OYP Episode 44: Nelly Radfar

Nelly Radfar, Senior Leadership of the KPMG Advisory, Management Consulting Team focused on technology strategy and digital transformation, tells us about her 3 step approach to career growth, the mindset that has helped her overcome obstacles as a woman in the technology space, and how she draws strength from her experiences as an immigrant in Canada.

Interview

Peter Szczerba - Welcome back to the Own Your Potential Podcast, where you'll hear stories from leaders across the globe about how they've taken control their career growth and lessons on how you can too. I'm Peter Szczerba, and today, I have the extreme pleasure of sitting down with Nelly Radfar, who is part of the senior leadership of the KPMG Advisory, Management Consulting Team focused on technology strategy and digital transformation. Nelly, really excited to be sitting down with you today. It's been a couple of months in the making. We had a little bit of a postponement early on, but for good reason, because now we have an even richer potential for conversation today. Can we just jump right into it? Can you take us through your career journey up until this point?

Nelly Radfar - For sure. And thank you, Peter, for having me here. It's an honor to be here. I have been a lifelong a technical consultant in in my career. I graduated from university about 23 years ago with a master's in software engineering, and came to Canada from my home country, Iran to build my life here in Toronto. It was an interesting time Peter to join the the workforce at a time in the late 90s, early 2000. The job market had unique and exciting opportunities for technical practitioner at a time. So I had a good start joining the workforce in my field of practice. In early stages, I had a chance to work with a number of software companies and mainly for product development, product engineering and product design. And through that phase, I had the opportunity to learn a lot about the nitty gritty aspects of technology and get hands on experience with fault tolerant computing in a in a technology framework. A few years later, in 2002, my career had interesting turn, I embarked on a very exciting 13 year journey with marketing agencies, global marketing agencies, such as publicist, McLaren, McCann, bbdo, and capital C. And that gave me the great chance to gain to gain great experiences in different industries I had a chance to, to work with driven leaders, with amazing clients in different industries and gain a lot of momentum and experience in strategic thinking, design thinking, Weiner was advancing also my technical expertise. 13 years fast forward. In 2015, I decided to make a rather a more drastic shift in my career. And I decided to move to the client side. And the premise for that decision was while I was you know, gaining a lot of experience working in different industries, as an external supplier or consultant, or you didn't have a chance to dive deep into running and driving transformation programs for organizations, I wanted to be a client to drive those programs internally own the p&l, so to speak of the business unit and faces the challenges that you know internal roles have joined KPMG to create evolve lead a global Center of Excellence for marketing technology for KPMG. Through those years, I lead a team that produced and delivered a global technology enablement for franchises transformation for a KPMG. And just a few months ago, I embarked on a very exciting journey soon within KPMG. But I joined the other side of KPMG in management, consulting and advisory, I think it's a great time to go back to client facing roles and in this role, I get the chance to work with a variety of clients and help our clients transform their businesses digitally. And Peter when I look back in my at my career journey, I think everything that I have done from the earliest stages, you know, being involved in deep technology, then I learned leadership I learned management, I built high performing teams delivered global enablement think all of that have prepared me to for the role that I have today management consulting, to help our clients thrive their transformation programs.

Peter Szczerba - Yeah, I'm really excited to jump into a lot of things here. I want to start off kind of earlier in your career. Because I think that today, especially with some of the young professionals entering the field, there's a sexiness associated with being part of the strategy being part of the business development and being part of those kind of big picture thinking conversations. But the reality is, it takes some time for you to develop some depth to offer real value to those conversations in your career. And so you had this kind of path path through your career where you went really deep and kind of execution and built up your technology chops early on, and then transitioned into that kind of strategic thinking. Do you think that that was, you know, what helped you kind of have this the success you had once you did move into the global marketing space?

