The Diary of a CEOMeta’s VP on Leadership, Resilience, and Overcoming Challenges While Battling Cancer!
CHAPTERS
- 0:00 – 22:00
Curious Childhood, Family Support, And Early School Conflicts
Nicola explains how growing up in a close Manchester family with working women and exposure to high‑profile catering clients shaped her belief that “extraordinary people are just people.” Her innate curiosity and confidence clashed with a rigid school system, culminating in a Latin teacher attacking her personality and her father’s decisive defense, which became a lifelong anchor for her self‑belief.
- •Busy, multi‑generational Manchester household with strong female role models and parents who catered for celebrities and politicians.
- •Early curiosity and constant questioning were discouraged at school, where rote learning and conformity were favored.
- •A Latin teacher publicly told her parents Nicola’s personality would stop her succeeding; her father countered that her personality would be her advantage.
- •Frequent school reports: ‘talks too much’ and ‘asks too many questions’—early signals of leadership traits initially framed as flaws.
- •Nicola identifies this parental backing as a defining moment in feeling seen and supported.
- 22:00 – 42:00
Antisemitism, Undermined Confidence, And Confronting A Destructive Teacher
She recounts subtle and overt antisemitism at school—teachers scheduling key lessons during Sabbath and an English teacher repeatedly grading her far below her true ability. After proving them wrong with top exam results and an English degree, Nicola returned to confront the teacher about the life‑destroying power of bias, crystallizing her views on education and belief in young people.
- •Observing the Sabbath meant leaving early on Fridays, which some teachers weaponized by starting new topics then.
- •English teacher consistently marked her very low (2–3/10), despite independent validation that her work was A‑grade.
- •This sustained undermining shattered her confidence and almost derailed plans for A‑levels and university.
- •After achieving top grades, she went back to tell the teacher she had nearly destroyed her dream, highlighting teacher power and prejudice.
- •Broader reflection on how many capable children fall through the cracks and the responsibility of adults to express belief in them.
- 42:00 – 59:00
From Stage Dreams To Advertising: Discovering A Creative Career Path
Nicola describes her love of acting and theatre, how religious observance and the luck‑based nature of acting led her to pivot. A chance introduction to someone in London advertising opened her eyes to creative industries as a paid career, leading her to research agencies, join BBH as a graduate, and recognize how drama training later enhanced her business skills.
- •Initially wanted to be an actress; studied English and Theatre Studies and had a place at a top drama school.
- •Religious observance (Sabbath) and seeing friends struggle in precarious acting careers made her reconsider.
- •A friend in London advertising revealed a world of creative work she hadn’t known existed.
- •She used libraries and trade magazines to research top agencies in the early 1990s and joined BBH as a grad.
- •Acting skills—presentation, confidence, teamwork—translated directly into pitching, leadership, and business communication.
- 59:00 – 1:26:00
Two Decades In Agencies: Learning Leadership And Owning Weaknesses
Over 20 years across BBH, Grey and Karmarama, Nicola learned leadership through observation, feedback, and stretching assignments. She reflects on early weaknesses like mimicking others instead of trusting herself, over‑editing thoughts before speaking (especially as a woman), and the danger of imposter syndrome. Strategic moves between agencies were driven by learning opportunities and change missions, not just status.
- •Twelve years at BBH gave her access to world‑class business and creative minds.
- •At Grey she sought advice from senior leader Stevie Spring on how every aspect of communication—not just words—would be scrutinized.
- •360‑degree feedback exposed gaps between self‑perception and how others experienced her.
- •She initially tried to ‘fit in’ with a cool agency aesthetic rather than owning her own style.
- •She recognizes a gendered pattern of women having an “exhaustive conversation in their head” and missing the moment to speak.
- •Career moves: left BBH when she’d plateaued, joined Grey for a turnaround mission, then became partner at Karmarama to scale it from 12 to 250 people.
- •She intentionally accepted roles that offered steep learning curves rather than simply more prestige.
- 1:26:00 – 1:45:00
Staying 12 Years, New Business Thrills, And Intentional Non‑Promotion
Nicola explains why she stayed unusually long at BBH: the dynamism of new business work, three maternity leaves that reset her perspective, and genuine enjoyment of the culture. She chose a four‑day week to make space for life, later acknowledging it influenced her decision not to pursue an agency CEO role, but without regret because it aligned with her values.
- •New business gave her constant novelty: new clients, industries, and the adrenaline of pitching.
- •Three maternity leaves during her BBH years changed her each time and kept the job feeling fresh.
- •After 12 years she felt she’d learned what she could and that senior roles above her were static.
- •She moved to a four‑day week after her first child, accepting a 20% pay cut but keeping the same responsibilities through tighter discipline.
