This Girl KAM with Toni-Anne Jennings

Liv: Hello Toni! Welcome to This Girl KAM!

Toni: Hi Liv! Thanks for having me! How exciting is this?! 

Liv: Hugely exciting! I’m so happy we finally got here after quite a few back-and-forths!!

Toni: I feel like I’ve finally achieved what my daughter will think is cool. I’m on a podcast. 

Liv: Okay, so let’s get into this. Toni, to kick us off, could you give me an overview of your career, both personal and professional to date? And then we can dig into various different areas, if that’s okay.

Toni: Yeah, no problem at all. So, I had the pleasure of turning 50 last year and celebrating almost 30 years in the industry. Next year will mark my 30th year.

I joined the industry when I was around 21 or 22 years old, during a time of significant change and increased representation of women. It was a very different world back then. There was a lot of entertainment and evening meals, creating an entirely different environment from what we have today. Thankfully! I started working for a company called Asta Medica, which probably nobody has heard of. I underwent a week or two weeks of training on three drugs. I had never sold anything before. My mum was actually in the industry as a successful hospital representative. I thought to myself, “If my mum can do it, how hard can it be?” Of course, all young people tend to think they can do anything. Gosh, I was absolutely terrible at it. I had never been so scared in my life while doing that job.

Afterward, I moved to Hoechst Marion Roussel and learned the art of selling. Over the years, I’ve had some incredible jobs. One of my all-time favourites was selling vaccines for GSK. It was during that time that I started to see the rewards and recognition and how it motivated me to continue excelling in my work. At that point, I also had my baby and returned to GSK after my maternity leave. It was the busiest period of my life, building a house, nursing my baby, and working full-time. However, it was also the most successful I had ever been as a salesperson because I genuinely believed in my abilities and kept pushing forward. In my late twenties, I took on my first management role, becoming a manager at Lundbeck shortly after leaving GSK. I left GSK because I was eager to have a management position. The new role was a two-year contract aimed at developing my managerial skills. Similar to when I was a rep, I didn’t realise what I didn’t know at that point. I certainly didn’t know how to be a leader; I was primarily a manager.

After that, I joined Sanofi as a manager and eventually ended up at AstraZeneca. Along the way, I served as a Regional Account Director for Takeda, which were highly innovative roles for their time. Takeda was ahead of its time, embracing creative disruption and challenging the norms.

AstraZeneca became my favourite place to be as it provided the opportunity to be a senior leader and lead large teams. I was able to contribute to the success of a brand that saved people’s lives, which I loved. However, due to major redundancies at AstraZeneca, the head of business roles were eliminated, and I moved to Novartis. Looking back, these 30 years have been quite busy, just going through my career exhausts me!

Eventually, business changes occurred at Novartis, and I made the decision to go traveling. Unfortunately, it happened during lockdown, and just as I was about to board a plane, lockdown number two was implemented. It was quite interesting because I had already resigned and was ready to leave for a year. Despite the circumstances, it turned out to be the right thing to happen as it gave me the opportunity to engage in training, coaching, and developing the skills that ultimately led to the establishment of my current company, Every Connection Counts. Without that opportunity, I might have returned to the more traditional leadership route I was on before.

So, that’s a whistle-stop tour of my last 30 years in the industry!

Liv: So, talk to me a bit about what you describe as your busiest period of time, when you returned to work after having your daughter. Nursing her, building a house. Juggling work-life balance was at its maximum. Where do you think we are now? Reflecting back on those days versus your busier times now, where do you think the industry stands in terms of supporting women in that situation?

Toni: That’s a really great question. I think at that time, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. There wasn’t a sense that the company had a responsibility to take care of me. I felt that it was my choice, and I had to give it my all because I didn’t have a degree when I entered the industry. I feel incredibly fortunate to be here. So, back then, I was so grateful to have my Rover 1.2, which, I must admit, was the coolest car on the road. I was incredibly grateful to be employed in a job I loved. I don’t recall thinking, “Oh, this is really hard” or “How will I balance everything?” I simply thought, “How do I do this?” and focused on delivering what was necessary. There were many mothers in my team at that time because the industry was hiring more salespeople rather than those with healthcare or equivalent degrees.

