Podcast Episode 3: Breaking Barriers in iGaming Leadership | Petra Zackrisson

    📍 📍 I want to hang in there because I think it's very important for other young women to see that it's possible.

It's possible to go all the way to the top and it's possible to do that with family and with children too

  📍 Welcome to the I gaming leader, where I interview industry leaders to get their insights on what it takes for us to thrive in this fast paced. High pressure environment. I'm your host, Leo Jenkins. And today I'm joined by Petro Sacrason somebody who has such an interesting story. Having worked at McKinsey, move into becoming a diplomat. And then moving into I gaming where she's reached the absolute top as a woman in a male dominated industry.

She'll share her story and insights on what it took to get to where she is today. So let's dive in.

  📍 📍 Hey, Petra. Welcome to the iGaming Leader Podcast. Really great to have you here. I'm super excited to talk to you today and hear your story. Welcome.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

 very curious to hear about your journey. And really what I'm what I'm so intrigued about is how did you move From McKinsey to then Diplomat to into iGaming.

What triggered you to, with that entire transition? I think it's a great place to start. Must be such an interesting story.  

Yeah. I don't know. Sometimes I said that I'm slipped on a banana. I don't know how I did it. I didn't have a clear career plan for it. Of course I started off in McKinsey by more or less by by friends saying that and that's how I how I will go there. And And then I had 10 years as a diplomat working for the ministry of foreign affairs around the world.

The common thread was always a business development. love international business development. I love cultures, new cultures really curious about how to understand consumers and local market specifics and so forth. And then also having the project management within me all the time, or the execution part, like a combo of strategy and execution.

And then I got called by by a headhunter saying that Beson was  recruiting for for a new management team. And they had a specific desire to have a woman in a very male role. That was one criteria and that person should come from one of the top management consulting companies.

So  I had McKinsey there and I got recommended by someone. I still don't know who and that was how I, started I thought they, they called the wrong person. I said I have, No experience of betting whatsoever. Or I have, but not as from the industry. And I also didn't really come from online. 

So it was it was a little bit of a mystery, but that was not what they were looking for. They were looking for someone that was really good on execution and product management and had that kind of sharp sharp eye for both the strategic part, but also how to get things done, basically.  that was how I ended up with within the industry. 

Love it. I'm really curious to hear how that shaped your approach, maybe to, Coming into iGaming, that must have been so different from somebody that maybe has had 10 years of experience before transitioning in iGaming, transitioning into a leadership role. So how specifically did your experience as a diplomat and from a consulting background influence your leadership, perhaps your leadership style or your approach when you got into iGaming a bit? a bit? 

I think with a management consulting background, one of the things that you really you get really good at is to quickly quickly understand a new industry to ask the right questions, to listen a lot and be very attentive. So be a quick learner. So that was what I did. Obviously I was I was a rookie.

I didn't have the 10 years of industry experience, but that was really good. That's asking the questions and quickly understanding what was the real thing. And they didn't bring me in for the industry experience. They brought me into to be very good on running big projects, including big projects.

Acquisitions integrations, migrations, all type of projects was the key thing. So there I knew that I was really good. So that skillset I had already obviously a very different climate coming from being a diplomat trying to, do trade relations between different countries and so forth, but as part of that role, I was on the trade side.

So I was always the one responsible for how to help Swedish companies to enter into new markets. And that was very similar to what I was asked to run on some of the projects was also around the expansion part of things. What is the mindset you had to think about and what are the pitfalls when you go into new markets and when you had to approach a new culture and so forth.

 So it, even if it sounds like a very big pitfall, Difference between being a diplomat and be more on the public side of things versus the industry. It was a lot of things that I actually a lot of skill sets that were very much in common between them.

it makes a lot of sense. So you've, you've worked and lived across Europe, Africa, South America. What are some of the biggest challenges that you've seen from just moving around in different countries? Gaming industry is full of expats. So I'm sure a lot of people can relate to moving to different markets, different territories.

What have been some of your biggest challenges in moving around?