- •She believes many people don’t apply strategic thinking to their personal lives, letting default career paths dictate everything.
- •Recognizes that this choice likely delayed or precluded a CEO role in agencies but prioritised family as her ‘North Star’.
- 1:45:00 – 2:04:00
Being Head‑Hunted By Facebook And Overcoming The ‘What Am I Doing Here?’
During a successful run at Karmarama and as the first female president of the IPA, Nicola was unexpectedly approached to lead Facebook EMEA. Initially resistant due to loyalty to her agency, an overnight reflection—bolstered by her husband’s encouragement—turned fear into excitement about tech, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sheryl Sandberg. She describes the overwhelming early months at Facebook and how she evaluates big role changes.
- •Approached by Carolyn Everson over breakfast to run EMEA for Facebook soon after its rocky IPO.
- •Her first reaction was to decline due to commitment to Karmarama and its 250 employees.
- •Her husband framed it as a once‑in‑a‑lifetime chance and offered to shoulder more at home.
- •She was attracted by the product, admiration for Zuckerberg and Sandberg, and her fit with early‑stage, ‘scrappy’ environments.
- •The first months at Facebook felt like “drinking from the fire hose” with rapid decisions and nonstop information.
- •Her due‑diligence process: research, many off‑the‑record coffees, two‑way interviewing, written pros/cons lists, and clarity about what needed fixing versus preserving.
- •Family alignment and the shift from four days to extensive travel required deliberate renegotiation at home.
- 2:04:00 – 2:22:00
Redesigning Work And Life: Four‑Day Weeks, Intentional Trade‑Offs, And Saying No To Promotions
Nicola and Steven discuss the power of rejecting default promotions and the importance of designing work around a fuller life. She recounts feeling she was failing in every role before moving to four days, and they explore Meta’s dual career tracks (manager vs. individual contributor) to avoid forcing people into misaligned roles. Nicola stresses that personal values and relationships should guide career choices.
- •She cut to four days because she felt she wasn’t being a good wife, mum, friend, or colleague.
- •Her bosses supported the change, which she calls one of the best decisions she made.
- •Steven shares an example of an employee declining a bigger title for personal reasons, which increased his respect for them.
- •Meta’s IC (individual contributor) track allows people to progress and be highly senior without managing people.
- •Leadership must recognize that managing people is a different skillset and not the only path to success.
- •Nicola argues that being intentional in personal life—defining what actually matters—prevents being dragged up the ‘next rung’ by default.
- 2:22:00 – 2:47:00
Diagnosis: An Incurable Blood Cancer And The Worst Weekend Of Her Life
At 45, with a thriving career and family, Nicola discovered a small lump that led, via a friend GP, to scans revealing tumors throughout her body. Over a terrifying weekend with no access to specialists, she catastrophized about dying and leaving her children. By Monday, she resolved to face whatever came one day at a time, ultimately being diagnosed with follicular lymphoma—a chronic, incurable blood cancer.
- •A pea‑sized lump in her groin, casually mentioned to a doctor friend, triggered further tests.
- •A CT scan revealed widespread tumors; the initial surgeon was the wrong specialist, adding confusion.
- •Unable to see specialists over the weekend, she and her husband endured intense fear, Googling every worst possibility.
- •She lost half a stone from stress and couldn’t sleep, mentally jumping from diagnosis to death and imagining her children’s future without her.
- •On Monday she deliberately did her hair and makeup to reclaim agency and committed to handling it one day at a time.
- •The final diagnosis—follicular lymphoma—came unusually fast (five days) compared to the typical years‑long path.
- 2:47:00 – 3:08:00
Telling Her Children, Living With ‘Incurable,’ And Watch‑And‑Wait
Nicola describes the agony of telling her four children, delaying the conversation so an 18th birthday wasn’t overshadowed. Unable to say the words, she watched her husband explain as their youngest, aged 11, asked if she was going to die. She explains the ambiguity of an incurable but treatable cancer, the watch‑and‑wait phase, eventual chemo, and how the word ‘incurable’ subtly reshapes every day.
- •They waited until after their son’s 18th birthday party to avoid tainting the milestone.
- •Nicola physically couldn’t get the words out; her husband took over the explanation.
- •Their youngest immediately asked, “Are you going to die?”—she answered, “I hope not, I’m going to try my best.”
- •She promised full honesty: no question off‑limits, no secrecy or shame around the disease.
- •Follicular lymphoma involves long periods of ‘watch and wait’ (or ‘watch and worry’), with scans and blood tests but no immediate treatment.
- •Her first treatment came 18 months later when growth near her kidneys risked organ damage.
