Greetings!
Welcome to our first issue of She Leads, the Nebo newsletter dedicated to supporting and advancing women in leadership!
Each month, we'll feature a personal interview with an accomplished executive. We'll bring useful insights from our work with professional women and top companies, and a bite-size book review to alert you about titles that offer perspectives you can use. Meet amazing women and gain access to ideas that can bring your career and life into sharper focus.
In honor of Mother's Day, She Leads is spotlighting professional women who are also raising a family -- and there are many of us! Did you know that, according to the Census Bureau, 72% of mothers work outside the home in our nation and that 55% of mothers of infants are in the workplace?
We've invited SVP and Creative Director of Nickelodeon Amy Friedman to share her story about being a high profile working mom. Read on to learn about our unique program to help working mothers return to work successfully.
Thank you for subscribing. Enjoy!
Sincerely,
Kate Ebner
Founder, The Nebo Company
SVP, Nebo for Women
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Conversations with Kate:
Nickelodeon SVP/Creative Director Amy Friedman on being an Executive Mom
Known for her gifts of strategic and creative thinking, it's no surprise that executive mom, Amy Friedman, applied a strategic approach to being a senior executive with young children.
An Extraordinary Career
For more than 22 years, Amy  Friedman has led an exciting career through changing life stages while building brands and producing outstanding programming at Nickelodeon. Hired in 1987 as a production assistant for the original Double Dare game show at Nick, Amy's first job included mixing slime to make Nickelodeon's trademark green slime. Amy moved up quickly, making a name for herself as a writer, director and producer in Nick's branding group. In 1998, she launched Noggin, the award-winning educational pre-school channel. "In the early years at Nick, I participated in the birth of cable television. Eight years later, Noggin gave me the chance to be part of the birth of the digital era." Amy played a key role in building the culture of Nick while launching brands and mastering the process of bringing unique ideas to the entertainment market.
One of Amy's proudest achievements has been her on-going work on Nick's pro-social agenda. She launched the original Big Help, which focused on helping kids give back to their communities by pledging volunteer hours. She has led Nickelodeon initiatives across social issues, such as environmentalism, self-esteem, diversity, education, health, wellness and service. "We want kids to know how powerful they are. The best way to feel powerful is to take action. The Big Help invites them to do that," explains Amy.
KE: When I first met you in 2005, your daughters were very young. You told me that you had "three babies," meaning Emily, Carly, and the creative and passionate work that you do. It was a big challenge to manage all three at once. Can you reflect on that experience?
AF: I always had the feeling that I wasn't doing enough for my family or my job. I was distracted. I felt like there was nothing left for me at the end of the day. I split myself down the middle and gave half to home and half to work, forgetting completely that I needed to nurture myself in order to sustain the rest. I didn't want to leave my work, but I didn't know how to make it all work together."
KE: The girls are 7 and 6 respectively now. What have you learned since those early days?
AF: The revelation for me was what you and I called "my Thursday night strategy, remember? Every day at 5:00, I felt my day at work slipping away and my day at home slipping away from me. The choice about which bus to ride home had huge implications for my family and my work. I decided to commit to working very late one night per week -- Thursday night. On that day, I would order dinner at my desk at 6:00 p.m., roll up my sleeves and settle in til midnight for the most productive six hours of my work week.
KE: What were the implications of this for you and for your family?
AF: For me, it gave a chance to embrace my old passionate work self who loves to be productive and focus on getting the job done. I also suddenly had time to give to my colleagues on the West Coast, who knew they could reach me. For my family, it gave my husband a night of quality time with the kids. He did things differently -- more TV and more sweets -- but the girls loved it. It was perfect for our family.
On Friday mornings, I had done so much work that I could take the time to bring the kids to school and even take an exercise class. I worked from home and could keep my commitment to be there on Fridays for school pick-up.
Being there one day a week gave me a chance to look at the faces of my kids' teachers. It added up to a lot.
KE: It sounds like your strategy really involved Thursday night at work, Friday at home, and reasonable hours the other days, right?