The challenge first and foremost is, it's It's a personal challenge that you become a nomad, that you you had to be you had to create in your safety or you had to be your house or your home had to be where you are, even if that kind of changes and the country changes all the time.

So you have to be very comfortable with change. I think that's one thing  people that are not adventurers and are not. that comfortable with change, they will have a hard time in that kind of life. And that also includes your family, which is why when we worked for the minister of foreign affairs we did interviews or that my husband at the time was interviewed in order to see who will he be and how will he support me?

And how will he. Be feeling about actually moving around. And I think that's really important. Sometimes you forget that, that it's not only a person, at least when you get a little bit into the age of having a partner or children, you're not only a one person that is moving, but there are many and.

If the family is not happy, no one else will be happy either. So that's one thing. Then obviously you have to be very open to new cultures and you have to wanting to understand the new culture and adapt your leadership style, which is very difficult.  Some things you can adapt. Other things you just have to be very clear.

On who you are and being aware of that, and also speaking to your teams around. I know I'm not typical from what you used to. This is who I am. However, I will be honest. This is how I be authentic and I'm open to feedback, but I will not change. I can't change because this is me.

yeah. I love that Petra, because in every interview I do, that authenticity always comes back, right? Just being true to yourself. And I think especially when you're managing in a multicultural environment and you're adapting to different cultures can be very difficult, right? It can be very  easy to.

Almost forego yourself a little bit and be someone that perhaps you're not, and that is inevitably going to lead to significant problems in your well being and your leadership style.  

And you will not be trusted because it will be visible that you're not yourself

Over time. At least that's how I see it. 

Is that something that you learned straight away? Is that something that you learned the hard way? Is that something that you perhaps seen in others that you aspired to, like, how did that form itself over time?  

I think I learned it the hard way. You learn by experience trying to be someone else for, I think, especially in the younger years, when you start, you think you had to be something specific because that's what you're told. That's what around you. I started in a pretty tough environment.

McKinsey is not like exactly, soft and easy. And at that time it was  really, it was, yeah, it was a very demanding environment  to be in. And what I felt myself was that I don't want to be like them. I don't want to be that type of leader. And that is that shaped me and that made me reflect.

But then obviously I also been, I think I've been working with myself a lot and I'm trying to learn who I am. And also. Seeing that I'm super passionate and when I get into that mood, it's really hard to  control. And I don't think I can control myself in that way. Even if I try. So yeah it's just I learned it the hard way.

I can't be anything else, but authentic. It is just who I am, either you hate it or you love it, or you don't.  Very few are in between with me, unfortunately, but that's how it that's also where you had to be more, more selective on what kind of environment do I perform in?

What kind of manager do I work best with? How should my Team compliment me based on who I am with my flaws and my positives, what do I need around me to be, to have high performing teams?

Yeah. I love that. Really love that, Petra. Great answer. One of the things that I'm really curious about is when you first moved in iGaming, into iGaming, what were some of the maybe surprising things that you noticed? What are some of the things that you perhaps didn't expect that you ran into and battled through?

I was excited and that I heard before joining, I was very excited to see the. Abundance of data, how much data is actually being collected in the companies and what you can do with that data. So that was one of the things that really attracted me attracted me. I was surprised to see that it was a little bit they were not as good as I thought they were going   be.

And and by mean that I think that there is so much  opportunities to do so much better, a lot of. Companies that I worked with before they would die for the data that we have access to in our industry and in the online and not least because we see the footprints. Or we can see the footprints of the customer.

We can know a lot about them. And if you start to play around with that data you and the companies that are good at that and have the right tools and people to do that, you can see that they're really thriving. So for me the data part was the data, the access to data was a big surprise and how much data we actually had access to And maybe the lack of understanding of actually using that data was the surprising part.

And also to a certain degree the leadership the quality of leadership. And then it was yeah, I think that a little bit less innovation. And I think that's, that came from the industry had done so well Even if they were not great they didn't have to adapt so much for the customer.

