find myself being worried that people weren't expecting me to be here. Now I really need to prove myself more than ever. No one's really raising my goals or changing anything about my role, but I'm all of a sudden raising the bar on myself. So I think that there were kind of some subtle things that were happening. And I think also because I was one of the few mothers, I think there might have been a few women that were mothers but had joined after their children were older. And it was great to have them to kind of confide in and kind of quietly talk to about this. But I do think I was sometimes comparing myself to how some of the senior men in my office were acting. And I think that I was like, oh, I need to not talk about this. And I need to not act like there's anything distracting me from my. From my job. Which, when we think about what that means, it's not a distract. Right. Like everyone, regardless if you have children or you don't have children, you might have an aging parent. There's just wanting to spend time with your friends or having passion projects on the side. Everyone has dynamic lives that they're leading, and the idea That I felt like this was this really unusual situation that I needed to kind of manage in this way is kind of silly because everyone has things that happen outside of the office, Right. And we should. Our lives aren't meant to be spent 100% focused on work.
• 19:37
  Speaker B: Hi, Kevin here. If you're enjoying this conversation and you know someone else who's working to grow in their career while staying present at home, I'd really love it if you could share this episode with them. It's one of the best ways you can help us and help more leaders build their careers in a way that they're proud of without missing the moments that matter most. When you returned back to work and this gentleman said, oh, I'm so glad you're back. That's really interesting because nobody ever questioned whether or not I was going to come back. I think that's probably a gender stereotype, because I don't think many men are getting questioned on whether or not they're going to come back. But early in my career, when I was still pretty immature as an executive, every time one of our women who are in their mid-30s and have kids, I remember thinking, she's not going to come back. And that's just not true. I think this is a part of life that, yeah, it does mature you. And for me, when I became a conscious parent, because there's a difference between becoming a parent and then being somebody who's very conscious about parenting. When I became a conscious parent, I started learning more about myself and I started showing up better as a leader. But that was when I started really focusing on it and accepting that part of my identity versus when I first became a parent, I was just kind of defaulting through it, and I was still 100% into my career, and I had really nothing left to show up for my kids at home.
• 20:58
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean, the conscious piece is so important, and to your point, it reveals so much about ourselves. And I think that this time off that I've had especially. I mean, I think luckily earlier on into my parenting journey, I did have a shift. But I think especially this time off, this transitional time I have right now has allowed me to realize just how powerful that is now that I'm able to show up for them in a different way and be present with them in a way where I'm not having to check my email and. And it's made me think about, okay, when I start a new job, I want to make sure that I have more boundaries around how I'm using my phone when I'm not at the office. Because I do think there were so many blurred lines for me there and just feeling like even if I was here with my kids, I wasn't necessarily always as present as I could have been. And I was always thinking about work.
• 21:55
  Speaker B: Tell me more about that. Cause I experienced the same thing. When you came back from maternity leave, how did you approach balancing between your kind of new identity as a mother and your identity as a career professional? Was there a period or a moment where that felt like a really difficult balancing act to hold together?
