1 year post maternity leave : what I wish I had known before I came back to work

1 year ago today,  I was getting ready to come back to work after having my second daughter Peanut. 3 months before, I had finished work 3 days before my due date, I had put everything in order for projects to continue smoothly without me and I felt very confident. After all, I had done it before and it had gone smoothly. Boy, I was in for a rough ride !

Negative feedback as a source of personal growth

This week has been one of the most challenging in my career so far.

After an intense series of strategy meetings, I received some pretty comprehensive feedback from my boss.

That feedback was not positive and it was not on a point of detail.

Why my feminist husband is my best career asset

I am very very fortunate. I married a feminist man.

When I first met Lion, I was 25 and he was 26. We were both advancing our careers, albeit in different fields. Very quickly, our respective workplaces, careers and ambitions became a very important topic of our conversations. We became one another’s coach. Our careers were advancing in parallel. We were slightly competitive with one another.

It was fun.

Then we got married and I became pregnant with Apple. And things changed.

3 reasons why a short maternity leave can be good for you

With both my daughters, I took a short maternity leave for UK standards : 4 months. Whilst this is a standard duration in many countries (including my home nation, France) and a generous one in many others (including the most powerful country in the world, the USA), for the UK, it is considered short.