How to find passion and purpose in what we do
Our focus for this Season is on ‘Wellbeing & self-care’ and I’m delighted to welcome Jennifer Moss as my guest. Today we’ll be talking about how to find passion and purpose in what we do.
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About this episode
Our focus for this season is on wellbeing and self-care and I’ll be talking to some incredible women and experts from around the world to share their real-life stories, advice and tips to help you manage your wellbeing alongside your career.
Today I am delighted to welcome Jennifer Moss to the podcast. Jennifer is the Chief R&D Officer of pladis, the 2nd largest biscuit manufacturer in the world and the company behind British brands including McVities and Jacob’s. Today’s conversation explores how to find passion and purpose in what we do.
Resources
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Episode transcript
Joy Burnford: Good morning, Jennifer, and welcome to The Confidence Conversation.
Jennifer Moss: Good morning, and thank you for having me. It's great to be here.
Joy Burnford: It's lovely to have you and see you sitting there with all those biscuits behind you is making me very hungry!
Jennifer Moss: It's always important to have biscuits at all times, biscuits and chocolate!
Joy Burnford: Absolutely. So the theme for this season of the podcast is wellbeing and self care. So today, we're going to chat about your background and career, managing wellbeing and self care alongside work, and the importance of looking after yourself whilst progressing your career. So I wonder if we could start if you could tell me a little bit about your background and career and how you've reached where you are today?
Jennifer Moss: How have I reached my dream job of chocolates and biscuits and all that sort of stuff? I certainly didn't think this is where I was going to end up in the beginning of my career. Although there was early signs, I always loved chemistry and science and understanding how things worked, how did things come together. And as I was in high school, and I went on a week's work experience in a laboratory and they were making, if you remember them, Ulan creams and Pantene and products like that, that I went, Oh, my goodness, these are actually science in all these products, it dawned on me, every product that we touch every day, there's science involved, there's engineering involved. And so from that moment, I did a industrial chemistry degree and then a PhD in chemical engineering. The PhD in chemical engineering told me and convinced me no, I wanted to go into skincare, personal care, food, anything, I wasn't the person in the chemical factory. So from there, I was so lucky to be picked up by Procter and Gamble, the makers of products like Ulan and Pantene, and those products, and from the very beginning, I was moved to Japan. So my first role straight out of university was in Japan, which then feeds the second bit of how I ended up where I am. I love to understand how things work, and how do you make things work, and how does the product get from the supermarket into your homes. But then I was put into Japan looking after Japanese and Chinese skincare, and understanding that consumer, and that became my second love was being in an environment where I was not connected, I still used the bar soap on my face, I thought I was young, I thought that would be fine. And these Japanese consumers were using 8-10 steps to cleanse and makeup. So it was why are they doing it and how do they do it. So it brought together the science and the consumer to develop a product that you love. So that has been my career all the way through. I went from Procter and Gamble to Unilever. And when Unilever allowed me to move into foods from personal care and then I was like, oh my goodness, I should have started in food research in the beginning. Because I love food. I love baking, so I looked after you know Walls ice cream products, Lipton tea, food products you name it, and the science and getting teams together to highlight how to evolve that. From that I moved to the Campbell Soup Company, but in an international role, I had teams from Mexico all the way up to Europe and China and down to Australia. And every consumer was different, but they were the same in some ways, but different in the other. So really pulling together an international team, like that was fantastic. So Campbell's Soup company owns, and for those looking at the biscuits in the background, an Australian company called Arnott's, which is, for all the British knows it's the penguin equivalent or not equivalent, it's the Tim Tam. And so I worked with chocolates and biscuits through that part of my career as well. And then moved to North America, looked after Campbell's Soup R&D in North America. So understanding what consumers wanted through the beginning of the pandemic, and then this dream job came along, the Chief R&D Officer of the pladis group and this chocolate and biscuits and understanding consumers around the world and how we love snacking, the perfect role. So that's how I ended up where I am.
Joy Burnford: And do you get to eat the biscuits quite a lot.
Jennifer Moss: Of course, yes! Part of my role is being accountable for those biscuits and how they taste and the flavours of them that they're balanced. So, yes, I do eat a lot of biscuits and chocolate.