• 22:12
  Speaker A: Yeah, I would say, especially when I had two under two. I think my son had just turned two. When I returned from my second maternity leave, I was tired all the time and I was still performing well. But I think I came to a point where I had to give myself some grace of, like, okay, there's a lot going on in your life. We were moving. There was all these things happening. And I remember there were a few opportunities to interview for various roles that came across my desk. And I remember thinking, I don't think I can take that on right now. Like, I've been at this company for several years. I feel comfortable here. I feel comfortable in this environment. And I think this is my spot for life right now, going through this chaotic period of time. I think you and I talked about this at one point, but there were a few interviews I ended up taking a little bit later as my kids got older. And I became very paranoid of. To the earlier point of distraction, of appearing at all like I had children or family or anything else going on outside of my work life. I would remove my wedding ring. If I had a picture in my background of my family, I would move that. Obviously, no recruiter is saying, do you have a family? Do you have children? But I was removing every sign and making myself seem fully available and fully committed to whatever the opportunity was, which is so wild to think about in hindsight, like, the effort I went through to conceal my identity. But then eventually I did take a role at Meta, and I think that's really where I became way more comfortable in my skin as a parent. Every call would start with, how was your weekend? Did you watch the game last night? Like, very personal, connection driven. And people would say, my son was sick. Or we went on this family road trip. And I was like, oh, my God, we always talk about bringing your authentic self to work. It's not that I think it was discouraged at any earlier workplaces. It was just that at the time when I was at Meta, People led with that. That was how you opened a meeting. That was how you bonded and connected with coworkers. And it was just such an enlightening moment for me of, oh, now someone's asking me how my weekend was. I can talk about what I do with my kids and my husband and not feel like I'm giving TMI or I'm crossing some sort of boundary. Like, this is fine. Everyone is integrating their home life with their work life. And then six months into being at Meta, the pandemic hit and my kids are in the background of my zoom and no one's at school and everyone's working from home. And I really had to embrace the fact that, yes, that's my two year old behind me, or sorry about that. And actually learning not to say sorry about that was a big part, not to apologize for it because we were all dealing with this. And I think it also brought a lot of awareness to me about how I had been really concealing and working overtime to avoid any acknowledgement of my children, my family. And I think that brought up a lot of shame for me and also made me realize I cannot do this again. I need to move on and accept that this is, this is not something that I need to minimize. Also, it's a huge value add in who I am as a person. As I grew into a people manager and took on more senior leadership positions, I became a more empathetic leader. I was the one to say, how was your weekend? And I think that Covid period really shifted how I saw myself and saw other people and kind of allowed myself to have permission to bring my whole self to work.
• 25:56
  Speaker B: Yeah, Covid was such a transformational period for so many people that I've talked to. For me personally, I just filed for divorce. I was raising a three and a half year old. I'm a six weeks old by myself and work was taking off because the agency space that I was in was the restaurant industry. Like, we supported large chain restaurant brands and so they had to shut their doors and we were doing all of their online ordering and loyalty programs and CRM. So we became the lifeblood of all these large restaurant chains. It was the only way that they were going to stay afloat without completely shutting down the business despite their doors being closed. So a lot of pressure at work. We were doubling in size. And then, yeah, a pandemic happens. For me, it was actually a bit of a saving grace because it allowed me to not travel and so I could be home now. I was still in kind of this robotic mode where I was totally emotionally shut down, but I was insanely productive. So I could work 16 hour days, I could be getting everything done that I need to get done, but very disconnected from myself and disconnected from my kids. And that's how I operated for a long time. And eventually some things changed in how I saw my kids behaving and I realized, okay, I need to make a change here. It sounds like Covid was a really transformational period for you as well.
• 27:15
  Speaker A: It was. And I mean, what a story, Kevin. I mean, for you, hearing how challenging that was, that must have been such a crazy time. I mean, everyone has their own Covid story. But yeah, it certainly was. I mean, the balance of. My husband was in finance at the time, worked market hours, and I had to be really intentional about what calls I took because he needed to be in front of his screen certain hours of the day, and then I would be up doing the actual work outside of the calls until midnight. So I think we all have our own experience of how we had to balance those various things that were happening in our home. We also left New York City and went to an Airbnb outside of the city so that our kids could at least go outside. Cause all the New York City parks were closed. We couldn't even run to Central park and go on the playground. So it was definitely a transformational time. It was such a chaotic but amazing experience. I have to say, now that I'm out of it, it felt really. I felt like I was treading water every single day. But at the same time, my children walked outside and were in nature. And we used to joke that when we first got out there, I mean, this is actually true. A bird was chirping. My son was like, an ambulance is coming. He was so excited. He loved ambulances. And he had never really heard just like birds chirping outside of his window. So I think it was really a transform, transformational time for all of us. And being able to kind of bring that mindset and that lens back to my job, I think was. Was really critical because it informed how I was prioritizing things a little bit differently and how I was continuing to try and maintain that connection that was built by kind of being isolated together for so long out in the country.
