Had a final round interview with the CEO last night, for the only job prospect that I have in the pipeline.

This was the first time I’ve met a prospective boss out of banking who is “intense”, and I feel like is on my wavelength. He’s even more efficiency focussed, impatient, and direct than me. It probably helps that he started his career in banking and private equity before switching to entrepreneurship, and he  is an experienced CEO, with experience of leading PE-backed companies.

He likes solving problems, building teams, and scaling businesses. He said he only has two pet peeves, which are: 1) People who say they are going to do something and then don’t do it (YES!!! That’s my issue with my company right now, where there an ingrained culture of no follow through, and a complete lack of accountability, with no consequences for not delivering), and 2) People who stand in doorways. I had to clarify that, but once he explained, I chuckled and was like YES!!

I’ve never really had good “bosses” or seniors in banking. Not proper role models anyway, although there were shades of good-bad, and I’ve learned a lot from many of them. Consulting was a wasteland – there was a real dearth of normal, decent human beings, who cared and know how to manage people, especially experienced hires. Having said that, I rated one partner. And I quite liked a ex-banking manager, and a two year-old manager, both of whom gave me enough scope and left me well enough alone, which I was thankful for. Post banking and consulting, I’ve encountered some good “bosses” (leaders / managers) who I like as human beings, and seem to care.

TH, my first corporate manager, who apparently commented that he found me a bit scary during our interview. BNS, who was supportive and caring – it felt like it was the first time someone was kind and believed in me, in a work context. I enjoyed working with CZ, and she would have been happy to sponsor me to the best of her ability, but she wasn’t really my manager, and she had a tough hill to climb, and huge political battles when she first joined. I was happy to fight for / with her until the day I exited the business. 

I liked my first two CFOs well enough – LPE and DW. LPE was supportive and said she would “big sister” me, but left a minute after I joined the company; and KG is convinced that DW “loved” me like a daughter he never had. My third CFO, TF was definitely among my top 2 “bosses” ever – he didn’t like the term and said I should never say I work “for” someone, but rather work “with” someone. We were the most similar in terms of background, having done stints in banking and consulting before moving into corporates, and so we had a good level of affinity, and I was able to read his mind to some extent. But where a lot of people in my company thought he was very impatient, and commented so to me, I thought he literally had the patience of a saint!! 

So I’ve encountered bosses I liked, I enjoyed working for / with, and I could learn from. But I don’t think I’ve ever found any of them intimidating. This CEO was the first time I’ve been like… okay, this guy is setting the bar high, and he every right to do so, and I’m not entirely sure I’ll meet the bar. But this could be really exciting.

He asked me about my career aspirations, and I decided to be very open with him, and said that I had wanted to be a CEO for a very long time, but only very recently decided I wanted to pursue the CFO path first – because virtually all my CFOs thought I’m a gifted financier and should pursue a CFO path, and also because a good / modern CFO has a much broader mandate, and should be a close partner to the CEO, and, albeit more so for US companies, where CFOs often have a good path to CEO if they have sufficient operational experience.

He agreed with all of that and said indeed the CFO is like a shadow CEO, and he’s glad that I shared my career aspirations with him, because it fits well with what he has in mind for the role, and we would spend a lot of time together, and we can have side bars on the topic along the way. He outlined the job scope (first would be to fix a bunch of problems in the business, and then it would be to do a roll up), and shared how he likes to work, and how we would work together (he’s data driven, and I would help him gather facts and prove or disprove his theories, and get the team and org aligned and on board, and a lot of the CFO and CEO job is about convincing people that they should do their jobs a certain way – get them bought in, and feel ownership, which I found interesting, and insightful. I guess I had never really thought about it that way before, so it was great that I was already getting a new perspective). He ended the call early but said that he has a good feel for me – he can sense my energy through the call (even though it was 21:00 my time, and I’m still nursing a mild cold), he will give a positive report to the team (although it will ultimately be their hiring decision), and think we will have fun together. This was one of those rare times where I feel my energy is appreciated, and valued. More often, I feel like my enthusiasm is perceived negatively, as being too intense, or lacking in gravitas. I know I am a gift, and I just want to feel accepted, and to find my ‘people’. Sometimes I feel discouraged that it will ever happen. But this gives me hope.