They didn't really have to be local because they were thriving anyway. And I think that is it's a very dangerous place to be in. And I think that me coming from other industries before it was a good thing because you come in with a different mindset and say, guys, you're lucky to have all of that, but we're not working with this.

Let's start to work with that.  

Yeah, I love that because it's like, it's true, isn't it? You grow through your challenges and when you're on a road where there's very few challenges, it's there's no real reason to innovate. And I think that's very true for the past.

You don't need to.

Exactly. One of the things that Dima talks about, he's he does the 15 minute mastery podcast.

He talks about how important it is to hire from the outside and to get new blood into the industry because it's quite insular. And I think it's often the cause for a lack of innovation. What are your views on that?  

I agree a hundred percent. This was actually, and I think when Betson it Wason was a new CEO and when he recruited his management team, he had a Phil philosophy and an idea that he wanted to take someone from the best company within that skillset or that functionality. So he looked. Across the different positions, CMO, CTO, so forth, who should, who are the companies that are best at this today?

I want the company from, I want the person from that company. And I think that it's a bit bold. To say, and to do that, then you can say did they have enough industry experience then? Or did you lack that? But he also brought in a person or a few persons that had that industry experience.

And obviously the rest of the company had that, but I think it's super important to bring in a certain skillset. There has to be a mix though. It cannot be only people from the outside and no one really. Getting the passion, the mentality of the punter  really understanding, what's going on in the head of a gamer.

What are they looking for? Who is this user? So I think it's super important that they, that everyone understands that. But then I think it's good with fresh blood and we need to this kind of, I would call it cross pollination, need to mix and that's where you get the best results.

Yeah, love it. One of the things I heard you talk about is I saw somewhere about you is that you talk about small incremental changes when it comes to diversity. And I'd love to touch on that a little bit. Can you share maybe a specific initiative or example of how you actually apply that and how what the impact is of making those small changes in diversity and maybe even.

Referencing that cross pollination that you're talking about here, like how important is that? And what kind of examples have you got that really personify that

You mean the cross pollination by different industries or by genders or by a mix of

both diversification in general. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,

there, there are, I think  I think there are many, examples of that, but I If you look at I've been working quite a lot with the gender diversification. But also bringing in people from the outside, but the gender diversification I think is it's it's very clear that it's it is It's financially sound to to have a diversified team that reflects your audience.

And there reflects the target groups that you want to target. And if you are a consumer goods product or consumer service company I think it's important that you, today, most companies ignore 50 percent of the population more or less because it's very male oriented. And, When I speak to people in the industry they say, and the men mainly, they say that, it's hard to motivate a man to be a passion, be as passionate about the female user, which is okay, that's that's easy.

Interesting, but it explains a lot because if that's the case, and we know in sports media, 85 percent are male within sports media, obviously, that's also going to reflect in what they're writing about them, what they're interested in. And in gaming is a similar thing. If all our men working with sports or the weather within the trading team and so forth, there will be very little focus on the female side.

So I think it, it's good if you have target audiences, it's good to make sure that your management team or your teams are reflecting the audience that you're targeting. If you're only going to reflect, if you're only going to target 20 year old males or 20 to 40 year old males, yeah, then it's fine to have that kind of employees as well.

But if you want to have a more diversified target group, then I think that should also be reflected in the team. That you build up and it's about cross pollination. Looking at it in our industry, we are a young industry. So obviously there are a lot of better examples out there that has been in a far more competitive environment for a long time.

Hence, they are better set for the challenges and they will bring in their experience, things that have failed in our industry, in other industries before. And they can bring that that as examples to, to our industry.

  Okay, so Petra, I want to ask you about diversity in organization. What are some practical things that leaders can do in organizations to promote more diversity inside of their organizations and to help organizations actually establish that?

  A few of the things that I've seen working is that often I get to hear about there, they were, there are no women there are no female candidates. Okay. And then my question is how hard did you look?

And I think The practical thing that you can do is, as  an HR or as the management team, that you actually agree on that if you ask a headhunter or someone to present to you candidates, if there are three candidates, at least one of them has to be a woman. And if they say, oh, but we can't find it search harder.