• 28:59
  Speaker B: As I've gotten to know you, I mean, I see you as a very intentional parent who's really putting a lot of thought into your. Your time with your kids and building connection and being present. And actually, recently you were named Working Mother of the Year, which is an amazing recognition.
• 29:15
  Speaker A: Thank you.
• 29:16
  Speaker B: What did that mean to you when you received that award?
• 29:19
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, it's so funny because so much of my career has been spent on building the profiles of leaders in our industry, and that often includes, you know, press and awards and speaking opportunities. So usually I'm the person that's writing these award submissions and trying to help someone else kind of get that acknowledgement. And to find out that I was on that list from she Runs it, which is such an incredible organization. I was so shocked and so excited. And there was this pending acquisition that was happening of IPG that took place most of 2025. I knew there was a really good chance that I would be impacted by the layoff once deal went through, and I was. And that was a few weeks after this announcement went out. So I went from kind of feeling so confident in my career journey and feeling like I'm on top of the world, and here I'm getting recognized not only as a leader, but also as a parent. And I think that felt even more meaningful than any kind of regular industry award could feel like. And even though I knew there was a chance it would happen, when it actually happened, it. It. You know, it felt just. It gutted me. So it's. It's really hard not to take something like that personally, even though it is. Thousands and thousands of people were impacted. But at the same point, I realized I needed to show up in a certain way for my kids. It was a real teaching moment for me. And I remember my husband saying, you don't have to tell the kids. I know you're going through your own processing of this situation, and we don't have to tell them. We can just tell them you're taking some time off. And I was adamant, and it was the same day it had happened. I said, no, I wanna tell them. And we had dinner that night, and I told them. And I cried as I was telling them. And we had this kind of honest conversation about it. And it was really a moment, I think, of teaching resilience to them. I said, you know, these things happen, and I'm gonna find something else. And in the meantime, I'm so excited to be able to spend more time with you, to come to your activities, to volunteer at school. And I think since then, it's been this really special journey, not only in terms of being able to show up for them in ways that typically I wouldn't be able to, but in how they're seeing me navigate the interview processes and walk away from some things. That I didn't think were the right fit for me or receive an offer where maybe I think that my experiences being undervalued, and that's been really kind of fun in being able to talk to them. Obviously not in the way I would talk to a peer or my. My husband, but in being able to, like, model that self worth and teach them kind of how you really need to bet on yourself, which is a really hard thing to do. So it. It's been a really special time.
• 32:06
  Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I mean, you also modeled vulnerability, Right? Crying during grief is an appropriate response. If we show up as a robot, then you're not teaching them EQ in the process. And to your point, teaching kids how to deal with hard things, resilience, grit, overcoming adversity, that's really important. And as parents, at least I'll speak for myself. I always want to shield my kids from that because I want to protect them. I don't want to see them get hurt, but that would be doing them a disservice. And so I think it is really important to. To give them opportunities to be challenged, but then also share when you are challenged so that they can see mom or dad deals with this too. When I deal with challenges, I'm not the only one. And I think that's so important because our kids are similar ages. It's like, who knows what the world's gonna look like when they're 18? And no matter what, the one thing we do know is there's gonna be challenges. They're gonna face hardships and difficulties, and so preparing them for that is probably the most important thing we can do as parents. Yeah.
• 33:09
  Speaker A: And I think they probably have this idea that we're these perfect people. Right. If we don't let them into that, and then that probably is an isolating experience for them when something doesn't go right for them. I know my daughter hates when I say it's okay if something happens, and I've tried to completely remove it from my vocabulary, because instinctually, like, whenever something happens with them that doesn't go right, I'm like, oh, it's okay. And then I, like, back myself out of it, and I'm like, okay, I can see why that's frustrating. Or I try to help them work through it. Um, but it's my instinct to just say, it's okay the first thing, and my daughter's like, it's not okay. So I think when we're able to, to your point, model like, hey, this thing happened to me, and I'M disappointed and I'm really sad about it and it's not what I expected and I'm, I'm figuring it out. I think it probably makes us seem a little bit more human and relatable to them. Um, and, and builds that deeper connection with them of like, oh, we're, we've been in similar situations. We've all had things happen that have surprised us in a bad way or have caught us off guard or have been disappointing. And we can come out of the other side stronger and with more perspective.
