All through my career, I’ve found that my journey has been influenced by the people I’ve met and the opportunities that have arisen from that. I had worked for J Carter Brown, the director of the National Gallery in Washington D.C, a phenomenally inspiring figure within in the museum world, because my original plan was to be a museum curator. I ended up moving to New York to get a masters degree in Decorative Arts History (the history of furniture, ceramics and applied arts) and while I was there, I asked Carter for introductions to museum leaders. He introduced me to Peabo Gardner, who was the grandson of Isabella Stewart Gardner, one of the foremost female patrons of the arts. He asked me if I had considered fundraising and working for Harvard University. I had already figured out that my personality was better suited to meeting people than spending time isolated in archive so I moved to Boston and started at Harvard in a team of 200 managing alumni fundraising and working with graduates as young as 25 and as old as 65. It was a fantastic job – I got to meet so many amazing people in banking, film and publishing and was able to make a difference by helping fund the education of the future innovators and leaders of tomorrow.

I have always loved fashion and magazines and thought it would be a dream to work for Condé Nast and it was! I joined in 2002 as a digital account manager and, at the time, I had very little experience working with websites. Back then, very few people in the magazine team even knew that there were websites but by the time I left, the demand from fashion and beauty clients for digital was huge. By the time I left, I was the first person heading up client sales at Condé Nast so it was really up to me to create a template for other verticals and make it work. The key objective was to ensure that there was a direct relationship with fashion and beauty clients and that they were educated about all the digital opportunities across Vogue.com, GQ.com, Glamour.com, CNTraveller.com and Wired.com. It was as much about listening as it was about communicating and the role was 50 per cent external and going to meetings and 50 per cent internal, ensuring that the Customs Solutions and Agency teams were up to speed with what the clients wanted. The collaboration between sales and print on the digital side was much closer than may be the case in print. Dolly Jones, who was the amazing editor of Vogue.com at the time, would meet with me regularly to discuss ideas. The key thing was to ensure that the editorial integrity of the Vogue brand was never compromised and Dolly did a great job of being commercially aware but a brand guardian at the same time. It was such a pleasure to be part of that growth and learn so much along the way. I’m still in touch with all of my friends there and many of our interns like Louise Roe have gone on to have such amazingly successful careers.

I started as account manager, was quickly promoted to senior account manager before later becoming advertising manager and ultimately head of sales at Condé Nast. The secret to climbing the ladder and getting promoted is simple: prove yourself first. Hit targets and do a great job, then ask for the promotion. I am a huge believer in growing your team and promoting from within, but I also believe this is based on merit – take on more responsibility and come with ideas for how you can improve your role and the business. If you don’t ask, you don’t get, but if the answer is no, learn from it and try and make the changes that need to be made and then ask again once you’ve done that. When it comes to negotiating salaries and pushing for promotion, I think you need to be true to yourself but ultimately, hard numbers to back you up are the best way to make your case. No one is going to this for you – you have to do it for yourself.

I left Condé Nast in 2009 after eight years to join the team at Net-A-Porter as its Publisher and, as with every decision I’ve made to move to a new job, it was all about the opportunity to grow, learn and also in me believing in the mission. Net-A-Porter was my client for several years at Vogue.com so I knew the team and the business well. The opportunity to do something new and make an impact was a huge draw. I later moved from my role as Publisher to the Head of Brand Relations because at Net-a-Porter, if you have a great idea, they will try new things – that is how beauty and Mr Porter were launched. Natalie Massenet is always open to innovation and is a true visionary. When I came to her with the idea of creating this department to effectively acts as a customer care/communications flow between the business and its 650 brands, she gave her backing and support to make it happen.

The secret to climbing the ladder and getting promoted is simple: prove yourself first. Hit targets and do a great job, then ask for the promotion. I am a huge believer in growing your team and promoting from within, but I also believe this is based on merit – take on more responsibility and come with ideas for how you can improve your role and the business. If you don’t ask, you don’t get

The more I heard about Lyst, the more I wanted to know. It’s a great idea, executed brilliantly, with fantastic leadership. I know it’s the future of shopping for fashion. As a big online shopper (with 2 kids and a full-time job, it’s essential) and someone whose career has been based around helping partners grow their businesses, Lyst was a dream job as it combined these two elements perfectly. We are a tech business in the fashion world. Being able to make an impact in such an amazing business and learn so much has been the best decision I ever made, after marrying my husband, of course, and buying a Rick Owens jacket! My role is to set the strategy and implementation for the acquisition and retention of our retail partners. I lead a team of 11 – half in New York and half in our London HQ. I have always been loud and bossy, but I’m not sure if that’s what makes a good leader! For me, it’s about giving your team the autonomy and trust to do their jobs, but to also ensure that you give guidance and structure – it is important to make mistakes, as this is how you learn.

Lyst exists because everyone is different, and there’s nothing more personal than style. That’s why we created a product that uses data to let you find exactly what you want (and things you didn’t even know you wanted), sourced from the biggest inventory that brings together the entire world of fashion. Shopping for fashion online used to feel fragmented. So we partnered with 11,000 of the world’s top fashion designers and retailers globally – everyone from Topshop, Balenciaga, Alexander Wang and Burberry to Saks, Selfridges, Lane Crawford and Barneys – and made all their amazing fashion pieces shoppable from a single destination. We were the first company to launch a universal shopping cart in the fashion space, allowing the shopper to add multiple items from different retailers to one cart and checkout all together via Lyst. The universal cart functionality is a game-changer. Now I can buy from Rag & Bone, Saks Fifth Avenue and Valentino’s sites all at once without having to leave Lyst.                            

For me, there has never been a master plan. It has always been about taking opportunities when they come, trusting my gut instinct, learning and growing and believing in what I am doing and what a company stands for. I am lucky enough to have loved every day in every job I have ever had – even with the hard ones, I still loved being there!

I had an amazing boss at Harvard. When I was considering moving to London to be with my now husband, I told her I was terrified to make the leap for a new job, new life, in a new city and she said something that has always stuck with me: “If you are scared, it is the right thing to do.” If you don’t challenge yourself and put some fear into your life, you’re not really living and you are not growing. Oscar de la Renta said if you rest, you rust and I am definitely not resting or rusty!

I’m proud of every job and every business I have worked for, because I always believed in what their mission was, and so did the company. There are loads of things I haven’t achieved yet. The most important thing for me is to be a great example to my kids, a good, supportive colleague and to love to going in to work everyday – that will always be my overall goal!

Photographs by Dvora exclusively for The Lifestyle Edit. Art direction by Naomi Mdudu