- •Chemo and 18 months of immunotherapy put her into “no evidence of disease,” but she emphasizes it’s not a cure and the condition is ever‑present in her mind.
- 3:08:00 – 3:25:00
Openness, Community Building, And The Mental Landscape Of Cancer
Rather than hiding her illness, Nicola chose radical transparency at work and publicly, leading to overwhelming support and revealing how many people conceal serious conditions for fear of professional repercussions. She co‑founded a large Facebook group for follicular lymphoma patients, which now shapes her sense of purpose and exposes her to the daily mental struggles of others facing less supportive circumstances.
- •She told her Meta leaders promptly; Sheryl Sandberg’s response—‘Whatever you need, we’ve got your back’—was profoundly reassuring.
- •She shared her story at a major internal conference, crying on stage, and later publicly on World Cancer Day.
- •She received countless messages from people with incurable illnesses who hide them at work, fearing lost promotions or perceptions of weakness.
- •The Facebook group ‘Living with Follicular Lymphoma’ has grown to nearly 10,000 members, the largest such community in existence.
- •Members often struggle far more mentally than she has, due to less supportive jobs, families, or communities—something she says ‘haunts’ her.
- •She chose to keep working throughout, because she loves her job and saw it as a vital part of her identity and energy, not something to abandon.
- 3:25:00 – 3:44:00
Expectation Management, Health As A Tectonic Plate, And Life Design After Remission
When told there was no evidence of disease, Nicola felt muted relief rather than euphoria, having deliberately tempered expectations to protect herself from potential bad news. She and Steven discuss how health underpins every life plan, the pandemic as a global lesson in fragility, and the specific lifestyle changes she adopted—diet, exercise, and annual “vision writing”—to live more intentionally post‑diagnosis.
- •She intentionally avoided building up hope ahead of her post‑treatment scan to avoid being ‘floored’ if it was bad.
- •Her reaction—‘That’s good’ rather than ecstatic celebration—was a conscious emotional defense mechanism.
- •She didn’t radically overhaul her life because she’d already been intentional about family, work, and community priorities.
- •The major practical changes were adopting exercise, improving diet, and reducing inflammation given her immune‑related cancer.
- •She practices ‘vision writing’: drafting a narrative as if it’s a year later, covering personal, work, and community goals, then sharing it.
- •Family co‑creates yearly experiences (often travel) and small goals together, reinforcing shared intentionality.
- 3:44:00 – 4:09:00
Leadership Under Pressure: Controlling The Controllables And Meta’s Culture
Nicola connects her cancer coping strategies to leadership under chaos, advocating for focusing on controllable next steps—‘base camps’—rather than the full mountain. She praises Mark Zuckerberg’s bold strategic pivots and Meta’s mechanisms for learning from failure, while contrasting that clarity and measurement with the more subjective, clique‑based evaluations she experienced in old‑school agencies.
- •Uses the Everest metaphor: you don’t ‘climb Everest’; you get to base camp one, then two, etc.
- •In chaotic moments, define what you can control and the immediate milestones needed to move forward.
- •She credits Mark Zuckerberg with seeing around corners (mobile, video, Stories, Reels, metaverse) and being “always right” about long‑term North Stars.
- •Meta uses clear objectives (OKR‑like) so people know what matters and how they’ll be measured.
- •The culture embraces failure as necessary for ambitious goals, provided teams debrief and extract learnings.
- •Practices like ‘lockdowns’ and company‑wide Q&As keep everyone aligned and adaptable.
- 4:09:00 – 4:47:00
From Facebook To Meta: Defining The Metaverse And Building Guardrails
Nicola explains her excitement at the company’s renaming to Meta and its bet on the metaverse as the next iteration of the internet. She outlines a continuum of experiences from AR on phones to fully immersive VR, potential transformations in education, medicine, and the creator economy, and Meta’s efforts to pre‑build safety, diversity, and ethical considerations into these new environments.
- •She loved the boldness of renaming the company and clarifying the distinction between Facebook the app and the broader family (Instagram, WhatsApp, etc.).
- •Defines the metaverse as a more immersive, persistent, and embodied internet that spans AR, VR, AI, and traditional devices.
- •Timelines: sees fully realized mainstream experiences as 5–10 years away.
- •Potential upsides: immersive education (e.g., walking ancient Jerusalem, exploring reefs), VR surgery training, expanded creator and entrepreneurial opportunities.
- •Recognizes public fears about increased screen time and ‘losing’ real‑world humanity, but emphasizes Meta’s view is not to replace in‑person interaction.
- •Examples of intentional guardrails: personal boundary spaces to prevent unwanted proximity; over a quintillion avatar combinations to reflect diverse identities.