Joy Burnford: It's really interesting, talking about the products that you're talking about before the kind of personal products and that sort of thing, the female led products, I think it's something that comes up a lot in conversations that I have about having women in senior roles who understand the market and the consumers that they're dealing with. It's so important, isn't it? I think it's brilliant that you're in a senior role female, and, you know, represent being able to represent, I'm not saying men don't like chocolate biscuits, but I'm sure a lot of your consumers are women as well!
Jennifer Moss: Absolutely, definitely. All consumers but yeah, it's good to bring that, you know, understanding of what consumers are looking for and females.
Joy Burnford: Brilliant and so clearly you've had a very successful career. And what do you believe has been a sort of major factor in you achieving success?
Jennifer Moss: Coming up through science and STEM career, obviously allies all the way through. So whether it was, you know, professors at universities doing my PhDs or allies, both male and female through different companies who supported my career and made sure I got experiences. So I like to carry, give that back now, the importance of just stepping in to help young females or any young person, really understand where they're going and giving them the opportunities. And also, I love what I'm doing. So it's so easy if you have a passion for what you want to do, and you're getting those experiences every day. I think there's rarely a day where I haven't loved something about that job. So I think that's so key.
Joy Burnford: Absolutely. I think it's so important, isn't it? I can't understand when people don't enjoy what they do, how they continue doing the job. And I think, you know, talking about confidence, I think that gives you a lot of confidence if you do enjoy what you're doing as well.
Jennifer Moss: Exactly, yes.
Joy Burnford: So like me, you're also a strong advocate for gender equality. And you sit on the D&I committee, and are involved in in the Women's Network at pladis. How important do you think it is for women to talk about their experiences and the obstacles and challenges that they face at work?
Jennifer Moss: Critical, it's so critical, you know, being through all my life stages, and as a career woman, having those opportunities to be able to speak to women. First of all in Asia. So in going into Japan, where women in the early 90s, you know, once they got engaged, they didn't work, but saying yes, you can work. There's examples of that, all the way through to examples that I've had from senior leaders telling me about work life balance, and Denise Morrison who was the CEO of Campbell's Soup, getting women together and talking about her children and not just all about a career. It normalised it for you. So every stage the more we can talk and bring awareness of the balances, it just normalises it and you go, Okay, you either say this is, you know I now understand I'm not alone in this. So I find a network of people that are the same. So I've been very lucky to be part of the International Women's Forum fellowship programme earlier, about 10 years ago in my career and those 30 women who are across all business sectors across all the world, we're in WhatsApp constantly every day. And it's not just sharing how when at work or the glass ceiling to get to the C suite or what happened, it is, what are the kids doing? How are we balancing them off to college? All those sorts of stuff. And it's so critical just to have the discussions.
Joy Burnford: Absolutely. And as you know, I've written a book called Don't fix women: the practical path to gender equality at work and one of the sections is all about the obstacles that women face. And the first one is around the four Ms which is monthlies, miscarriage, maternity and menopause, caring responsibilities and confidence. And we run a menopause hub actually, which is just incredible, just like you say it's a support group for women who are going through sort of perimenopause or menopausal symptoms, and being there for each other and being able to share that. And it's been life changing for some of these women to actually say, I'm not alone in this.
Jennifer Moss: Yes, it's fascinating. Because it's like, I'm going through something and no one talks about it, but suddenly there's a group of other women who are talking about that. Even now talking to young women who are just starting off with young families and babies and you know, to say yeah, that's your focus at the moment, that's okay for your career, you balance that stage because it's a stage, it's a life stage, and go through it, but just being able to balance the madness of it at that time.
Joy Burnford: And I don't know what you think about this that one of the core things we talk about is permission to pause and actually knowing that as a senior woman in an organisation, I'm sure you say the same to people, it's there's a very small chunk of time and actually you can pause, nothing's going to happen, it's often we beat ourselves up.