Or work with another agency that can actually manage to find those candidates. Because I think at this stage today, there are plenty of good women. You just have to search a little harder. So that's one thing. Another thing is obviously that there, this is about diversity. It's not a female question.

It is a question for management, which means that the majority that we have to talk about here are male. And we had to, We have to be trained and everyone has to be trained on bias and how to, how bias actually impacts us when doing interviews, when scrutinizing CVs and so forth. So training in bias and having those proper discussions around, what you have to look for and how do you actually encourage more female applicants and so forth.

Already in McKinsey on the early stage, I worked with female recruitments. Women didn't apply for McKinsey because it was just seen as a very male environment. And they didn't apply because they didn't think that they would have a chance anyway. So they had already disqualified themselves before even applying. Classical, unfortunately, gender difference. So we trained women in only women events we created to train them on business casing, showing them that it's not dangerous. It's not something that they can't do in order to actually boost them. So they would apply. And that I think is also the way you had to be more conscious and you had to work on training.

Same goes for internal promotions and everything else. There is a tendency, and this is the general stereotypic way to look at it or how I describe it as often, like if you get a male CV, you can deduct 25 percent of that he hasn't done anyway. If you have a female CV, you can probably add at least 25 percent that she haven't put in there and that she can do and have.

And if you have that kind of, at least that kind of mindset in, you also understand that you have to treat, you have to treat women and men differently. When you read through, when you promote, how you encourage and so forth, because we're still in a very male environment where most of the criterias and how we look at things are predominantly male. 

Then there are AI tools and different tools on how to. Scanning, how to neutralize CVs and so forth, not knowing whether that's a foreign name, whether that's a female name or anything, but just look at the CV as such. So there are plenty of goods and very kind of hands on ways to work with this,  

Yeah, and

has to be done consciously. 

Yes, I was just going to say that. That's the key message, right? It has to be proactive. And I think one of the big things that you've said there is understanding your own bias or helping other people understand their biases and really getting that we all see the world through a specific lens.

None of us are neutral. We, although we feel that we are, none of us are neutral. And so we see the world through the lens and understanding that lens for ourselves and being open and honest about that is key here. So

Yeah. It's nothing wrong with the lens. It's just that you had to know how you view the word and maybe it's not, the only way to view it. And if you have, if you have a management team with seven people, six of them being male, maybe they have a lens that is very similar.

Yes.

And then you had to broaden that lens in order to get in a different type of profiles and so forth.

So those are some of the things. The industry is moving forward. We are getting in more women, but we still lack on the leadership top and the leadership. They're not getting all the way to the top. And the question is, why do they not come all the way?

  Great example. I love that. And you in a high performance role, in a very, in executive roles, board roles, it must have been challenging at times for you as well in what is predominantly a male role. dominated industry, which we're trying to, which is being tried to change to something that is far more diversified.

What are some of the challenges that you've personally run into and how have you battled those?  

It has been challenging. It is still challenging because what happens is that you're often a minority. And it is true that women and men tend to think differently. That is also why it's such a strength to have a diversified, Team or a gender diversified team. But so the good part is that it's a modern industry.

So even if if it's There's still few  women or too few women, especially at the top, there is not a long history. In the industry. So it's not the same as I'd be working in the heavy industry before mining industry and so forth. And obviously that's that's different.

But I still think that has been challenging in most companies. I think one of the things that I brought with me from McKinsey was also this, that I was looking for female role models and I couldn't find any in McKinsey at the time. And. I want to hang in there because I think it's very important for other young women to see that it's possible.

It's possible to go all the way to the top and it's possible to do that with family and with children too and with interest outside work as well. so that's some things, but I mean, I've been through everything from sexual harassments to Always being the one that is in a little bit being a minority means that you're more vulnerable.

 If there is something that should happen or, you're the most vulnerable person because you're the one that is different from everyone else. You may be the one that is a bit more challenging to work with because you don't think like the others. And that will always put you in a challenging position.