• 34:20
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's great. Cause otherwise, just saying it's okay probably feels a little dismissive. Right. And I probably wouldn't say that to a coworker or a friend. And so really try really hard to extend the same courtesy and openness and support for my kids as I do anybody else in my life.
• 34:37
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's such a good point.
• 34:38
  Speaker B: What does your day to day look like today? How are you spending your time? I know you're kind of in a. One of our past guests called it a power pause. Taking some time to figure out what the next step is. And so what does life look like right now? Kind of. What does this chapter feel like?
• 34:54
  Speaker A: Yeah, it feels really nice. I have to say. It feels like a blessing in disguise in a way, because I think it has forced me right away. I took December and January. I think I took that off. I was like, I'm not going to think about my next move. I'm going to enjoy the holidays. I'm going to be present as a partner, as a parent. I'm going to do more with my friends, things that I usually say no to just because I think I'll be too tired. I'm going to say yes to more things during this period of time. And. And then in February, started really putting myself back out there from a work perspective. And I found myself interviewing at so many different places and thinking that volume meant momentum. And then I had to pause and think, do I want these jobs? Is this what I envision my next step to be? And I kind of had to recalibrate and think, okay, it's not about the amount of interviews because that was like a full time job. It was like every day I had multiple interviews. And then I kind of had to take a step back and think, okay, whatever next step I take is very important. And I, I want to be really intentional about it. And I kind of backed away from some things and I, I reset. And now I'm really only pursuing opportunities that I think are really Aligned with what I'm looking for in my next. In my next move. And that's freed up time for me. And I started really making time for showing up at school more and spending time with some of the women who either work from home here or stay at home moms and getting to know them more. And I think I just didn't have time to really connect with the people in my community as much. So, you know, how can I give back to this community? How can I do more and plug more into some of the issues that are coming up in our school and in our community? So it's been a really nice balance of taking the time to think about my next step, but also spending time with people, getting to know people on a deeper level, getting to know my children better, really doing the pickups and the drop offs and the volunteering. So I think the past few months have been just a really nice balance of all of those things. And it brought a lot of meaning to my life that I wouldn't have otherwise had the opportunity to see.
• 37:12
  Speaker B: That's great. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like you're being very intentional about this period.
• 37:16
  Speaker A: Exactly.
• 37:17
  Speaker B: As you are looking for your next, like, position and you've mentioned that you feel like this is an important one. What is your lens or what's your filter criteria? What are you specifically looking for? Because I think that's great guidance for somebody else who might be looking for their next step is what is important to you or what do you think would be important for somebody who's looking for their next role?
• 37:37
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, I think I'm giving a lot of thought about the kind of culture that I'm entering now that I do own proudly. The fact that I am a working mother. I'm giving a lot of thought to. Okay, what would this role require of me from a travel perspective? What would my life look like? Is this a balanced environment for me that feels like I can show up in the way that I need to both at home and at work? And that doesn't mean not traveling. Right. That doesn't mean not commuting. I mean, it could mean both of those things. But just having a understanding of what that would look like. And I think knowing that from a communications perspective, I think sometimes that as a function can be undervalued. So I want to make sure that wherever I'm going next, I have the executive team support and resources to do what the job entails. Because sometimes that communications can be deprioritized and kind of thrown into like the Cost center. And it doesn't really do much HR finance.
• 38:39
  Speaker B: Totally. You hear people say the overhead functions. Yeah, that's not really appropriate because like you said, it's undervaluing really important roles to any organization.