Jennifer Moss: Definitely. And I think it's so important to tell women through their careers now I look back at this stage the importance of those pauses. I always was pretty, you know, I went back to work very fast with my first son and the second son came very quickly. So I then took 12 months. Now I go back and like that didn't affect my career at all. You know, it gave me, I was paused, I was better for it. And it was such a short period within their whole life. I also through their whole school life, you know, I would take a leave day, I would do canteen duty and now I look back at the time it was like I really can't. Why am I standing here buttering sandwiches, you know, what am I doing this for? But now I look back. It was such a small period. It was only a couple of hours, every couple of months, but it was so important. So I look back at it, so important to make those pauses.
Joy Burnford: And I think you often find, whether you feel this as well, but I often feel like I'm a bad mum and bad at work, because I can't you know, you're trying to juggle the whole time. And and it's such a hard thing, isn't it for women in particular, I think.
Jennifer Moss: Yes, and it is hard, right? We're tough on ourselves. With hindsight, I just go, wow, we want perfection, I was the mother, you know, up at 1am, making the cupcakes. And then realising the other mother who may not have been working, bought them at the local shopping centre beforehand. But I was that mother and, you know, just pausing. Once again, Denise Morrison, in one of her, we asked about work life balance. And I always remember her saying is there's no work life balance, don't be silly. Within a day, you will not have work life balance, it doesn't happen. Within a week, you might have it. But what's so important is within a month, you say I've had that work life balance, I've had the pause, I've had the time off, I've been able to renew myself, definitely, as you look back over the year, have you paused to do that. So I think the actual concept of work life balance in the day sort of destroys us because there will be the hectic days where you'll be making the muffins at midnight, and stuff like that. But you need to pause.
Joy Burnford: And that things is really nicely on to the season of the theme for this podcast is wellbeing and self care. So tell me, you know, what does wellbeing mean to you?
Jennifer Moss: Yeah, wellbeing means to me, the balance of my emotional self, you know, so am I feeling good? Do I feel I have a sense of purpose? Have I taken the time to, you know, emotionally get myself in a good spot? The social me. So you know, am I connected with families? My family, friends, the community? Am I doing things in the community? And spiritual, spiritual is important to me. Am I connected to a higher purpose? Is there something? So that balance to me is what wellbeing means to myself.
Joy Burnford: Amazing. And, I mean, that spiritual thing is an interesting one. I wasn't going to talk about that. But that's quite an interesting point you make because it's something that doesn't get talked about a lot does it? You know, what does that mean to you? That spiritual side of things?
Jennifer Moss: Yes, spiritual is, to me, whatever that higher power from wherever you are, that you have something that lifts you from the day to day, and that you can feel that you're centred in something else beyond the hectic of what's happening in that day. And I think that you're talking about confidence, sometimes that bring you, not sometimes, if I could, sometimes I'd go off on my spiritual, but then when I get routed back in my spiritual, it does does give me the confidence, it does give me the passion because I say, Okay, this is just a moment in time, there's a higher being for this. And it allows me to move forwards.
Joy Burnford: And things like nature, I think, for me is you know, going out into nature, and just, you know, looking around you and thinking there was more to life than, you know, sitting at a computer.
Jennifer Moss: Definitely. And I think COVID times taught us all about that, right? When we got to connected to that computer for too long, going out and being connected with whatever else it is is so important.
*** Joy Burnford: I really hope you’re enjoying the conversation so far. I want to take a moment to tell you a little bit more about my reasons for doing this podcast. My mission is to work together to navigate a path to gender equality. I’m passionate about enabling every woman to have the confidence to progress in their career, and I love talking to, and sharing women’s stories to inspire others. This podcast forms a small part of what we do, and if you think there’s room for improvement in the way your organisation understands and manages the obstacles that women face in the workplace, please get in touch or tell your HR contact about us.
And don’t forget, Coach Matters is offering you 3 month’s free membership of its network when you reference this podcast. Their business development masterclasses and their series of wellbeing events are also now available to non-members. See Coach Matters to find out more. ***
Joy Burnford: So do you think you've got the right balance between work and home life? And how do you make sure you find time for yourself?