It also makes you a challenger and it makes, it gives you the opportunity to shine a different light on something if you're strong enough in your shoes, it goes back to that authenticity that we were talking about in the beginning.  

Yeah, it is. But it's also about you. You can only do that to a certain level because, you also need to be nourished. We all need to feel, we need to feel like we are trusted. We need to feel safe when we work in an environment. Everyone wants to be part of a team. And I think that is the main challenge.

If you do not feel part of that team, It becomes really hard. So it's very true that I am a challenger and I will always be a challenger, but it's also important to find who will give you the energy, who will give you the energy to continue and how do you create a good environment with some trusted people that can boost you and support you and give you the energy to continue.

yeah, love that. I love that. There's going to be, I'd like to dive into that for a second, Petra. So there's going to be people that are both in that environment and in the opposite environment. You must have experienced the same before in different roles. What are some of the important things that As a leader, you can do to really establish that culture around you, both upwards, downward, sideways to feel that you're safe, that you're valued and that you're in a, like a top sports team almost.  

I think it's it's like always, it's important with feedback. It's important to tell people what they are good at and what their strengths are and how they are contributing, but it's also important obviously to tell them what they could do better It is important to create a safe environment in terms of actually listening and and that they feel that they can tell you anything, that they can be open with you and they can give feedback to you and so forth.

And that's okay. I'm an extremely direct person. But I also believe that I can take very direct communication. I'm very open to my team that they should tell me and I know that I can run over people in certain situation and they need to tell me that they need to help me with that. So I'm asking them for help also.

And I think that showcase also that they feel a little bit more comfortable with actually with actually, telling me about it. But it's the building that trust is really key. And maybe allowing to be a bit more personal sharing. I try to share my weaknesses. I'm trying to share my experiences, trying to be very open around things that have gone wrong and so forth in order for other people to see, like, even if,  She got to this level and everything she made, she had the same situation as me.

She also made mistakes. She also been feeling really weak. She also been feeling, I can't do this. I can't do it any longer. I don't know how to, I feel, I don't feel well in this environment and so forth. So I think that, that is also, and coming back again to the intensity of actually being, daring to be human and daring to be uh, you you to being you?

Yeah. And being like, what I love about what you just said is also being unapologetic about it, right? You're saying this is just me. I'm direct. I'd like, and you have to tell me when that happens. It's not like you're making excuses for it or trying to be someone else. That is just and it's about openly communicating about it.

We really love that. So in, you've, you've worked in, in established companies and startups. What are some of the traits that consistently predicts success in iGaming.

 the people is the key factor to have the right people and the right team. It's really important. Obviously the leader behind it or the founder if that's the case is a very critical person, but I think that it's the ability to create and to recruit, attract, and and retain the team is a key factor.

And then it is it is grit or it's persistence. It's to, it takes a lot of hard work. It takes a lot of failures. To learn and to get better so that kind of continuous improvement mindset is really important. And and to appreciate and understand that it's it's the people that will make that will make the success.

And very clear focus on your customer to, to really understand your customer or the market with your customer where you are acting. And listen carefully, what is it that they are asking for and how can I deliver that to them? 

Love it. So you're talking about customer centricity, grit. Are those are key behaviors that you would look for in someone that is aspiring to become a leader who is trying to put themselves forward in a company? What are some of the skills and behaviors that you typically look for in someone?  

The perseverance I I always look, if you look at the CV I try to see what they have been doing before. I love if they also have a sport career or something or any interest where they have had a very strong interest and they have, pushed forward and really worked hard to get something.

So I'm looking for how did they get different things. Different roles or jobs or how did they do it? So what kind of learnings could they have with them? So it's important to me who they are as a person, because if it showed me, if they have the drive the drive and the push to actually, to push forward or to, to fail and then get up again it's So that, that's a key factor.

I like when they been in different things. I think that's much better than someone that had just done one thing. So I I don't like if they have jumped around too much because then it shows me that they, can they really stay on, or are they just every time they hit something that is a little bit challenging or something, they will just leave and do something else because obviously they will do the same with me.

