In this episode of Women Leadership Reframe, we sit down with Tricia Stewart, Chief People Officer at FibroGen and a 25-year veteran in global people and culture leadership. Tricia shares her journey of rising through the ranks in biotech while maintaining authenticity and building strong relationships.
Tricia's approach to leadership and personal growth is focused on self-awareness, continuous learning, and fostering inclusive environments. In this episode, she offers valuable lessons for both aspiring leaders and organisations striving to create more supportive and high-performing workplaces.
Tune in to this episode for an inspiring conversation on authentic leadership, overcoming career hurdles, and creating organisational cultures where women can thrive without compromising their wellbeing.
Episode Highlights:
- (01:42): Challenges faced by women in biotech as an industry and systemic ways to address this
- (03:50): Tricia’s personal experiences as an executive woman from microaggressions, gender norms, and the tugs of personal and professional demands
- (08:51): Balancing career demands with personal life, including insights on single parenthood in executive roles
- (11:54): The power of asking for help and building a strong support network
- (14:07): The evolution of Tricia's definition of success from external markers to intrinsic fullfilment
- (18:01): The power of an important pivot in Tricia’s career that brought her closer to family
- (23:48): How powerful self-reflection and somatic practices have helped Tricia in moments when she was searching for her own wisdom within to make a decision
- (27:15): The role of networking and diverse conversations in personal and professional growth
- (32:18): Advice for organisations on advancing women in leadership roles
About Tricia Stewart:
Tricia is a global people and culture leader, enabling individuals, teams and organisations to thrive. For over 25 years, she has applied her passion for employee-centricity and leadership effectiveness to ignite personal and professional growth in others and herself. Tricia has worked across diverse industries - from biotech to consumer products, and from consulting and financial services to entertainment companies. The rich differences in corporate cultures and ways of working have shaped her ability to innovate people practices and to help teams and functions transform and future-proof themselves. Her remit has stretched across 100 countries in environments ranging from startups with hyper-growth to commercial HR leadership positions for a pharmaceutical company with over 100,000 employees. To complement her BA degree in Economics and International Business, Tricia completed her Co-active coaching curriculum and mentors young women in her free time. She is enjoying her current role as Chief People Officer for the last 3 years at FibroGen, a biotech co-located in San Francisco and China. Tricia's joy is to unlock the diversity of thoughts and experiences to foster employee fulfilment, teamship and to drive exceptional business outcomes.
## Key Quotes:
“I remember being in a meeting in Europe, with a large tax firm and it was all white men and they asked me to go get the coffee, not realising I was the decision maker of this contract, and I had to check myself from that boiling annoyance that comes up inside. So, there's things like that, where you have to self-regulate and then, you know, inform others of your role in a meeting.”
“My daughter Abbey is now 24 years old, a paediatric nurse and doing beautiful things out in the world. I hope our journey together as I navigated my career across the world with her by my side helped her with building resiliency. That's how I try to assuage some of my mom guilt. But truly, asking for help was...
