Missed the event? Read the conversation from our IWD networking breakfast

A note from Laura Lejasisaka , Member Services Partnerships Manager

Sama has been partnered with Monument Member Services since the collection’s early test launch in 2022. Having been a part of the journey from the beginning, Sama’s services are an integral part of our Learning category, helping Members identify personal and professional growth paths that add true value on an ongoing and sustainable basis.

We invited Myra Khanna to share her journey because it has covered what many would consider an arduous landscape of male-dominated industries, and she has emerged tremendously successful. We know that particular fields of work continue to experience unprecedented gender discrimination, bias, sexism, and inequality – all core topics of #internationalwomensday2023 and challenges we are looking to abolish as soon as possible. Myra’s resilience, sense of direction, and fortitude are a commendable example of not bending and dimming yourself to fit the stereotypes and status quo in your odyssey to achieving your dreams, and that’s something worth celebrating today and every day.

An introduction from Wasim Khouri , Chief Strategy Officer at Monument

Thanks so much for taking the time to join us today. I'm really excited actually because we're celebrating two things. One is, of course, International Women's Day and the theme this year is to embrace equity. But the other thing is, this is our first ever Monument external event. As some of you know, we built the bank with the vision of Empowered Prosperity. And for us, the mission is really to help people not only manage and grow their wealth, but also enjoy it. And wealth goes beyond money. It's about saving time. It's about achieving your potential, your well-being, and professional development. Unfortunately we had to build the bank in COVID, so a lot of the ideas around doing events we couldn't fulfil at that time. But thankfully, we're back in a world where we're able to do these things and I'm delighted to be joined by Laura and Myra, who are taking the time today to share very inspiring stories and experiences about how they've gone through their careers. And Myra in particular, moved from private equity to set up her own company that's growing. So, Laura, Myra over to you. We really look forward to hearing your stories. Thank you so much.

Laura: Thank you so much for coming today. Well, I hope you've had a chance to grab some breakfast, meet everyone and have some chats, but we really appreciate you making the time.

Myra: Thank you for having me.

Laura: Obviously, we've been working together for just over a year, I think. So for those who don't know you as well as I do, if you could give your best brief intro.

Myra: I'm Myra. I'm Canadian, I grew up in Montreal, I've been in the UK for now, nine years and loving it, starting my career as a lawyer. I still have the scars. It's a great training ground. Loved it, but I was just not a very good lawyer. Then moved into private equity, loved it, spent most of my career there actually. And then we started Sama a couple of years ago where what we do is, through coaching, we provide employees the opportunity to really thrive in their careers, and for the companies to help fulfil their objectives as well. Everything is done digitally. It's any time so people can just pick up and work, pick up their phone or their computer and work with their coach on their own time in a way that is completely hyper-tailored to their needs.

Laura: Well, you almost answered my first question I wanted to ask: how you got here and what were you doing before but, to kind of segue right off of that. It would be really great to hear about when you started as a lawyer and you felt like you weren't a very good one, and then you moved into other things, what were your goals and dreams then, and how are they different now that you're a founder?

Myra: They were similar, just a different version of it. So, I wanted to do things that had an impact, and it sounds a little bit funny to go an investment fund and think that you have an impact. But I actually worked for Canadian pension funds, so I worked to benefit people who really spend their life working and benefiting society. In investment it's actually really cool because you can see so many different businesses. See how things work so you learn constantly tremendously. And you know pretty quickly if you've made a good decision because either the investment is doing well or not. You can see the impact, I like that a lot. And as a lawyer, I wanted to help businesses as well. Then ultimately what we're doing right now is having a much deeper and personal impact on individual.

Laura: It’s a great progression. I think you've stayed true to your dreams and goals. Just adapted them to wherever you end up.

So, what prompted you to take that leap to start your own company? And you said:

“you know what? I'm going to go out and do my own thing”?

