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Transcript:

Helen: I'm delighted to welcome my guest this week, Eileen Burbidge. Eileen is a partner at Passion Capital, the preeminent early stage technology venture fund based in London. She brings extensive operational experience to her investment activities gleaned from business and product roles at Yahoo, Skype, Apple, and else. On behalf of Passion, Eileen serves as non-executive director on a number of fast growing SMEs, including Monzo Bank, Digital Shadows, Marshmallow, and Butternut Box among others and is Executive Director at Fertifa, the leading reproductive benefits provider. In addition to Passion Capital, Eileen is also the UK Treasury's special Envoy for FinTech appointed by the Chancellor, Tech Ambassador for the Mayor of London's office and Non-Executive Director for Currys. She served previously as Chair of Tech Nation and on former UK Prime Minister David Cameron's business advisory group. Eileen was made an MBE for services to business in June 2015 and holds a BSC Engineering degree in Computer Science from the University of Illinois.

Welcome to The Business of Being Brilliant Eileen!

Eileen: Thank you so much, Helen. Thanks for having me.

Helen: Oh, I'm delighted we can make this happen. And actually I'm just deeply curious about the MBE thing. Can we dive in straight there?! I've never met someone who's been to the palace presumably to collect an MBE so I'd just love to hear how you found that experience?

Eileen: Oh, that's really you. I mean, it was obviously such an honour and the whole thing was quite overwhelming. I feel really lucky to have been in this country now for close to 20 years. It's now my adopted home. I am a British citizen now as well.

But to have that honour bestowed was, was obviously, I felt .... I don't think I've got a bigger example of imposter syndrome than getting that honor and going to the palace! It was the current king now who was the one who gave me the MBE and actually what I remember the most about the experience, and it was all a phenomenal day, of course, is that he was genuinely lovely. But this is going to sound so bad because it's going to make it seem like I don't really think very highly of him usually, but he was so switched on in that when he presented me with my MBE, he not only said the congratulations and well done and everything - and I assume of course, that he's briefed on everybody that he's giving an award to that day - but he actually said 'didn't I hear you on BBC Radio 4 Today programme' or something this morning, which I had happened to do a brief segment. It would've been a two minute thing on something, I have no idea, relating to tech or Facebook or something. And I was so startled because in my head I was, does he listen to Radio 4? Did somebody put that in his briefing notes? How did ...?

So I remember that that was just  really touching, because I thought wow, he, he really, he's not just going through the motions as it were. So, yeah, no, it's a lovely thing and, and I do feel really honored to have that.

Helen: Oh, that's fantastic. And amazing to hear that he's, it sounded like he was just having a nice, human conversation and wasn't just going through the motions, which it must have been a, a lovely welcome surprise on a day filled with such grandeur. And yeah, completely understand how anybody might be suffering from a bit of imposter syndrome or pinch me, am I dreaming? This is a bit surreal, to be at the palace. Oh, lovely.

Well, we'll come on shortly to talk a little bit more about the work that you do. But I like to start by asking my guests about what they love to do in their non-working time. What's a favourite thing you do when you're not in work mode?

Eileen: It's such a lovely question. And I do feel like people are going to say, well, she would say that, but actually the truth is it is spending time with my family, my children. So I have four children and I, well, I have five children. I gave birth to four children, and I have a stepdaughter that's been with us since she's been less than one, so for the last six years. And we actually co-parent, so I have either a house full of all five children or no children a week at a time, every other week. And so maybe because of that I really treasure the times that they're with us. It's maybe right about the time where I might be ready to lose my patience I think, oh, well they're going to go back to their mums and their dads, so I can hold on! And, and obviously I'm missing them dearly and then they're back and so it's lovely. But because of that, and I guess because, I don't take the time with them for granted, and also because of their age span where my eldest is now 16 and the youngest is seven, and I know how quickly it goes, I really love spending time with them. . That's really the only thing.

I mean, I think when I was younger I would probably have answered the question about going out to restaurants, going to the cinema, going to this theatre, and all sorts, I love live music and the whole thing, but honestly I don't really have time for that now!

So it is whatever interests the children and it's really great to see them take an active interest or active part in things. So I love going along for the ride.