Jennifer Moss: Yes, yeah, no! But I would say yeah, through my career, I'm a lot better balanced now. And probably because my sons are 1000s of miles away, and I don't have to worry about that. They're still child adults. There's still moments. But it is yeah, I still can get, because I'm passionate about my job. I think I overdo that at times, and I do have to recommit to myself of take the time, take the pause. Yeah, it's almost now too, because I'm not, all those years of trying to balance everything. And now it's this time of you know, Okay, this can be more about my husband and I, it's interesting how you, you're still 100% on at work. So I do have to pause and take those moments.
Joy Burnford: Amazing. So I'd love to know kind of what you do to focus on your own health and happiness. What kind of things do you do to take time out?
Jennifer Moss: Yeah, really, it is taking that time out. So I'd love to say I go to the gym every morning, I would love to go to the gym, I don't. But I think what you said before about, you know, reconnecting with my spiritual self is important. Taking the walks, I do the walks, I take the timeout, just by myself to have those moments and what I've learned through my career, it doesn't have to be a long time. For me it is taking the time, taking those deep breaths, you know, just focusing for five or 10 minutes is enough to renew me so that that's how I balance and every now and then I do know, and I know when I put myself first from a health and wellness perspective, I do have so much more energy and it's better balanced as well.
Joy Burnford: And I think there's often things like phone pinging and I must, I must, I must take my phone pinging off because I keep thinking those notifications are not good for your health are they? But I must do that because it doesn't it sort of does interfere with your sort of thoughts.
Jennifer Moss: It's connecting, disconnecting is so important.
Joy Burnford: So have you ever struggled with mental load or you know, I sometimes call it brain strain, or overwhelm? What do you find helps?
Jennifer Moss: We all have, I hope?! So definitely. And I think to me, it's when the story in my brain talks too loud is when that happens. So I think that's also about confidence, right? Normally, it's also when my little voices are telling me something that no one else in the room knows, only I know, I'm thinking that, that's when I get that strain. And the stress, really. So the first thing I do is note that it's me saying it, and sometimes I'll be sitting in a leadership team meeting, and I think they don't know what I'm thinking, I actually have to have that thought to myself, they don't know what I'm thinking. So it is doing that out. And actually telling myself that, you know, it's, in my brain, so let's take the moment really what it is, and then resort myself and reprioritize. So, yeah, that's normally what I have to do. And over the years I've learned it works for me.
Joy Burnford: I know people who have given their sort of, that little mind monkey a name, and you know, they talk to it and say just, you know, Brian, just be quiet or, you know, whoever, and actually I talk about it, you just reframe that negative talking something positive, actually, just by changing that in your brain, it can really help. So I think you're one of my only podcast guests has worked in four different continents, actually, Australia, Japan, USA and the UK. So how have you found that? And obviously interested to know if there's any difference between those cultures in prioritising wellbeing and putting self care into working lives. I know, in the US they do a lot of you know, women don't get much time off for maternity, for example, and that kind of thing.
Jennifer Moss: It's interesting as you go around the world and things, you know, I think, going to Japan, for example, with women, I was very aware and you know, supported and mentored a lot of women in that stage about balancing their careers and things like that. It was interesting going to the US and realising how lucky I was coming from Australia with maternity leave, or how you know, in the UK, so it is interesting as we go around the world and see things. Obviously, I actually think but you know, how they prioritise, there's the general trends within those countries, but women coming through their careers and coming, you know, moving up in executive actually are more alike than we think. So, you know, east coast to west coast US, you'll find completely different people, right. So to me, it's about where you are in your life stage, what are you prioritising, and those fundamental problems of the three Ms, as you said, they are through the whole, wherever whichever country you are, you could be in Jakarta, in Indonesia, Dublin, wherever. And if you come down to the same factors. Interesting, I just remember, I was at the Consumer Goods Forum, global summit the last couple of days. And that's the Consumer Goods Forum for fast moving consumer goods companies. And there was a presenter there from Nielsen IQ, and her name is Sherry Frey. And she was presenting at the moment, definitions of variants of wellness across the globe. So when I thought that was really quite interesting, and the definition of wellness across the globe, basically was the same, but you see large variations and what's important, but the definition she was giving, it was from how much sleep you get, medical health, mental health, nutrition and fitness and things like that. So she went across, and it was interesting across all the countries she looked at, sleep was number one, on how you determine your wellness. So I think, so it didn't matter which and she looked at Brazil and Japan and I think Australia was in the European countries, North America, sleep was number one, depending then on region, mental health, just came ahead of medical health. So even that's, it's quite interesting, right? You would have thought medical health would have been up there. But sleep was first, so how the definition of wellness started with the first part was sleep, then mental, then medical.