Myra: I think it's twofold. There was the feeling that you've done the most that… The feeling I did the most that I could do in the companies I've worked at and in the industry. Feeling I advanced it as much as I could have, and then seeing an opportunity beneath where, in companies I was investing in, in my own companies, people tended to come to work and be OK but not thrive. I saw that as a huge loss of human potential that we could unlock.

Laura: I think it's a very big challenge to take on so I imagine it would have taken some consideration and saying, “you know what, I'm going to now be responsible for this whole venture”. Was that scary to you or were you kind of naturally driven to be an entrepreneur and say:

“I'm not scared of this? I'm just going to and it will be fine”?

Myra: My father is a serial entrepreneur, so I kind of I saw the ups and downs and deep downs and ups.

Laura: You have the entrepreneur gene.

Myra: Yeah, but it was it was scary. It was scary because you leave this incredibly comfortable environment working with super stimulating and smart people. And every new project is a bit of an adventure. So I went to see a coach.

Laura: I was going to ask. Why coaching in particular?

Myra: I've had coaches throughout my career but, in moments where I'm torn, I certainly appreciate having that third party to bounce ideas and then to pull the trigger. My biggest fear was self-sabotage or the imposter syndrome. I had to solve this before I could take any next step, hence that's what I did.

Laura: I think it's very admirable when people take that step to step out of, like you described, that comfort zone, that real sense of security that you can have working in a company you know where someone else is responsible if something goes wrong and so you're not living with that every day but, now you are.

Myra: That's still scary.

Laura: You need a little adrenaline in life, right. We can stick to Sama for a bit. How is Sama different to perhaps the more traditional avenues of obtaining coaching and the ones that are more frequently talked about in professional environments. You might get introduced to someone who can coach you, or you even have a mentor. How does Sama differ?

Myra: We're a B2B. We work with you guys, but it's different. Effectively through us companies can offer coaching at scale to their employees and when you get matched with the coach through our platform you can work with your coach. You can book a session within the next 90 minutes, you can chat with your coach. It’s really on your time and based on your specific needs, instead of being formulaic: a number of session for you to meet your goals. It’s much more flexible, much more supportive for anybody.

Laura: Which is why it was so appealing for Member Services, because the whole idea is that we're putting together this collection for individuals who are so busy, they don't have that time to fall into that cookie cutter schedule. Sama was always the perfect fit for that.

When you started the Sama journey, what were some unexpected challenges or even positives that you encountered or they took you by surprise?

Myra: There were a few realizations. Where I thought I was going to be strong was in fundraising because I came from private equity. Wrong. It was actually the most challenging thing. And what I thought would be more challenging, which was building a tech product, getting the right fit with users, was the most straightforward.

We also talk about having diverse teams and a lot of the benefits of diverse teams. Coming from finance or law, the teams are not that diverse. And I'm not only talking about gender. Diversity of thought. Having people who come from completely different backgrounds come together. So, in our team people are from extremely different backgrounds and geographies, so we work with people in Nigeria and Brazil. The benefit of diversity, if you are able to really unlock it, is incredible. It really accelerates everything.

Laura: Absolutely. What were the big changes in your perspective during the first few years of working on Sama?

Myra: I had to unlearn everything that I that I knew and then reinvent everything.

Laura: Did you enjoy that part of the journey?

Myra: Not the easiest, but yeah, I suppose.

Laura: Did you have a preconceived notion of what your entrepreneurial journey was going to be like and certain expectations? Or did you just kind of go into the unknown?

Myra: I kind of went into the unknown. You always have a few ideas, and that's how you plan, but you always have to be open. You have to be comfortable with the fact that any of your assumptions or your models are always going to be wrong. That's the only certitude.

Laura: Of course. Zeroing in on International Women’s Day – today we are talking about women in business. I think conversations around women in leadership and entrepreneurial positions can often centre around the challenges or roadblocks we can encounter. But I think that can also overshadow the growing number of positives and perhaps even advantages to being a woman in that leadership position and taking the reins. Have you encountered or perceived any ways in which it has felt actually advantageous to be a woman? And this can be from your time founding Sama, in your legal field, or even when you were in investments.