Helen: Oh, that sounds wonderful. And sounds a lovely, busy, bustling family home when everyone's there. And then probably a big sigh of relief that it's a little bit quieter on the other weeks and, and it's nice to chat with you as a fellow stepmother because I, I became a stepmother first to my two, well my two grown up stepchildren now when they were seven and nine. And then it was a long time after that that our biological daughter arrived as like a 15 year age difference. So, and she's now 11.

Eileen: That's lovely.

Helen: Yeah. So I started with the teenage years and went back to the basics and did the nappies after that. So I know that lovely mix of different stages and fun family interactions you can have when you've got children spanning quite a wide range of years. So that's nice. Yeah. Wonderful.

And I mentioned in the introduction just some of the roles you've held and the different organisations you lead and co-steer and also across the tech industry. And I wondered, what do you look for when you are contemplating a new role or not so much a new investment opportunity, I guess, about you personally in your career. What do you look for and, and what makes you stay in a role?

Eileen: Yeah, that's such a good question because I'm sure it's, it's a different answer for different stages of life and different perspectives. For me personally - and I'm sure it's deeply personal to everybody in terms of what they want to spend their time doing right? - but at the point where I am and to what we were just speaking about with respect to the family and how quickly the children are growing, I can scarcely believe that I'm a, a year and a half away from my eldest going off to uni, for me it always comes down to: is this worth. the time that would be taken away from? So it's the opportunity cost, and I'm sure that is the same for everybody, but what they're measuring in that other side of the equation is probably what's different for me. Is this going to be worth the time of missing a dinner with the kids if I'm going to have to attend such and such event? Or if that role or that duty is going to require travel or a lot of absence during whatever time periods? So that's the first thing I think. And it's whether or not I can do it without compromising the time, as I've already explained, a very limited time with my children. So that's the first thing.

The second thing is whether or not I think I can actually make a contribution. I don't mean to be ungrateful for any opportunity but I think there are some opportunities where the, the contribution that's being lent is, oh, well, because it's bringing greater visibility or because it's bringing more attention to something or it's shining a light on something versus, well, you can actually have impact because of what you're going to affect, because maybe what you can do, the decisions that you'll take, the recommendations that you'll make. And so that's really important to me. Whether or not it's something that I'll be proud of, as it were, because, and I mean, describing it to the children and saying this is what's going to take me away, is that worth doing? But also where ... it's not that it's got to leave a legacy as such but it's something where I'll know that I'll be pleased I did that in that time.

So those are all things that I think, and it has shifted and the reason I'm rambling quite a bit, is probably you, you kindly said 'maybe not necessarily the investments', but actually I've applied that to investments as well.

And so having led the investment in Fertifa initially a few years ago, I was consciously looking for something in this space and it got to the point where I thought, right, we have a platform as well as capital; we can genuinely affect whether or not certain companies or propositions will have a greater chance, not necessarily a guaranteed chance, of success or exposure or access to things. Where do I want to spend my time doing that? Do I want to invest my time on behalf of the firm doing that for crypto assets, or would I rather do it for something else?

And so I really started spending time actively looking at reproductive, hormonal, sexual health, because I thought it was really important that there wasn't enough already being spent on it. So yeah, it's about the impact isn't it?

Helen: Yeah. That's really interesting to hear and it really resonates for me what you say about how carefully you think about what time investment is this going to take; what's the opportunity cost of that, but also mentally looking ahead and standing in the future and saying, if I were looking back on this, how would I feel about having invested time and effort in that?

And I think that's such a helpful thing to do because we're often so caught up in the day-to-day and the here and now and, and in the current life stage we are at and our family and friends are at, that we can forget that there's chapters to everything and that also that our time is incredibly precious and the future time is quite uncertain. So we assume we're going to live till we're 70 and enjoy good health for all that time and as we found out during COVID, life can be topsy-turvy at the drop of a hat really. So I think that looking back from a future standpoint is really helpful and great to hear you talk about how you've done that with your family and with your work life.

And what would you say has helped you to grow your career the way you have done? Obviously you started broadly in a number of different, more corporate roles before setting up Passion Capital and now working more across the tech industry in terms of growing startups and encouraging investment in tech industry in the UK.

Would you say there are some very specific skills or experience that have helped you to end up doing what you are doing today?