So I'm looking for that kind of thing. Kind of person that have shown that they can stay on and actually do something. And then it depends what I'm looking at depends on who I have on board already. So I'm always looking to try to compliment my team or compliment. If I start to build teams, I'm looking for someone that has what I don't have, or someone that has and can contribute to the team just in the same way as you will build a, a soccer team or anything.

 You have one goalkeeper, you have your defenders, you have to have someone that can score and so forth. And same goes in your team.

Yeah, makes a lot of sense. One of the things that we talked about before we started recording was around long term vision versus short term, how that's sometimes difficult in gaming specifically, right? How we want to achieve short term results, but we also have to have a long term vision. Like, how do you balance that as a leader in your role?  

I think it's extremely important that you have a very clear vision on where you want to go, regardless of short term goals and so forth. That vision has to, it has to be very clear to everyone what is it that we're trying to achieve. And also what are the goals and the key kind of the key objectives. So I work quite a lot with this, that you break down and say, okay, if this is what we, where we want to go, what do we need to get there?

And then you break that down into key objectives and tasks and so forth. But I think it's important to help to actually, to make it like kind of structure. So you can see, I need to do this, these things now short term. in order to reach my long term goal. And obviously it is challenging when you work, especially if you work in a listed company, you have your analyst that is on, on you every quarter, you had to show what you've done, how you delivered and everything else.

And that is a challenge. And that is also, it's not always, it's not always best for the company to have that kind of situation. I think I told you before that I prefer to work in a private company than a listed company for the sake of. You are more liberated to actually have that long term thinking you can afford to fail two, three quarters because you know that you're working on the right things that would deliver in the end.

You don't have that kind of benefit if you're listed, you had to deliver every single quarter. Then it becomes extremely important that you are good in your forecasting.  When you set. The expectations to the analyst and everything that you trying to put that at the moderate level where it's, where it's achievable without becoming a burden basically, or or forcing you to take short term short term decisions that may not be, the right thing long term just in order not to be that at the stock exchange.

Yeah, makes sense. One of the things you mentioned earlier in our talk is about how you want to be an example and a mentor to others. I'd like to turn that question almost around. What are some of the. mentors and examples that you'd look at or people that perhaps you can think of that you've looked up into looked up to in your career and what are some of the values and traits that you've really gone to appreciate about them and perhaps that you've even mirrored yourself. 

I think I've been lucky when having a lot of good managers. I have had managers that I didn't appreciate as well, but especially early in my career, I had a lot of good managers that, and I think the things that they, the things that they gave me was that they trusted me. So they hired me and they fought hard to hire me because many times I was a woman and I was young.

I was the youngest trade commissioner when I started in the ministry of foreign affairs. And he really had to fight hard to get me in because they said she's too young or she's Doesn't have experience him fighting for me, obviously created an extreme loyalty for me. I was super loyal to him and he showcased the same kind of spirit that he had when he hired me.

He showcased during my entire career by supporting me, supporting me and trusting me, supporting me and saying I'm here when you need me. And I know he was always backing me up, but. He trusted me enough to let me do my thing. So I think that the trust is a, is one thing that I really appreciated in that or the trust, and at the same time felt like I got your back.

And I think that's important. That's something that I try to mirror in my own leadership, obviously not always successful but that's what I'm aiming for. Another thing is humble around. That you don't know it all and that's okay. So the humbleness of actually sitting back and letting people that know more than me run it again, coming back to a trust, but also a kind of humbleness around around letting other people and recruiting people that are better than you.

Better than me because I've seen that happening and I've seen that being extremely successful in, in, in companies. I think the other one is this from one of my, my recent managers. He was also extremely people oriented. He cared for the people on a personal level. He knew who they were and he knew their families and who they were too.

And he knew them by name. I'm not good with names. I wish I was. And but that was, It was very impactful. And today I was I told you this morning I was on a seminar with with an Olympic sport athlete, and we were discussing quite a lot, what you can learn from the, what you can learn from from sports and how we can bring that into business.