• 38:49
  Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So I want to make sure that I have a seat at the table, that my role is valued and that there's really that kind of executive buy in that communications is a really important lever for business growth, which is my belief. And I think that I'm looking to make a mark on a company's narrative. I think everyone's trying to understand what their story is in this rapidly changing environment with AI ramping up with so many things shifting and changing how we're doing business. I want the opportunity to come into an organization and help them find clarity in how they're showing up in their industry, to the market and really defining what their next chapter looks like. So that's what excites me and that's what I hope to, to do in the. In the near future.
• 39:35
  Speaker B: Yeah. And while you have this extra time with your kids, how are you using that time? A lot of people talk about being present with their kids and we know it's tough and not many people do it very well. How are you being more present in this time with your kids?
• 39:50
  Speaker A: Yeah, this morning I dropped both of them at camp and doing the pickups and taking them for ice cream after. And our town has a fireworks a few days before July 4th and everyone kind of goes and stakes out their spot on the beach to watch the fireworks. So I was like running around and grabbing all the kind of fun things that we're going to be bringing to the beach to meet up with friends. So things that I normally would just be kind of hands off about or I would have a babysitter doing the pickup or the drop off. Not really having that opportunity of, oh, wow, now we have a few hours to ourselves. What should we do with it? Do you want to get ice cream or do you want to play? My son makes me play football with him. But just being able to have these quiet moments where it's like, oh, we could do anything right now instead of over scheduling them. I think that's been the real silver lining is I don't have to over schedule them because I'm actually around more.
• 40:41
  Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, I've been in that trap before. My son started baseball and I didn't realize it was four days a week. And then between that and some of the other activities, it was like seven days a week is scheduled and I really did not do well in that period. Cause all I was doing was chauffeuring them from one thing to the next and I felt like we weren't getting any real connection time. And so I was really grateful when the baseball season was over. Reorganized some things and carved out evenings where it's like, okay, we don't have any pre scheduled activities, but we're going to plan what we're going to do together. So we might build Legos, we might go for a bike ride, we might go down to the tide pools at the beach. So we'd have some forethought going into how we were going to use that time. But it was much less structured because that's when I found I was really able to connect and teach them things I want them to learn as I'm raising them. So I think that time's really important.
• 41:33
  Speaker A: Yeah, especially when you can really listen and hear about their day and what's on their mind. I think I didn't usually make the time honestly to really listen to them as much as I am right now. I mean I would ask the right questions. Right. But I wasn't always fully paying attention to really sit with the answer and ask follow up questions and, and really get a sense of kind of how they're feeling. So yeah, it's been a great time.
• 41:57
  Speaker B: For anybody who's listening and they're navigating a big career and maybe raising young kids. What would you want to share with them that maybe you had to learn the hard way?
• 42:06
  Speaker A: Yeah, I would say that being a parent is such a secret weapon. I mean it doesn't even have to be secret. Right. I think that I became most ambitious and most successful after I became a parent and after really importantly after I embraced being a parent, that's really when my career took off, is when I had two young children. And I wasn't afraid to say that. And I think owning that and embracing that and using that to make you more empathetic leader, using that to model what success looks like for other younger women in particular for me it's important to show them that it's possible. And it's not perfect, but when you show up in the present, whether it's at home or at the office or on a zoom call, being actually present is what will take you so far. Looking at the pictures of your kid when you're at work and not checking your emails when you're with your kid. I think even just like having those boundaries was, was really important to me in that regard. So I think I would tell them that it's only going to enrich your life as a leader and your career trajectory.
• 43:13
  Speaker B: Isabel, I really appreciate this conversation. I'm excited for you and what comes next. And I just wanted to thank you for your openness and honesty about how you tried to hide your personal self from your career in the pursuit of success. I can rel sure a lot of people can. Congratulations one more time for being awarded Working Mother of the Year. I think that's a really incredible achievement. I really enjoyed the conversation.
• 43:38
  Speaker A: Thanks so much, Kevin. I enjoyed it as well.
• 43:40
  Speaker B: If you're enjoying this conversation, make sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. CEOs and ABCs is all about helping you grow in your career and show up at home. We've got many more amazing guests coming up, so tap, follow and stay tuned.