If I reflect on the present, I do think there is more support and conversation about the pressures faced by women and not just women alone. We are more aware of the importance of balance than ever before. Now, I’ll be a bit controversial here and say that sometimes we talk so much about achieving the right balance that we lose sight of the fact that individuals can say, “I can do this.” As long as we create the right environment, people can thrive. However, sometimes we reach a point where we try to demonstrate organisational efforts without considering what’s truly right for each individual, not just what’s right for everyone collectively. It’s a challenging task for leaders to strike that balance.

Someone once told me, a fantastic guy who worked for me, that his role as a leader wasn’t to motivate individuals, but to create a motivating environment. That idea really stuck with me. As a leader, my job is to make the environment passionate and motivating, and it’s up to each person to find what fits them within that environment. We still have a long way to go, and I believe there always will be more progress to be made. It’s not a destination we’re aiming for; it’s an ongoing journey where we strive to find the best ways to support individuals to be their best selves. So yes, it’s a different world now, but I believe I would have approached it in the same way and just carried on.

Liv: So let’s delve into more recent events. Tell me about your decision to go traveling and the reasons behind it.

Toni: Oh, my goodness. It’s been a journey. I’ve always had a deep love for travel and a strong desire to see more of the world. A pivotal moment in my life was when I lost a very close friend during lockdown. Just before she passed away, we had a conversation about her longing to experience more, to see more. It had a profound impact on me because throughout my career, I was always focused on what’s next for me, what’s the next step? When I joined Novartis, for example, I was surrounded by amazing people, and it didn’t take long for me to start thinking about my next role, where I would go next, and what I needed to do to get there.

However, at that point, I had a gut feeling that told me it’s not just about what’s next, but about what else is important. It’s not just about what lies ahead; it’s about embracing the present moment. I had a strong desire to make the maximum impact wherever I was, but I realised I needed to take the time to understand what truly brought me joy and fulfilment. So, one Tuesday morning, around February or March last year, I walked into my husband’s home office and told him that we were going to embark on that trip we had always dreamed of, in October of that same year. His response was a resounding “Yes, that sounds good. Let’s do it.” Within about four weeks, I had resigned from my position.

I was working as a vice president in a training company, focusing on developing my coaching and training skills. They were incredibly supportive and understanding of my decision. I carried the memory and wishes of my friend with me as I embarked on my journey. I traveled to 13 countries in six months, swam with sharks, climbed the world’s largest active volcano, slept in the desert, and experienced countless incredible moments. I had the immense privilege of taking that time to just be myself, without any worries or concerns, for six months of my life. It allowed me to truly reflect on who I wanted to be and what I wanted to achieve in the third phase of my life, because that’s where I am now—the third third. If I wanted to make a maximum impact, I had to ensure that I knew what I truly wanted to do.

Oh, Liv, it was the most incredible experience in the world. Words cannot truly capture the transformation I underwent. I came back home with a fundamentally different perspective.

Liv: That’s incredible. So, if you can, try to articulate how it changed you. It’s quite a challenge, I know. But paint a picture of the Toni before and the Toni now.

Toni: I think that Toni before was just looking forward, constantly wanting to know what was next. I love my industry, and I have been so fortunate to be led by amazing people. There’s a particular lady, Leslie Beer. She’s retired now from AstraZeneca. She was my boss at AstraZeneca when I first arrived.

And she was somebody who saw something in me that said, “You can be, you can go further.” And she nurtured and supported me. She gave me this amazing privilege to be able to do the role she did. But after a while, you reach a point where you really want everyone to be the best they can be. So, what’s next for me? How do I get higher? And then I can do more. Over time, I realized that I had reached the place where I’m the happiest. I love being able to coach, influence, and help people add value and be their best selves. But I was exhausted.