But also what got him started was that he felt recognized. It was someone he had a tough, pretty tough uprising. And What brought him or what was the good feeling that he had first time when someone said Petter you Did that really well, so it was him pointing out. So he was recognized He was mentioned by his name and the person told him what exactly he did well.

And I think that's something also being there and actually appreciate that and being specific to a person and telling them exactly what they do well is also something that I try to mirror, 

Yeah. So key, isn't it? Being seen and being heard is absolutely key. I love that. Okay. I really want to wrap up with something that is practical for people listening in that perhaps are looking to almost create a similar journey to you. If you would go back in time and back to when you first started in, in gaming, what's one piece of advice that you would give yourself?

Yeah.

  That's a hard one. I think one is this, that is try to be a bit nicer to yourself. Someone told me that it's good sometimes to reflect and say that try to say the same thing to yourself as the advice that you would give to someone else. You would never tell someone else that I was absolutely useless.

I can be pretty good on telling myself that I'm pretty useless on certain things and, being extremely critical and and I think that kind of to be a little bit reflective and take a step back and actually, Be better at seeing what you do well as well is something because I think that's important.

I I hit the famous wall when I was only 28, 29. And I think that's was in a fairly unfriendly environment. And and I wish someone was a little bit better and had helped me and told me a little bit more that, I did a lot of things good even though that company McKinsey at the time was extremely focused on.

Everything I should do better, not really what I did well.  

Yeah.

So that's that's one. And then I think that the other part is that to be very clear on, to pick your manager It is so important. I also, especially, I think, especially if you are a minority or in my case then as a woman do your investigation, do the reference checks on your future manager in the same way as you do reference check, on anyone else that you employ.

But when you go into new roles, check what that, what type of manager that is. Has that person had other women around him? Has he supported them? How, what do they say about that? And so forth. So I think that's something that is also very important.

Yeah. Love that. Great advice. It's interview both ways, right? It's a great

Yeah. It is an interview both ways, but you often, you Do not sit like that. You sit and you're on the receiving part, especially when you're younger. I think with experience, you become more aware of that. It's equally important if the relationship, it's like a relationship. It's a relationship is going to work.

Both of you have to approve and have to like. What in the other person, it has to be someone that you'd like to be with, especially if you're passionate, you work 110%, you better have fun doing that. And you have to do that with people that you actually like. If not, it's never going to be, it's never going to work.

I don't think it will be work. Then it will be an ugly divorce afterwards.

Yeah. Your manager has more impact on your mental health than anyone else.

Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

Great point to end on Petra. Thank you very much for podcast today. Really enjoyed talking to you and I'll speak to you soon.

Thank you very much. very much.

  📍 📍 Wow.

What an inspirational journey Petra is hard, right? It left me feeling so energetic afterwards. I think it gave us three key insights. The first one was how important it is to be unapologetic about who you are, especially when you're working with other cultures that you might not have grown up with, or perhaps you're an ex-pat. It is really important to just be open and honest about how you communicate with people, but also to ask feedback for how that's being perceived so that you can be authentic in your leadership. The second bit is really about how it's important to hire diverse sets of skills.

Just like what she called the soccer team, which is really a football team. You know, hiring a striker and a goalkeeper and a defender to make sure that you have different viewpoints and really start hiring people that are better than you are. Right. And then the third insight is how important it is to hire for grit and perseverance.

Those are skills that you just can't teach anyone. They are things that people need to have shown in previous roles or perhaps even outside of their careers, because that is what underpins high performance. So those are the creed three insights that I saw, or I got from this, uh, this interview with Petra. If you found this helpful, please take 10 seconds to just leave a rating and review.

It helps us so much more than you can imagine. It helps other gaming leaders, like you find this episode as well. Now next week we're joined by Rob Duffy. Who's the MD at. Entertain. Who's gone from, you know, small family run businesses all the way up to the corporate big business events. Sane. And he shares all of his insights from his leadership journey and what he looks for in the people that he manages.

So please join me again next week. For another episode of the I gaming leader. See you then. 📍 📍