Eileen: I think so. I think the first thing I would say is, it's not a specific skill, but I think it's luck. I really think I have been incredibly lucky to have had access and exposure to a lot of options including obviously the ones I ended up taking. And I really do think on the other hand, certain dispositions can probably increase one's chances at finding luck or at identifying luck.

So I'm not saying well, I'd be happy, sitting in my bedroom and just waiting for luck to present things. I think the other part of it is, I have my parents to thank for having instilled a strong work ethic in me. So alongside the luck, which is another way of probably saying optimism that there'll always be something that will work out, there was this also confidence, which was established because of this work ethic in that even if I were to be, let's say in speech marks "unlucky" or something weren't to work out as I had hoped, I feel I'd be willing to work, say I'd lost a job and I still needed to find a job, I would find temporary work.

Like it was never lost on me that I could work very hard, here was nothing that would be beneath me that I wouldn't be willing to do. Doesn't have to be with my degree, it doesn't have to be in this field. I'd always have found a way to make my way and to support myself and that was something that my parents instilled in me.

And I think that gave me the confidence to be able to take chances or to, to look at opportunities to look at something as a lucky option or a chance to test something because I, I've had the confidence to fall back on something else.

And of course, that's then reinforced by I have a computer science degree; I went to a fantastic university in the US; I had exposure to what would happen in the tech sector and so that was all helpful too.

I'm not actually trying to apply any judgment against what role is more interesting than others but even in the most extreme scenario, I've said I've got a driver's licence, I would drive an Uber, I don't mind, and I've worked in retail, I've worked in hospitality before I went to university. Do you know what I mean? So I, I will always be able to support myself. That gave me the confidence to say, well let's try something maybe a bit different because I don't know how it's going to work out but I was never too scared or frightened to try it.

So starting a venture fund, which obviously I had no business doing because I'd never worked in venture before! Or coming in as a CEO or an exec director at a business of this type, I've not done that before, but again, I'm able to rely on, I guess it's resilience, tenacity, luck and confidence and knowing that, well, I'll learn it, I'll work at it, I'll figure it out and I won't give up at the first hurdle. So I'm sorry that's such a rambling answer! But it starts with luck and I think it's reinforced by work ethic with thanks to my parents.

Helen: Yes, that makes a a lot of sense. And I, I've heard other people say the same that, attributing their success or, what seems to others a lot of external success to actually a, a lot of serendipity and luck, but also just that they're creating some of the conditions for that luck to come about, whether that's through networking or staying open to new possibilities, or as you talked about actually being quite up for experimentation, not being afraid of failure. To just try something new, see how it works, see what you learn from it.

And I'm curious to ask, is there a point at which, is there a a timeframe you'll give yourself to start seeing progress or the benefits or outcomes you're looking to achieve before you decide, okay, maybe this one isn't going to be a runner or maybe I need to pivot in some way? Just curious to hear your take on that.

Eileen: Yeah, I think it depends because it depends on the cost that's being invested, right? And typically again, if it's something where I need to pay my rent or I need to pay school fees, and there's a a meter on that because obviously I've got a very practical consideration.

If that's not at risk, I usually measure it by, am I learning something? What am I getting out of it? Not in, not in terms of materially, but am I learning something? Is this going to help inform something else that I want to do? Something I want to do next? Something else that I saw that was tangential? Somewhere else that I want to go but this will lead me there.

So am I still learning and am I still enjoying it? Is it still net positive as an experience for me because of either what I'm learning, what I'm observing, what I'm soaking up or what I'll be able to apply to something else?

Helen: Okay. Yeah, that makes sense and it chimes with a fantastic book I read recently, I don't know if you've come across it by, it's called 'Quit: the power of knowing when to walk away' by the former professional poker player and now psychologist Annie Duke.

Eileen: I have come across it. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Somebody else just mentioned that to me.

Helen: Yeah, honestly, I read 52 books last year, and that was the best book I read, I think. So I, I've loved it and I've taken so much from it.

And she talks about when you are faced with a stick or quit decision, one of the things we really need to do and often don't do is to articulate what the positive expected value is of sticking with the current plan, and also doing the same for what alternative options are, which is I think, what the same as what you are just saying. However you frame the positive value in the future, whether that's around learning or enjoyment or reward or covering all the basic needs that we need to cover in in life. Are we going to get that?