I was constantly thinking about how to get better and how to help others improve. I reached a point where I didn’t know how to be myself anymore. I had forgotten how to find joy in everything I do. So, having that time away and the unbelievable privilege of spending it with the man I’d chosen to spend my life with, we just stopped and laughed. We asked questions of people around the world about what makes them happy, how they measure their happiness, and their success.

I was on a boat in the Galapagos,  I got to chat with a guy who spends his days shuttling tourists and scientists going back and forth between islands. It takes 10 minutes each way. I asked him if it ever got boring, and he responded, “I’ve got sea lions, the sea, and the sun. I meet people of different nationalities and learn about their adventures in just 10 minutes. How could that be boring?” It made me realise that my assumption of always moving forward and seeking what’s next was flawed. I wanted to stay on that boat, talk to people, and be curious.

This experience changed me because it made me stop thinking that there’s only one way of doing things. I don’t have to wait until retirement to find passion. I can have passion now and enjoy it. My company enables me to do that, and I can combine it with my work. So it changed me. I had the time to think about whether I’m truly giving my optimum impact. And that doesn’t mean counting the number of hours I work. The expectations around work hours have fundamentally changed since my busiest days in my mid-twenties.

I coach senior people in big organisations, and they often tell me that they receive text messages on Sundays, WhatsApp requests on Saturday evenings, and even emails on Friday nights. This constant work demand is fundamentally breaking the people who give the most in our industry. We have to give them time. They don’t have to go on a six-month trip around the world, but they might need to play rugby in the garden with their boys or take the dog for a walk.

Liv: That’s so interesting, the fact that it’s at that senior leadership level where it’s happening the most. Because as a nation, since Covid, maybe even before then, we seem to be so respectful of it. You see it on everybody’s email signatures, don’t you? “I don’t expect you to work the hours I work.” People are so aware of that. Yet when you get more into those senior leadership roles the expectation is almost, “You are here for this. This is what you signed up for.”

Toni: I think we are forming habits that we are unsure of how to break because we live in a much more competitive world than we’ve ever lived in, in every aspect of our lives. How we look, how we behave, we’re expected to be the best versions of ourselves at all times. And I think that we spend a lot of time getting to senior levels. We spend a lot of energy, drive, and stress to get to that level. We need to have more difficult conversations to say, “I’m here, and to be at my maximum, to give optimum impact, I need to have the time to reflect on whether going backwards and forwards on that boat is adding value to anybody else.” And I think that we find that difficult to have those conversations because everybody else is doing it. Everybody else is working long hours. So do you want to be the one that says, “I’m going home because it’s the right time for me to go home and be present in the other parts of our lives?” I don’t think that’s just a female thing. It is industry-wide.

Liv: You referred before to your husband, and I happen to know that it’s quite an interesting story of when you met and got married. So tell me a bit about that because it’s a great story.

Toni: The people who know me know this story. And I think if you ever want to have an idea of what I was like in my twenties, and I actually don’t think people fundamentally change that much. So yeah, I met my husband in a nightclub in Birmingham, a nightclub called Money Pennies for those from Birmingham. You’ll remember it if you’re old. And I met him on Saturday, and by Tuesday, I had finished quite a long-term relationship and asked him to marry me. I did have to ask him again so that he knew I was serious, but I did, I married him very quickly after a bottle of Jack Daniels in Las Vegas, wearing black and speaking Spanish.

Liv: Amazing.

Toni: I didn’t speak Spanish, but it didn’t matter as I didn’t want to understand what I was actually saying. Nobody knew. So we came back to the UK, married, still in shock. There was definitely some shock! We didn’t tell anybody for about a week. My parents knew though. My poor, poor parents!  I’m the baby and the only girl, so they didn’t get to see me get married. Though my dad seemed quite pleased that he didn’t have to pay for it! The whole wedding cost £60. That included the limousine and the bottle of Jack Daniels. But yeah, I’ve been married 30 years next year.

Liv: That’s fantastic.