Nelly Radfar - Absolutely, I think it contributed massively to that, to that journey. And I think it's important for, especially for younger people who are listening to to this story or similar stories, to know that, you know, these career progression steps on calm, you know, sometimes they don't come, you know, naturally back to back, you know, there are moments that we need to take a moment pause and reflect and plan for the next step. And sometimes it requires investment in our time and effort to to prepare ourselves for the next step. An example. For me, as you pointed out, you know, being involved in technology, having deep understanding of how technology works and operates was essential for me to grow in my career. But about 1112 years ago, I discovered that, for me to grow in my role, especially to go into leadership roles, I need to expand my horizon, I need to expand the way I look at business problems, I need to have a more strategic view, look at problems at a different altitude. And in order to do that, I didn't have the items that I needed in my toolbox. So I actually went back to university this time to business school, and spent two years of my life to get my MBA while I was still working in full time capacity at at populaces. And I think it opened the door for me in such way that it enabled me to to work with my clients, and look at their business problems with a wider aperture, if you will, and at a higher altitude. And look at it's a mindset shift that you you bring when you want to look at problems strategically. And it definitely helped for me to embark on that journey.

Peter Szczerba - So I think that that's, you know, a common thread that a lot of folks who want to break out of a particular niche that they've they've found themselves in as a result of early stages in the career, that this is a path that is relatively successful in achieving that. But as you were kind of progressing through the early stages in that in kind of developing those deep technology skill sets, how are you assessing like which technology next which opportunity? Next, were you looking at where the industries you were working in were going and what the next trend was going to be and making sure that the skill sets you were developing, we're going to be as valuable in one to three to five years? Was it? What was your kind of process of thinking as you were developing the skill set? Technically, because I think it's, you know, that once you get into that strategic stage of your career, those skills are a little more transferable over the long term, and they hold their value for a very long time. But those technology skills with how quickly everything evolves, how are you assessing what to develop next in your toolbox?

Nelly Radfar - Yes. And I think those moments in the career that you pause and you take a moment, and you look at where you are and where you want to be, they are incredibly important, in order for us to pave the way for our career, and I had a few of them throughout my career. And normally my approach to working and for life in general, is a very structural way of looking at things, this is how I'm wired. And I always sketch this image in my head that I am at point A and I want to be in point B, in a few years. And and I have a three step process for this. And it's very simple. Step one is, you know, an honest, and very transparent and no judgment review of yourself as self discovery or where you are at this exact moment, the value you bring to the organization, the value you bring to your team, the value you bring to the leadership and your client, and, and a good realization of where you are in that moment. And what organizations providing to you today, are they in a position to give you the growth that you're looking for. And then in order to become that point to point B? What what are the gaps that you have to do so the step two for me is also that gap analysis and the stuff that I have to add to my toolkit. Sometimes it's technical skill set peer, but sometimes it's creating that visibility for yourself within the organization or industry in your network. Soft skills or whatever it may be. For you to to be equipped to do the job for for that point be that you want to be. And then the third step is to plan for that. And to communicate that with people around you, with your organization, with your leadership with your team with your network. And normally when, when this is done and planned properly, in my experience, it always has always given me the good resolve that I wanted, it's the same framework that I always apply for my team as well. And, you know, sometimes, especially when you're leading a team, where you're leading an operation, sometimes you you want to give yourself the permission to, to acknowledge and to celebrate the good work that the team has done, and it's okay to tap on the shoulder and celebrate and put on the map, the good work that the team is doing. And in numerous time, I've I've had occasions that, you know, we had talented team members I've been blessed with, with having our amazing team that allowed my career and helping them through this self journey. Understanding and then through this progression in career is something that I've enjoyed doing. And sometimes they need to push, sometimes you you need to help them create visibility, with leadership, sometimes you want to create a safe environment for them to practice what they want to evolve on. Sometimes it's about negotiation, or presentation or presentation skills through other skills, you just want to create a safe environment for them to practice and sometimes fail, but then learn from that and quickly move on. And that process that you you push them to that to that journey is important. The other role of the leadership is, you know, in addition to creating that visibility is helping younger team members for that self awareness, it's easier when you are in earlier stages of career to have sometimes to sometimes overestimate within, within your capability to sometimes underestimate yourself. So helping them for that, like I said, honest, no judgments or of evaluation that I went through for myself, the thing that I that I learned that process, I applied that to support my team to go through that process is something I have enjoyed often often.