I ended the call feeling very positive, and more excited about the opportunity than before, although with a little bit of trepidation at the challenge and the pace. But after coasting and being practically comatose at work for the last 12-18 months, and just feeling so depressed at the failed potential of my company, it will be good to be energised again, to drive forward and progress in some kind of direction. Being passive, and living a half-dead life just doesn’t suit me.

But I’m not counting chickens, because he may like the other candidate I’m up against just as much. Although, I think that’s probably unlikely. I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered anyone quite like me -certainly not at work, possibly not even in real life. And I know I’m quite specific / an acquired taste, like “Marmite”, so to speak. So a person who really likes me, probably wouldn’t like an alternate candidate as much. But who knows… there’s literally no accounting for stupidity / mule-headedness, poor choices / decisions, and bad taste… as I’ve learned to my surprise. And in any case, he said “the team” will make the ultimate decision, so it’s down to the CFO, and I think the Investor’s “portfolio operations group director”, who I wasn’t impressed with, and I suspect was somewhat negative on me, albeit clearly did not veto me. I should know the outcome by the end of the month. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

But I’ve had so many disappointments, and seen so many absurd decisions and outcomes – at work, and out of work – when the choice is crystal fucking clear, that I think life is sometimes just a crazy roll of the dice. So I’m not holding my breath. I’m just going to hope for the best, and expect nothing. Breathe lightly, live in the moment, and not be too disappointed if the decision goes against me.

KG pinged me out of the blue yesterday, and we met up today. He has landed his dream role – a GM role within an overarching Product umbrella, working in a scale up with someone he has known from a previous life. Starting 1st June. I’m glad he landed well, and didn’t need to use the life boat that he had found. He’s been in a really tough situation and space over the last 12-18 months, and he said today that he kind of broke down a few times in recent months, and almost considered therapy. But he has clearly channeled his difficulties into exercise and running instead, as he went from being quite podgy, to being super lean, and he’s running 5:00-minute pace half marathons. I clearly haven’t been in a position to help him, as I’ve been barely treading water myself, and am still trying to find a place to land. I haven’t had to look for a life boat yet, but I had started reaching out to some of my network, which is a HUGE deal for me, because I’m just so truly awful at asking for help.

He asked me when we were going to do a Hyrox together. I had decided recently that I’m no longer recruiting new Hyrox partners. I would be happy to do relays with new people, but I wasn’t intending on expanding my doubles races partners beyond the three I have raced with. It’s just too much mental and emotional effort for me, given my attitude and approach. And I don’t want to make new investments. But since KG and I had previously discussed racing together, and he followed up again this time, I will race with him. And anyway, KG and I have been through war together, and he has seen me through some dark times, when he thought I was seeking an alternate solution to life – so he’s one of my “persons”. It’s interesting that he says he only runs twice a week – one long run, and then an interval session. But clearly that has been enough to get him to be running 5:00-minute long runs, from a zero / low base. He’s doing the Manchester marathon this weekend and aiming for 3:30, which is seriously impressive – I’ll keep an eye out on how he does. Maybe I should consider Runna, which is the running app he uses.

Did some Hyrox training this evening with AP. I found it quite tiring, even though I could mostly recover on the runs as I was just keeping pace with AP. Still, it’s weird that my heart rate was yellow and red for most of the workouts, whereas his was mostly green even though he sounded like he was really struggling on the runs, and I was mostly fine… except at the start of each run, when I just got off the workout into the run. As I’m the stronger runner, after the first set, I always started and ended each workout, to give AP recovery time before each run, like we would do in a Hyrox race. I’m a bit nervous about Mumbai, and not really looking forward to it, as I’m not really feeling that fit and ready. Note to self, I’m too old to do complicated flight routes which result in no sleep being registered for 24 hours!