Toni: I don’t recommend it. (laughing) Kids, don’t do this at home. If my daughter did it I’d be fuming! Don’t do this at home, people!! 

Liv: The reason I wanted you to tell the story wasn’t just for a laugh, though it is a great story! But I do think it ties in.  You said it yourself that people don’t fundamentally change, and your decision to take time recently… I think even back in those days, you appreciated the importance of time. That would be my learning from that story.

Toni: Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. I’m okay with taking risks as long as I’ve really thought them out. And you might think, “Well, actually, that doesn’t sound like you really thought that out.” But, I’ve been married nearly 30 years, so I did give it enough thinking to know that this was the right person to move forward in my life, and he’s been the most amazing husband. In my career, I have traveled extensively. When I was at AstraZeneca for a decade, I was literally away Tuesday to Thursday night. So he didn’t see me as often as most.  I’ve got horses, so I had horses in the garden, I had a husband with a baby,  trying to run his own business, and I’m away half the week!  So this was the right man for me, absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt. And so I did, I do take calculated risks, but I will take risks because my fear is I’ll have a life half-lived if I don’t.

So I encourage the people who work for me and with me to take risks and to be innovative and not be scared. Because if you are scared, you will live a life half-lived in your career, especially. Sometimes you’ve got to push yourself into situations that are uncomfortable. Sometimes you’ve got to take a risk with a customer that you think, “What if I lose this relationship?” Yeah. But then if you lose a relationship from a challenging conversation, you didn’t have a foundation that potentially is where you thought it was anyway. So I am very much about, “Come on, let’s just try things.” And I think that my marriage or my proposal to him was very much around, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Now, I realise now in my fifties, there’s probably quite a lot that could have happened. But in my twenties, I was this gloriously energetic happy person who just went, “I’m sure it’ll be fine. Why not? We’ll make it work. What the hell?” And it’s interesting, right, because just to give you a bit of information about my daughter, my daughter works in healthcare political PR. She works in policy change.

And all through her life, I’ve written her little notes that say, “Be brave.” And I’ve always said it to her when she was at university, and I would leave her, I’d put it under her pillow, “Be brave” in her lunchbox. “Be brave.” Nothing else. Just be brave. And she now has it tattooed on her hip in my handwriting.

I wrote it out, and it was fine line tattooed on her hip. “Be brave”. 

Because if I can empower somebody to be brave, fundamentally, whatever it looks like to you, you will succeed in whatever it looks like to you. Be brave because the best opportunities come when you’re brave. So my daughter walks around with my handwriting on her hip. She’ll always have it there. So it doesn’t matter where I am in the world, she knows that’s what I’m going to keep saying to her. And I think that’s why I got married really quickly because I’m brave!

Liv: I love that. One of the questions I often ask is what advice would you give to your younger self or a younger version of you now? And I think you’ve just articulated that perfectly.

Toni: I would definitely give myself the advice to realise that people don’t actually care as much or talk about you as often as you think. So run your own race, be authentic, be kind, be brave. And if you get the opportunity to make somebody else feel fabulous, do it. I spent too much time worrying about what people thought of me when I was younger, which I think a lot of young women do. But when you recognise that people talk about you much less than you think, it’s quite empowering. 

Liv: So, I’ve got a couple of other topics that I want to touch on with you. And we’ve sort of hovered around it. But tell me a little bit about how you articulate success.

Toni: I used to articulate success based on whether I had achieved a particular role or project. Like, I’m successful because I’m able to influence others. That’s how I used to view success when I was younger. Success to me now is more of a feeling, a reaction to a day or a project because I’ve chosen to step away from titles and positions and focus more on what value I add and how I feel about what I’m doing. I feel successful when I’ve achieved something that makes me feel good. And I think that’s come with age. I really do. I love being in my early fifties. I feel like I’ve got so much more empowerment to do what makes me happy and have an effect on others. So success to me now looks like owning my own environment.

Liv: Okay, so let’s flip it. What does failure look like to you?