AF: Yes. When I work at home on Fridays, the day is far more productive than the 1/5th of the week that it implies. I don't do management meetings on Fridays. I am not interrupted and dedicate myself to projects that require more focus. Eventually, I learned to save certain kinds of work for Fridays. For me, the Thursday night/Friday solution pretty much solved the whole problem because I was able to leave work at a reasonable hour on the other nights.
KE: What advice can you offer other women who are looking for work/life solutions?
AF: The hour that you leave the office is a very important boundary. I realized that an hour at home at the end of the day is more powerfully and meaningfully spent than another hour at my desk working on loose ends. I kept and set a boundary about leaving work at a reasonable time on Monday - Wednesday and it made all the difference.
Amy with her husband and daughters Emily and Carly  | There's a time in your career where work is about putting time in. There's a point where it becomes less about that and more about the quality of your time and the results you deliver. If you can stand up tall and set the boundary, it will do the opposite of what you fear. A clear boundary has a contagious positive effect on other people -- women and men. Quality vs. quantity is an idea that applies in both spheres of work and home life.
This fall, Amy will launch an independent consultancy, Redhead, that combines advising on strategy and creative content in the kids' media world. For Amy, Redhead offers a platform for her blend of strategic, creativity, and content to a wider range of companies while upholding her goal of working flexibly. "I am committed to working at a very high level in my field and creating a high quality of life for myself and my family. The opportunities in both spheres only grow as time passes. I look forward to helping people solve juicy creative problems while living life on my terms."
Do you know an executive mom looking for a strategic partner in managing her own work/life challenges? Contact us and read more below about our MOMreturns Leadership programs.
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Nebo's MOMreturns Leadership Program offers innovation, support and professional development to working mothers
"It meant so much to me that my company demonstrated an awareness of my
situation and a desire to help me succeed during the transition back to work."
 In 2009, after countless conversations with executive moms, we saw the opportunity to bring together all that we know about managing work and motherhood simultaneously to help women. After refining our concept with a series of focus groups with accomplished women who are also raising families, MOMreturns was born.
MOMreturns is a ground-breaking leadership development program designed to help professional women navigate the return to work successfully. The name -- MOMreturns -- refers not only to the return to work, but also to the return home at the end of the day and the return on investment seen by companies who commit to investing in women during this life stage. The premise of the program is that women can thrive professionally and be fulfilled personally.
Rather than leaving women to learn the hard way through  personal trial-and-error, Nebo brings services that give professional women exactly what they need.
Services include:
- a curriculum of leadership and life workshops,
- a leadership coaching program with trained MOMreturns coaches who help women establish a highly effective approach to managing career success and life balance,
- access to resources that give returning mothers the perspective and
- tools needed for a successful transition
Employers can choose the mix of services that best fit into their women's leadership initiatives and work/life programs when they become members of MOMreturns.
To learn more about this innovative program, check out our website or reach out to us directly at 202-966-3201.
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What Are the Hallmarks of Great Working Moms?
We find that working moms who feel successful in both arenas have these qualities in common:
- Sense of humor and perspective
- Support systems at work and at home
- Clear sense of her priorities and boundaries
- Prioritizes self-care in order to be "peak" at home and work
- Adaptive and flexible mindset - not locked
into a rigid definition of personal success
- Willing to ask for what she needs
- Willing to contribute full-bore when
required at work
- Focuses on being fully engaged in the present moment
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"A clear boundary has a positive contagious effect on other people -- women and men."
~ Amy Friedman, SVP,
Original Programming, Creative Director, Nickelodeon
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by Claire Shipman and Katty Kay
This book has two subtitles that accurately describe its contents: "1. write your own rules for success" and "2. How to stop juggling and struggling and finally start living and working the way you really want."
Shipman and Kay first make a well-researched case about the growing power of women in the marketplace and the workplace, based on changing workplace demographics, a growing talent shortage of knowledge workers, the buying power of women, and a cultural shift of younger generations towards a more flexible workplace.
Once they've established that women really do have more power than ever before, Shipman and Kay go on to explain what this means for you and how to use your power to secure the career and life you want. The book shows women "how to redefine success, be productive, and build satisfying careers that don't require an all-or-nothing approach."
We like the chapter summaries at the end of each chapter and the stories shared by the authors to illustrate their ideas. A great read that offers the "why" and "how to" of writing your own rules for success.
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