And then weighing up, asking the same question of, of other options and then basing our decision around that. So I definitely recommend that book.

And let's talk a little bit more about some of the businesses that you lead and are invested in and about the tech industry and entrepreneurship more generally.

So for people listening you and I got to know each other through Fertifa, the reproductive health benefits provider and you are acting as CEO at the moment, and I'm not involved in the organization, but we collaborate through the Workplace Fertility Community, which is a pro bono initiative looking to try and encourage more conversations in the workplace around fertility and infertility, and encourage employers to offer more support around that.

And Fertifa have very kindly supported us from the outset and helped support all the activities that we do. Can you tell us a little bit more about Fertifa and how it's changing the world of employee benefits? Well, specifically wellbeing benefits and but also creating more inclusive work cultures as well?

Eileen: Sure. Thanks for the chance to do that. And I try not to make it a plug as such, but one of the first points I probably want to clarify only because it's not anything you could have known but because I'm quite proud of it. So I did come in as an interim and yeah, temporary chief executive, but they can't get rid of me now, so I'm permanent. I'm sticking around; I've got a multi-year plan and a really big ambition for the business. I'm so excited about what I think we can achieve. So yeah, I don't think I'll be going anywhere anytime soon.

But then in terms of what we're aiming to do and how we're changing, I don't know if we're changing, but I think we are coming at employee benefits with a different proposition in that coming off of COVID, there was a lot of conversation about mental wellbeing and about organisations being more responsible for their employees' wellbeing. There's a responsibility point and also maybe a commercial point, which is that organisations would recognize they get higher productivity and more from their people if people can bring their best selves to work.

And I think at the same time, there has been too little conversation, normalizing attention, investments and clinical care around reproductive, hormonal and sexual health. And, I come from the States and so what's happened with the rollback of Roe versus Wade there, but also what's happening in Italy and what's happening in Poland, all really, really affects me personally and worries me for my children, the next generation and the whole thing.

And so, again, as I alluded to earlier in our conversation as an investor, it feels almost like there's a mandate that we can really affect these trends. We can actually work to ensure that people will continue to get access to education, science, medical based information, options and choices for their reproductive hormone sexual health.

And that's what Fertifa is aiming to do for companies that want to provide that to their employees. Having said that, we measure ourselves based on the health outcomes for the employees and our patients as we call them. So another way to look at it is we might be using the workplaces as our channel, our distribution channel.

But yeah, we are looking to support people through all of their reproductive and hormonal health. We have three principle pathways.

The first is around fertility and family planning, hence the name of the company, and included in that would be preservation such as egg freezing or sperm freezing, all of the assisted reproductive technologies, so IVF, IUI, ICSI and the like.

And then we also cover women's reproductive health mostly led by, from an employer perspective, menopause support, but it's all of reproductive and hormonal health for women. So endometriosis, PCOS, fibroids, contraception, menstrual health, the menopause of course.

And then the third pathway is men's reproductive health, which we think is increasingly important and now, obviously far less talked about than even the other topics. And yet, 40% of heterosexual couples face fertility challenges due to male factors. One in eight men in the UK are going to be diagnosed with prostate cancer. Male reproductive health is, is just to o infrequently spoken about and looked after.

So we look to be an impartial wellbeing support provider for employees so that workplaces know that their colleagues and their employees are being looked after. And we also help to train and put in place policies for managers, line managers, HR and wellbeing teams.

Helen: Yes, thank you for explaining that. And it sounds as though part of what you are doing as well as providing that practical, educational and emotional support as well, expert support to individuals, you are also in the process educating employers about who might be in need of this support in their organization. Because someone listening to this and thinking, okay, fertility, family planning, menopause, this is really just for women of a certain age and I might not have that many of them in my organization or whatever.

But I think the whole point about what you do is that actually it can be people with different profiles, different ages, different backgrounds, in different relationships that might for whatever reason, need this help.

So my husband and I, as I speak about publicly, went through IVF to have our daughter, took three years and some failures before we finally got successful. And, and that was simply just a factor of age, actually no prior medical illness. So no clue that we would end up in that situation needing and trying to find our way through a whole new world of technical information and procedures and terminology and not knowing when to say yes to the advice and when to challenge it.

