Femtech CEO on Management: Do not ‘Want Extra Masculine Power’

“I have been considering quite a bit about management fashions,” Sarah O’Leary, CEO of femtech firm Willow, tells Entrepreneur. “ There’s been a whole lot of noise and information round, ‘We’d like extra masculine vitality within the office.’ It makes you query as a pacesetter: What’s my type? How efficient is my type? I do not imagine that we’d like extra masculine vitality.”

^{Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Willow}

O’Leary characterizes her management type and the tradition at Willow, the model behind “patented leak-proof” wearable breast pumps and their equipment, as one which facilities transparency and empathy to construct belief inside the office. In keeping with the CEO, groups which have belief in one another — and of their leaders — usually tend to perform in a means that is conducive to success.

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“I imagine [flexibility in the workplace] makes us extra productive.”

Instilling belief inside workforce members means emphasizing a stage of autonomy, O’Leary says. Willow is a “very versatile office,” O’Leary explains, noting that the corporate has by no means given its staff return-to-office mandates. As a mom of two herself, O’Leary is especially cognizant of the on a regular basis hurdles workforce members who’re additionally dad and mom face, and he or she desires to help them in any means doable.

“ If my youngsters’ elementary faculty live performance is going on at 10 a.m., I’ll log out,” O’Leary says. “I’ll go to that, then come again and hold going with my day. I do not imagine that makes us any much less productive. I imagine it makes us extra productive. I really feel very passionately that we will construct a tremendously profitable enterprise whereas additionally working in ways in which really feel genuine to our management and workforce.”

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Willow is navigating its subsequent development chapter with O’Leary on the helm. The corporate just lately introduced its acquisition of UK-based femtech innovator Elvie, which is predicted to spice up income by 50%. Willow additionally continues to accomplice with organizations that help dad and mom. To kick off its Mom’s Day marketing campaign this yr, the corporate introduced a partnership with Canopie, a preventive maternal well being care platform, to donate a million hours of maternal psychological well being help.

“[Being CEO is] a accountability as a lot as it’s a cool title.”

Previous to getting into the CEO function at Willow, O’Leary served as the corporate’s chief industrial officer and “beloved” the work. O’Leary has mirrored quite a bit over the previous yr on her resolution to develop into CEO, and he or she says that ambition wasn’t her major motivator; as a substitute, she acknowledged that she was the precise individual for the job at this second.

“I cared deeply about our mission,” O’Leary explains. “I had a imaginative and prescient for the place we may go. I understood the industrial operations of the enterprise and will deliver that along with our product groups. In some sense, [becoming CEO] has put me in a servant chief type of function — It is a accountability as a lot as it’s a cool title.”

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On the finish of the day, O’Leary means that leaders be sure their motivation is genuine to them — as a result of that is what’s going to assist them lead by essentially the most troublesome occasions.

“New tariffs are introduced, and you have to determine that out,” O’Leary says. “It’s problem after problem, and the group appears to you and says, ‘What are we going to do?’ This function is basically about being prepared to take accountability for the individuals, merchandise and clients. It isn’t all glitz and glamor. You are the primary one who will get all of the powerful questions.”