Peter Szczerba - So I love that I think that's so simple to boil it down to those three steps. The first, this idea of just an honest review, and really transparent self reflection of the impact you bring. Then the second to look at the gap analysis, but specifically the fact that you identify it's not just about the actual ability to deliver and do your job, but also is are your gaps contributing to your inability to build visibility for the impact you're having, I think that's really critical to, for people to understand that when you're doing gap analysis, that's part of the whole package that's part of your growth potential is how well you can advocate for yourself build momentum in your career through, you know, leveraging champions in your network. I think that's so crucial to talk about as one of the gaps you need to identify and mitigate if it is, in fact one of your gaps. And then three, the plan of you know, how do you communicate this out to folks and get them on board? I love that. How did you come to the understanding that it wasn't just about how well do I do my job? And how good is my impact? And how few gaps do I have? But really, it's also about how well can I market myself was that something that you learned through a mentorship opportunity, or it was something you came across organically?

Nelly Radfar - I think both are, you know, observing people who are doing this well, and we all know them, you know, throughout our career, it has been very helpful. Being honest with yourself with with your ambitions and things that you're inspired to do is another thing. And I can't emphasize enough about about those reflection moments. I mean, I call them Shavasana moments if you're Yogi's know what I mean? You know, you just take a moment and you know, lie down and you know, catch up with your breath and then gain the momentum and go back at it. Those are incredibly important moments is that we plan our next piece our career and then accelerate that, that drum with a structure plan that you can measure and move forward. And once you do that, once you plan it, then then then you achieve that and if I can also emphasize enough on the importance of an honest communication about this with people around you with your network and between leadership.

Peter Szczerba - Yeah, I think what's great is that I've heard you say it a couple of times now is this word plan is that it is this is intentional, your growth has been intentional. And I just want to confirm that that is in fact the case because it certainly sounds like it then that even though you probably had, you know, moments in your career when opportunities present themselves that were unpredictable and you took advantage. Do them where you capitalize them as best you could. But for the large part you did strive to plan for your success in your growth is that what I'm hearing?

Nelly Radfar - 100% 100%, like when I wanted to join the client side and you know, a lead and own that transformation program within within an organization, which has a different set of challenges than then providing consultation to a client, that was an on purpose step that I wanted to take. And that was something that made me made sense to me at the time. And I took major steps to prepare myself to do that. And once I define that plan for myself, I started communicating with people around me in my network and, and I landed on a dream job at KPMG, to create that global Center of Excellence for KPMG and perform that global technology enablement, which is really one of the highlights of my career life.

Peter Szczerba - That's awesome. And I wanted to I mean, you made the transition into client side and went incredibly well. And now you've made a recent transition, which was one of the reasons we wanted to postpone this conversation. So we could talk about this transition, but back into management consulting, and at, you know, an extremely senior leadership level, and in a bit of a different capacity than you previously did with management consulting being different than technology consulting in an agency side. How did you evaluate this particular decision? What sorts of frameworks did you use? or What was your process for deciding, you know, it's time to move back into that client facing role?

Nelly Radfar - I think it was, Peter, I think I was lucky that I was working for an organization that I had a chance to, to shift to the other side of the organization, which would be having the opportunity to, to work on client work and on client facing roles. And the reason for me to realize that it's time for me to do this is because I had achieved the goals of my previous roles. And in order for me to utilize my potentials. And I think that the name of this podcast is own your potential. So I it was clear for me that it's time for me to, to expand my horizon and go for a different role. And based on the momentum that COVID has created within the industry and the momentum of different different organizations to move forward with digital transformation, it was a no brainer decision for me to go back to client facing role. And, and I was lucky that I had that opportunity to stay with KPMG with my existing employer and join our technology strategy and transformation team on their advisory.

Peter Szczerba - It makes total sense and kind of what I'm hearing is that you set up KPMG for success as part of your previous role, right, and you establish the center of excellence. And now that KPMG was in a position where they were prepared for the digital business transformation, that COVID has accelerated and forced upon everyone. And so it sounds like the opportunity you saw was that the greatest place for your impact was to now go back and face the various industries and clients and help them pursue that same digital business transformation. So to me, what I'm hearing is, you know, at the highest level, you were, in fact, following where your greatest potential impact was going to be, is that kind of was that that play a factor into the decision?