Myra: I think there's a lot of initiatives out there. There is more consciousness about biases and therefore unconscious bias. I think there's still a long, long way to go. I think that people are asking themselves the right questions and there is the right initiative out there to do that. I think that’s positive. When we created the business, it was always to support that as well to support inclusivity and to support that in diversity. I'm happy to see that it resonates a lot with our buyers and our users, a lot more than probably before.

Laura: What would you say are the kind of core challenges that women in leadership still face that perhaps need to have more light shed on them?

Myra: There’s definitely the glass ceiling in corporate and I think the challenge is that that you hear a lot about it, but when you're growing through the ranks, you don't feel it as much because you effectively feel that ‘if I work really hard, I'm going to make it like’. Ultimately, I'm going to be really good and I'm going places. But at a certain point, and when you're having discussions around where you are going to go, you can see that that’s it. It's not like not everybody is given the same type of tools and resources to promote through the organization, and people are not. There's always biases that come into play. I think the good thing is that within organisations there's more and more being done to change that.

That's one of the reasons why we started Sama: to give the resources and the tools for people to be able to navigate their career, regardless of who you are and what you look like. But there’s tons to be done on all the sides.

Laura: Basically the to-do list is not getting much shorter.

Myra: No, no, no. And it's a change of perspective for all parties.

Laura: You mentioned corporate in particular. That's your background as well, so you will have a lot more exposure to those issues or challenges within those environments. Do you think the tech startup world is better at kind of mitigating some of these issues?

Myra: No, no, this this is what we're here for. To be fully transparent, I think people think it is [better] because people think, well, it's kind of novel, it's a little bit like the far West, and there are more opportunities to build from scratch and create. A more beautiful world. Actually it's not. I would say there is a lot of prejudice in the startup world, in the tech world, that needs to be addressed, and that are being addressed but still there is tons of work to be done there.

Laura: What are some of the key things that you implement at Sama or keep conscious tabs on, as the company grows, to pave the way and create an environment the way you think it should be?

Myra: We’re not very diverse. We're around 70% female and I think we're at 40% BAME. Right now we're being conscious of changing that parity. Being more 50/50 and then, from a coach perspective, it's also a similar approach. When we bring on coaches we're thinking of diversity as well in that instance.

Laura: Of course. For decades, there has been this rhetoric and conversations that often comes up at and around women in business and ‘having it all’. This idea that we can we can build the best career, we can also raise a family, we can run a household, we can do everything at the same time. But on the other hand, there's the other side of that conversation which is saying that, actually, if you want to be in business, you want to be in entrepreneurial positions, you'll be making sacrifices. Alternatively, if you want to grow a family, you might be making sacrifices to your professional growth.

With complete appreciation that there's no one answer fits all and every woman will probably have a different perspective, do you think it's possible to have it all? Or do you think sacrifices are ultimately made if we pursue entrepreneurial and leadership roles?

Myra: I think it's always possible to have it all. Of the women that I admire, the most are actually entrepreneurs that have a family and I'm in awe in how much they have to juggle. But similarly, I think that if you have a dream, you can pursue it and you'll find a way to make it happen. I don't believe in sacrifice. I think that if you find the right partner, you'll be able to do it. Or not the right partner, if you want to do it alone, you’ll also be able to do it. I don't think one can live a life having regrets. So, you can have it all.

Laura: I love that. That’s how we want to start our day – with that enthusiasm.

How do you think we can encourage future entrepreneurs in tech and other industries, for more people to step into that role we’ve talked about, which can feel scary on an ongoing basis?