- •They’re funding external research with academics and governments early, to avoid repeating the unintentional build of Web 2.0.
- 4:47:00 – 5:31:00
Social Media Trade‑Offs, Youth Mental Health, And Personalized Advertising
The conversation turns to Web 2.0’s mixed legacy, especially around comparison, self‑esteem, and youth. Nicola outlines Meta’s tools for teens and parents—age limits, nudges, time limits, and partnerships with charities—while emphasizing user control over feeds. She also defends personalized advertising as a powerful engine for small businesses and consumer discovery, discussing how Apple’s privacy changes have hurt many SMEs.
- •Acknowledges social media can both help and harm, especially regarding comparison and self‑image.
- •Meta aims to keep under‑13s off platforms, using AI to detect and remove younger users.
- •Offers parent hubs, break reminders, and prompts discouraging users from posting potentially mean comments.
- •Frames many harms as issues of trade‑offs and user choices about who and what to follow.
- •Defends personalized ads as beneficial: they match dog owners with dog hotels, niche brands with niche buyers, and avoid irrelevant ads.
- •Apple’s iOS tracking restrictions significantly reduced ad performance and measurability, particularly impacting small and e‑commerce businesses.
- •Meta is heavily investing in improving attribution and measurement post‑iOS, while advocating that privacy and relevance can coexist.
- 5:31:00 – 6:00:00
Core Strengths, Asking For What You Want, And Leading With Empathy
Nicola outlines her philosophy on discovering and leveraging core strengths, including seeking external feedback and informally assembling a ‘personal board’ of advisors. She identifies empathy, clear expectations, regular one‑to‑ones, comfort with pivoting, and the ability to have fun as her own leadership hallmarks. She stresses the importance of explicitly asking for promotions, pay, and assignments rather than assuming others know what you want.
- •Core strengths sit at the intersection of what you enjoy and what you’re good at; you often need others to name them.
- •She uses mentors, sponsors, and a rotating ‘board of advisors’ to challenge and guide her decisions.
- •Her strengths: leading with empathy, deeply understanding team members’ motivations, setting clear deliverables, and being willing to change course based on data.
- •She normalizes openly owning failed bets and stopping what doesn’t work.
- •On pay and promotion, she regrets early passivity and now advocates research‑based, evidence‑backed asks.
- •She encourages people to articulate their desired path, instead of hoping managers will intuit it.
- 6:00:00 – 6:46:00
Bringing Your Whole Self, Biases Around Parenting, And Structural Support For Women
Nicola argues that hiding aspects of your life (illness, caregiving, motherhood) reduces performance and well‑being, and that leaders must model vulnerability to change culture. She critiques loaded questions about work–life balance usually being asked only of women, and outlines concrete ways companies can support women—from maternity and paternity policies to visible promotion decisions—alongside initiatives like She Means Business to grow female entrepreneurship.
- •Bringing your whole self means colleagues understand context (e.g., health or family issues) that might affect performance.
- •She recalls earlier generations of women leaving coats on chairs to pretend they were still in the office while doing childcare.
- •Concealing serious illness or caregiving needs adds an unnecessary psychological burden and can lead to unfair judgments.
- •She highlights data that diverse boards correlate with better company performance.
- •Leaders must tell their own stories, show vulnerability, and explicitly sanction openness to change norms.
- •She calls out the gendered nature of the ‘work–life balance’ question: her husband, also a parent of four, never gets asked.
- •Describes She Means Business (Meta + partners) training 1.5 million women in digital skills, with Alison Rose’s review estimating £250bn potential if women founded businesses at the same rate as men.
- •Advocates for robust maternity and paternity policies and for men to take leave to normalize shared caregiving.
- 6:46:00
Looking Ahead: Cures, Grandchildren, And Meeting Again In The Metaverse
In closing, Nicola shares her deeply personal hopes: to live to be a grandmother, to help find a cure for follicular lymphoma through her foundation, and to one day redo this conversation with Steven inside the metaverse. She answers a previous guest’s question about associative triggers of hardship with an unexpected object—PET‑scan sweatpants—and reflects on why she still keeps them.
- •Personal future goals: multi‑generational family life and becoming a grandmother, with no pressure on her kids.
- •Professional and philanthropic goal: contribute to finding cures for follicular lymphoma in her lifetime.
- •She imagines a future Diary of a CEO episode conducted in the metaverse, with shared virtual spaces.
- •The object that takes her back to hardship is a pair of soft sweatpants bought for a PET scan because they had no metal.
- •Seeing them in her wardrobe evokes that early, terrifying phase of diagnosis; she hasn’t thrown them away and isn’t entirely sure why.