Toni: I tend to fail when I can no longer physically communicate. Failure to me is when I lose control, when I get so frustrated that I can no longer influence how somebody thinks. It’s a bit like losing your cool with a three-year-old. If I’m screaming, I’ve lost it. So that, to me, is failure. I don’t really see failure as failure. If you’re a risk-taker, you have to be able to quickly eliminate the parts that aren’t working well. Otherwise, you’ll stop taking risks.

Liv: Somebody said (it was probably Steven Bartlett or somebody else I follow on podcasts), “Failure is something that just didn’t work.” Which I think is a really nice way of articulating it because it’s about that bravery piece, isn’t it? You tried it, it didn’t work, try something else.

Toni: Absolutely. There’s a reason that didn’t work, let’s find the reason and move on. So I just think it’s much healthier. It’s like when you “fail” at a diet, you didn’t fail a diet, you just wanted cake. Analyse it, move on, eat the cake, move on!

Liv: I ate Victoria Sponge this weekend. I made it with my daughter for the school fair bake-off. We didn’t win. We severely underestimated the level of competition at a school fair! My Victoria Sponge was not quite up to the required level. However, we did enjoy eating it! 

Toni: So my girl went to a big independent school that was very competitive. We didn’t know that when we enrolled her, but it was a fabulous school and she loved it. However, I was the parent who slowed down the car and kicked her child out while it was still moving because I had to get to work. (laughing) I severely underestimated the level of competition and the things parents had to provide for the school. My daughter used to come home and say, “Mum, I need an Easter bonnet,” and I would just grab a bucket and a feather and tell her she’s a beautiful child. I was honestly terrible! But she survived… She’s so successful.  She’s fabulous.

Liv: (Laughing) Right. Where were we?  I have one more question to ask you before we go. It’s the classic question that I ask everyone. You mentioned one pivotal moment earlier, but have you seen the movie Sliding Doors?

Toni: I have. I can’t remember much about it, but I have seen it. It’s been a long time.

Liv: Essentially, Gwyneth Paltrow misses her train, which leads her to go back home instead of going to work. She discovers her husband’s infidelity, and her life takes a completely different path than it would have if she had caught the train that day. So, my question for you is do you have a sliding doors moment that you can summarise for us?

Toni: I will go back to the time when I was walking through a crowded nightclub, and the man I chose to spend the rest of my life with came in the opposite direction. At that time, I had already planned my life with someone else in a different world, a different environment. If I hadn’t met him, I wouldn’t be the risk-taker I am today. I wouldn’t be the mother of a young woman who brings me more pride than anything else in my entire life. I wouldn’t have had a career that has lasted 30 years and brought me so much joy. I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to travel as much as I have or sit on the top of a mountain in New Zealand, feeling like the luckiest woman alive. So, it has to be him. I wish it could be a more powerful message for women, but I suppose it comes down to:  choose wisely, choose well, and enjoy the ride.

Liv: I will leave it at that and say a huge thank you for coming on the show and personally making me appreciate life in a completely different way. You did it when we first spoke, and you’ve done it again today. You have truly made me see things differently, and I know that’s your whole purpose. You are very good at inspiring people to do things differently and feel differently about what they do. So, that’s my little thank you to you. And thank you for taking the time to come and be awesome on this show.

Toni: Liv, what you are doing, giving women the opportunity to come and talk about what makes them happy, just fills me with so much joy. So thank you so much for making me feel cool and allowing me to be on a podcast!

Liv: You are so welcome! It’s been a pleasure.

Every Connection Counts ( ECC )

At ECC we harness the art of communication and influence . Through our cutting-edge methodologies, personalised strategies, and unwavering dedication, we elevate the human experience and enable people to shine in whatever role they hold . With a team of distinguished experts, industry pioneers, and visionaries at the forefront of their fields, we guide individuals , teams and companies to owning development , surpassing their limitations, amplifying their impact, and reaching professional and personal levels of success.

You can learn more about Toni’s newly formed company ‘Every Connection Counts’ by heading to her website www.everycc.co.uk.