Joy Burnford: And fundamental, isn't it? It's like one of those sort of on the hierarchy of needs that you need sleep, you need water.
Jennifer Moss: So it's very interesting, but yeah, it varies, across the medical obviously came up in countries where it's harder to get, but yeah, I thought that was interesting. You should look across the world.
Joy Burnford: Brilliant. So as you know, this podcast is called The Confidence Conversation. So I wanted to talk a little bit about confidence. So you work with business leaders and boards. But have you ever experienced times at work where you've personally lacked confidence? And if so, how have you dealt with it?
Jennifer Moss: Yeah. So yeah, definitely, I always have an impostor syndrome. Chief R&D Officer of a large, the second biggest baking company in the world. How am I looking after McVities and Jacobs and brands like that? So definitely, that happens. Confidence, I think it gets back to, we talked a bit about it before the voice in my head, how, what am I saying to myself at the moment, I'd sit around boardrooms and things, especially coming from technical and also female when you're sitting there and you're the only female. Sometimes it's like, really, I'm not going to open my mouth, because this seems so straightforward to me. And they just talk, talk, talk. So I had to get over the fact that it was important to talk up and have my view. And that came from definitely the little voice in my head. Things as well, that helped me. Now. I'm 5'11" so about 180 centimetres, so you can't tell within a podcast, but I'm very tall. But I know when I'm in those rooms, I can sometimes crunch over, you know, try to make myself smaller. So just taking that moment of those 180 centimetres coming out, I'm going to stand tall. I'm going to take the deep breath. It's amazing how that can switch me to the confidence and saying no, I know what I am, and besides, and thirdly, I'm passionate about this. So I'm going to talk about it. But it starts with that standing up, being tall and being passionate.
Joy Burnford: Amazing. And I'd love to finish on really what your top tips are for other women in terms of looking after your own wellbeing whilst progressing your career? What if you could sort of look back now and sort of give your younger self some advice, what would that be?
Jennifer Moss: Yeah, so be kind to yourself. Think number one, be kind to yourself, be self aware. It's hard when you're in the those moments of everything going on and you're trying to be the Superwoman. Be kind yourself, realise that work life balance doesn't happen in a day. Look at it a bit longer. Did you get work life balance this week? Did you feel to have that timeout? So that would be the number one, it's the normal thing, I know you've spoken about it, we put ourselves last. But make sure sure as you're doing that, that you're being kind to yourself. After yourself, do put your family first, those relationships, the community, whether it's your partner, or your family, or your children, or just your community, they will give you so much energy back so and they will probably help you more than you've ever realised. I haven't had one person, ally or anyone within my career where I've finally articulated, look, I need this time off, or I'm confused. I don't know what to do. When I've asked for help, I actually have never had anyone say no, don't be ridiculous. Go and do it. So making sure that you're using your whole community, people at work is so important and finally follow your passion. If you're not happy at work, I don't know. Yeah, we're the company that make happy, be happy. Be happy and be passionate and making sure that you're doing what you love, because we're a long time at work. And it's so critical. So that would be my three things.
Joy Burnford: Amazing. That's so wonderful. Jennifer, thank you so much for being with me this morning and sharing your amazing views. And it's been lovely to have the conversation. So thank you and have a lovely day.
Jennifer Moss: Thank you so much. Bye
Joy Burnford: And that’s it for this week. Thank you very much for listening and I’ll be back again soon with another Confidence Conversation. If you know anyone who might find this podcast useful, please do pass on the link and it would give me a real confidence boost if you could subscribe, rate and leave a written review (on Apple podcasts here or on Podchaser here). If you like what you’ve heard, sign up for updates where I’ll be sharing tips and notes from each episode and you can send in your ideas for future topics.
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Thank you, and until the next time, bye for now.