So I imagine that is a large part of what you do as well in, in the support you provide to individuals and employers, is helping them to realize that actually anyone in their organization might need this support or be going through this and they're not aware of it.

Eileen: Absolutely. And I love that you ended up being able to get support for, for what you had gone through. And I went through three rounds of IVF in 2017 myself. And so we often think about it as maybe a female issue like you said, but then there's this other lens, which is an organization might actually be quite progressive and very generous and have fantastic parental leave policies in place, for example.  But if they're not doing anything to help their LGBT individuals, their colleagues, to become parents, those individuals don't have access to those parental leave policies because every single 100% of LGBT individuals will need some form of support in order to become a parent. And so to your opening statement on this topic, it is about inclusivity across every single lens. And it is about increasing accessibility, not just for women or not just for men of a certain age or of a certain life. Stage, but also, across other axes as well.

Helen: Yeah. Yeah. I know the menopause has been quite a hot topic for employers for a few years now, and something that's generally become much more talked about in the media and in society, hopefully a little more in the workplace as well. But definitely I think fertility is, is something else we really need to encourage conversations about this . And so obviously if people are listening and thinking, well, this resonates for me personally or actually I'm really keen to champion this topic in the organization where I work, I'll put links to Fertifa and their LinkedIn pages so you can follow their work and their advice. I'll put that all in the show notes.

And just moving on to talk before we close a little bit about growing a, a young company and growing an industry as well, because one of the other hats you wear with in relation to the UK's tech industry are about, growing the tech industry in the UK making it an attractive place for investors and for companies to come and set up in.

What are the similarities and differences between growing a company in an early stage and then trying to grow a whole industry? I mean, that's such a big scale, right? . So, I don't know, it's a bit of a mean question to ask you towards the end ...

Eileen: No, it's alright.

Helen: ...oh, can you just give us a two minute answer?!

Eileen: It's a really thought, it's a really thoughtful question. I like it. And, and I actually, as you were asking, I do think there are some similarities in that, because I was going to say, I think you're being too generous in terms of what I did to help grow the tech sector, I don't think it was actually growing as it was shining a spotlight on it. And I think that's very similar to then what you do with a company and a team.

It's shining a light on the opportunity, the talent, the requirements, the demands, the impact, the potential. And so, fill in your blank.

And so much of what I did in supporting government to shine a light on the tech sector and saying, actually the UK has such great leadership, for example, with financial services, with healthcare and health tech. It does have fantastic success stories and great case studies. It does merit other people talking about it and for us to spread that word of mouth.

That's what we do at an early stage company is try and refine the proposition that's being delivered by the team. What are the merits? What are the case studies and the examples of where there have been successes as a result of what the business has done? Is that interesting? Do you have friends that might want to join? I guess it's evangelizing. It's just being an advocate for, or a champion of and just highlighting again, the opportunities and the benefits of something rather than, I guess what would otherwise happen is people would just carry on and wait for something else to grab their attention.

So I guess that's a lot of what it is. It's focusing and shining a light on the things or the levers, I guess, that will have the most impact.

Helen: Yes. That's really interesting to hear that. And I think what you've just described can be a great guide to people listening to follow if there's something that they're working on, that they're thinking, how can I get more traction on this? How can I get it on the business agenda? How can we broker more conversations around this? And I loved your point about what are we shining a light on? How are we shining a light on it? But also if we, if we don't do this, people's attention is just going to be grabbed by something else, and that's a whole topic for another conversation.

But I find that absolutely fascinating about what tugs at our attention and how easily distracted we are and actually how smart we have to become about how to invite people to give us their attention about stuff, whether that's in our organization or across an industry or with consumers or whatever. So yes!

It's been fabulous talking with you Eileen. Thank you so much for talking to us about your career and about the work you do at Fertifa and about the evolution of the tech industry in the UK. You've given us so much to think about around what we're shining a light on in our own work lives, what we could be shining a light on, and what we might be ignoring that we might want to start paying a bit more attention to.  So thank you so much for joining us and being a brilliant guest.

Eileen: Thank you, Helen. Really enjoyed talking to you.