Isabel Austin
Additional Information
Filipino
gemba 2016
job after insead: Head of Asia Pacific Talent and Recruitment Services, Covance
This month I’m negotiating a $12 million contract, applying my newly acquired quantitative skills and pulling together ideas from negotiation, value creation, strategy and managerial accounting.
Why did you decide to undertake the GEMBA at this stage in your career?
I started the GEMBA when my second child was six months old. Many questioned why I would take on a demanding programme on top of juggling my work, my household, and my growing family – at a time when my daughter wasn’t yet sleeping through the night. But I hadn’t expected the way I would experience motherhood: it was so compelling that I needed more stimulating problems to solve, for work to be worth the time away from my kids. The passion I’d felt for my work reignited when I did a Master’s in Industrial Organisational Psychology when my son was two years old. When my daughter was born, I had the added motivation of wanting to be a role model for her.
What were your career objectives when you enrolled?
I wanted to solve harder problems. I needed to stretch and flex my intellectual muscles. I was looking for a sense of mastery over content I knew and the confidence to explore what I didn’t know. Before deciding on my Master’s, I had a place on another top EMBA programme, but I chickened out because I was intimidated by the quantitative subjects. This time around, partly because I had my daughter to be a role model for, I wasn’t going to let that stop me anymore. I took the attitude: if I get into INSEAD, I belong there. And yes, I struggled through finance, but I survived – and I’m stronger for it.
Why did you think you couldn’t do quantitative subjects?
In a nutshell, poor early exposure and attendant lack of confidence. I grew up with a very humanities-focused all-girls education with lots of exposure to Great-Books-style programmes but bare minimum math. My interests developed along the liberal arts, so I spent my time at university developing a facility for critical analysis but not quantitative analysis. It’s been a great insecurity. It’s not difficult to hide from analytical tasks in HR, so I just got by without it. It’s silly how simple timing of exposure can do that – set into your identity and turn into a blocker.
Why do you think there are fewer women than men on the programme?
I meet many brilliant women in pharma and science who would never consider an EMBA, thinking they have too many competing priorities (as though men don’t). Maybe some of them think it’s a waste to do an MBA, only to take a career break when they have a child. But career trajectories don’t have to be “normal.” These are exceptional women who have certainly never aspired to normalcy in anything else!
Just don’t listen to that little voice of self-doubt in the back of your head!
Were you inspired by any particular women or mentors?
My mother and mother-in-law were strong, tough women who came out of the third world (Philippines and Jamaica) and paved the way for their children. My mother identified as a “housewife” but like many in Manila, she was also an entrepreneur. She always had a business on the side – egg delivery, grocery store, hair salon – to pay for household comforts and our school fees. My dad got the shock of his life when they separated and he had to pay our school fees for the first time – he had to take out a second mortgage on the house! He’d had no idea her businesses were bringing in that much.
How did you manage to juggle a high-powered job and family with the GEMBA?
We have domestic help, like most families with children in Singapore. But we knew that while Naomi was a baby, we’d need more support, so I invited my mother from Manila and my mother-in-law from New York to cover alternate modules. My dad also got a couple of trips in! I’m so grateful to them all for giving me the space to do the GEMBA. But in the end, it was my mother-in-law who thanked me – for the opportunity to spend time with her granddaughter! I think we all gained from the experience..
What’s next for you?
I won’t make any big career moves before the summer. I’ve already turned down one promotion. I’m giving myself time and space to savour the kids. Naomi is now two and utterly delightful, while Noah is 7 and reading Harry Potter! I also plan to go on holiday with my partner and visit family I haven’t seen for the length of the GEMBA programme.
In the meantime, how has the programme changed the way you work?
I am finding myself loving the deeper ways I engage with problems at work. This actually started during the programme – I would get back from a module and begin applying, for example, brand-marketing principles to my employee engagement challenges in Japan. But the changes have deepened over time. This month I’m negotiating a $12 million contract, applying my newly acquired quantitative skills and pulling together ideas from negotiation, value creation, strategy and managerial accounting. I’m no longer intimidated when I don’t understand something, and I’m well practised at asking for help. Who’d have thought it could be this much fun?
