One Take with Lizette Du Pond

You can never tell if Lizette is stressed or not. A young widow with three children, she succeeded in the international arena that just multiplies stress. Yet, every time you see her she’s happy, smiling, joyful.

Decisive Moment: We have a divergence of decisive moments. For Lizette, a decisive moment came when Carat offered her a regional Latin American role for Nokia. A widow with 3 children, Lizette had a brief doubt (“can I go that big?”) for 1 second and then accepted the challenge.

For me a real decisive moment came 25 years ago, when she was widowed. At that point, you have a choice: retrench or power forward, and, Lizette’s career –which took her through multinational posts with Carat, Dentsu, FCB and GrupoUno—the choice was obvious. Power through and succeed.

Change that she could have never imagined: first, the arrival of artificial intelligence, it was quick and huge. And second, climate change, which is going to affect everything too.

Coping with change: Lizette’s major change, however, came from leaving corporate. With a dynamic mindset and more time on her hands, she developed a healthy consulting business based solely on word of mouth. No social media. No website. No brochures. Pure word of mouth that said “you can trust Lizette and she delivers”

Listen to the rest of the interview. One Take: because life has no rehearsal.