Myra: I think there should be more internship opportunities in the tech industry and I think that's starting. It’s great exposure to see all the ups and downs, and people can appreciate it more from a having experienced it. I think the UK is actually great for this: financing for this is key. The financing schemes like the SCIS (Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme) are wonderful for the tech industry. And just in general it's a more booming market that… well, let's see. Let's see where the economy goes, right?

Laura: Reverting slightly to the more demanding elements of running your own business. We recently asked this question to one of our Ex-Co team members and I absolutely loved it: what keeps you up at night?

Myra: Making sure that the team is happy and fulfilled, that's a big thing for me. Ultimately, when you have really smart people around the table, it's hard. You want to have really smart people around the table, but you also need to take their opinions into account and then manage it, and then making sure that every decision made is transparent and everybody is brought into it. That's hard and I'm learning to be a better leader.

Laura: I think it's an ongoing learning journey, right? There's no one answer for how to do it.

Myra: Absolutely. And then, ultimately, it's how can we delight our customers more, and how can we have the highest impact for users.

Laura: How do you unwind when you need to? I think one of the biggest things is, especially in startup environment, it's so difficult to switch off because there's just so much going on constantly. So how do you actually switch off?

Myra: I meditate every morning. For me it kind of refuels me. It's very important. I paint as well. I’m bad but very, very much enjoy it. And I’m also blessed because I have this incredible group of friends that nourishes me. I see them quite often.

Laura: And that's so important, right? Because that work life balance can sometimes be almost one of the most challenging parts. How do you not completely sink your life into work, and actually finding time for friends. Have you recently travelled anywhere?

Myra: Paris to see my dad.

Laura: Oh, very nice. What's your favourite place to travel? What makes you the most relaxed?

Myra: Somewhere on the Mediterranean.

Laura: Yeah, that makes me miss summer.

Do you have any great story or anecdote from that you'd be able to share with us from your experience of growing a business? Any great stories? If you want a moment to think about that we can go to another question and then return.

Myra: Yeah, let's do that.

Laura: Okay, a woman, living or not, who you find particularly inspiring and why? In the spirit of International Women’s Day.

Myra: It's probably my friend Emma. She was born in Australia and she became a hairdresser there, and then went through king of a lot. Tough life experiences, then moved to London and started a chain of services which was quite successful. Had to close it down, didn’t work all through the last recession, and now is starting this new business. She was two kids and she’s just such a strong force of nature who now has this B2B procurement business and it’s super interesting, very complex, and completely different. This woman reinvented herself through her 40 years and went through real, real hardship, and is raising this incredible family while building this super interesting and very, very tough business. I am just in awe.

Laura: That's incredible resilience. I think oftentimes we can think we're resilient and then we hear a story like that and you just think “there’s a long way to go to the top line of resilience”. That’s incredible. Have you come up with an anecdote or story for us?

Myra: It's so funny but I never remember those type of things very well.

Laura: Does it feel like the Andrew Marr Show where I just put you on the spot?

Myra: So, it's not an anecdote, but for us, the fundraising was a really tough one. There are a lot of studies that have been done around fundraising for female founders. Less than 0.8% of venture capital funds go to female run businesses. We talk about biases and then there’s tons that is said about all the proactive and positive things that are being done, but ultimately I brought in someone else to raise with me and it worked, but what was very interesting was the questions that were asked. We looked at it.

The questions that were asked to me tended to be like “How are you not going to lose clients? Why would this work?” versus that were asked to him were much more visionary. It’s kind of frustrating to see that. The patters that have been highlighted [discrimination, bias] are actually true, but you don’t want to fall into ‘that is your story’ because if you fall into that, then you’re not going to succeed, right? So you make your own story, but looking back, we learned tremendously, and next time we’re going to do it, we are going to do it differently. It was certainly a little bit disappointing but, ultimately, very successful and I’m very happy with the partners.

What I learned is, even if you cannot make that story your story, you have to continuously push and fight, and ultimately you’ll make it. You'll find a way to make it. It works. It always works.?