Nelly Radfar - For sure. And being a client for five years, and being responsible for driving various transformation programs for an organization and large organization rather, gave me a lot of experiences and lessons that I could I could never learn this in a different way. And I'm excited about applying what I learned through those five years. For the work that I'm doing for my client moving forward. I'm really excited about what future will bring for me.

Peter Szczerba - Absolutely. I want to touch on on a bit of a different space now, just given the way that your career journey has evolved, coming from a deep technological background, retooling and adding tools to the toolboxes across your career, and then transitioning to kind of strategic facing roles. Achieving executive leadership as a woman in the STEM field. How was your journey may be different to your to your male counterparts? And how did you overcome some of the obstacles that faced somebody in your position that others may be experiencing? Now, Peter, the

Nelly Radfar 

way to answer this question, I mean, in my experience, I don't want to undermine the the unique challenges that women might face in terms of growing in their career, especially in a technology field, especially when I started my career. 20 something years ago, you know, two decades ago, the landscape might have been different, but the truth is you to your question is, when I am, you know, facing my day to day work challenges or when I'm deciding about my career growth, when I'm thinking about expanding my confidence or my skills or whatever it may be. For me, gender doesn't play a role in that capacity. If I'm, you know, over and over, I find myself in a conversation, whether it's in consulting, or as a client in a room that everybody is a man, and I'm the only woman in that conversation, it doesn't strike me at all other than I'm the only person in that conversation who's a woman in that subject. So I think that mindset perhaps has has helped me that, you know, the work speaks for itself, that confidence speaks for itself, the value that I'm bringing to my clients speaks for itself. And I think that's how I looked at it. But I, I'm asked this question all the time, especially by younger female, who who want to expand their career in this same sort of structure and in the same industry? And honestly, my answer is the moment you are aware that the moment that you're not actually aware that you're the only woman in that conversation, and you sit at the table. Without that mindset, that's the day that you have achieved, growing in that role, and not thinking about gender as an obstacle.

Peter Szczerba - I think that's so powerful, I think it's so powerful to found yourself in that mind space, and then unlocking your career potential as a result of that. And just, you know, the message that it takes, almost takes that to be able to do that, I think is so so important to communicate. But I want to build on that because I think your story is additionally relatable to a lot of people because of the fact that you immigrated here from Iran. And there's a level of perseverance and challenge that you had to overcome with that process. So tell me a little bit about how that contributed to your kind of your career success.

Nelly Radfar - Oh, for sure. And this is the story that I love to talk about. Yeah, so in late 90s, after finishing university, I came to Canada alone with my three suitcases, and, and really built my life here from scratch. And as I mentioned earlier, it was a good time to enter the job market. And for the torontonian, they may appreciate this, this message when when I was being interviewed for my first job, the person asked me to come with TTC and I said what is TTC? I didn't even know what TTC is. Because I had just arrived in Toronto, like about a week earlier. It was a good market. And so I built my life here. And it was an amazing journey. And I know that this is the same story for millions of Canadians who came here to fulfill their dreams. In this wonderful country. I think it takes courage to leave behind your home country takes confidence to to learn a new language and it takes determination to adapt with. But this is a phenomenal experience because it teaches you to be independent, it is me to be the woman that I am today. And and I believe in myself and that I can achieve everything if I work hard for it. And and I'm proud of being where I am in terms of being at the intersection of being a woman, an immigrant and in a technology field. And I'm hoping that this story will inspire many young people, especially younger female, who who are about to embark on the same journey.

Peter Szczerba - I think it absolutely will. And I'm very grateful that you took some time out of your data to have this conversation and tell the story because I think it's an important one to tell. And just even walking out of this, there's so many nuggets of inspiring kind of valuable knowledge to pull out of this conversation. So Nelly is always phenomenal sitting down to chat with you. Thank you very much and I look forward to catching up again in the future.

Nelly Radfar - Thank you very much Peter for having me.