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Nicola Mendelsohn, Global Business Group Vice President at Meta, has learned throughout her career that no matter how much planning she does, she can’t predict everything. Her understanding of how to adapt and move forward while rising through the ranks in the advertising industry led to spending time on BBH, Gray and Karramama on Facebook, now Meta, before retiring in 2013 – and exploring a few surprises in her personal life, as well.
Nicola Mendelssohn
This was never more true than in 2016 when Nicola was diagnosed with follicular lymphoma, an incurable blood cancer. Instead of being paralyzed by this devastating news, she moved forward with clarity of character and deep love for her family and work, guiding her personal and professional decisions.
Control what you can
Soon after she was diagnosed with cancer, she turned to Facebook to connect with others who had the same disease and eventually found the ‘Living with Follicular Lymphoma’ group. The awareness, advice and support she received from this close-knit community inspired her to start the Follicular Lymphoma Foundation, the first charity dedicated solely to finding a cure and helping people with Follicular Lymphoma live well and survive.
For Nicola, raising awareness and funding for Follicular Lymphoma has been a key focus and reflects her embrace of the “unpredictable” approach to life and her “control what you can control” approach to problem solving.
Related: 5 Self-Care Habits of Every Successful Entrepreneur
Waiting for the unexpected
Both philosophies served well when Covid-19 hit. “No one could have foreseen the events of the last two years. One thing we have realized – especially when all the plans, personally and professionally, seem to be irrelevant overnight – is that we have to adapt. To deal with the unexpected. We have to be prepared with quick decision-making and flexible thinking,” she explained. . “This is a muscle we’ve all learned to flex and continue to build.”
Nicola was forced to flex this muscle again after taking the covid-19 vaccine and finding out that they are not as effective in immunocompromised people. And after she completed the antibody test, the results showed that she had not developed any antibodies. She described it in our interview as “gut-wrenching” – realizing that she still has some time left to return to normalcy.
Despite this disappointment, Nicola found a silver lining in her situation: enjoying more time with her family. And when she can’t travel, she finds solutions that are already within reach, saying that virtual reality can fill that void and give the quality of presence to others by pretending to be with other people while in person. It couldn’t be. At work, she quickly began doing things like putting her leadership team through Horizon Workroom (MetaVR’s collaborative workspace) and quickly realized it was more immersive than the other video conferencing tools she frequently used.
The good news is that thanks to medical advances, Nicola has now built up a better immune system against Covid-19 and is back to doing all the things she loves doing better. And although the cancer has always been with her, she now has no evidence of it thanks to treatments.
However, for many people, one of the most challenging aspects of FL is the “invisible” cancer – people who look good between treatments and may not have visible signs or symptoms, but are still living with cancer.
Lead with passion
Through everything Nicola has been through – not only in her decades-long career, but also in her personal health – she knows the importance of leading with passion and being a highly emotional leader.
“People have a lot to process these days, how they live, how they go back to work, and how they manage their health, finances, and more,” she explained. “It’s important to remember how people are adjusting to change and how to help them through it.”
Related: 6 Healthy Habits to Boost Your Mental Health and Get Through Your Bad Days
Because of this, Nicola says she always starts off with safe check-ins outside of group spaces by asking how people are doing on a personal level. Beyond her immediate team, Nicola is interested in how she can best support others on a macro level, particularly women in tech and entrepreneurship.
“I want to inspire not only my team, but the next generation of women to dream big — and be whatever they want to be,” she said.
Women supporting women
One area Nicola is proud of is the work being done within and beyond the walls of one of the world’s largest tech companies to push for gender equality at Meta. In the year In 2016, she launched #SheMeansBusiness, a digital skills training program in EMEA that has since expanded globally. To date, the program has supported more than 1.5 million women this year to address the financial literacy gap women face – from how to effectively manage their business finances to understanding financial health. Unlock the high potential of women entrepreneurs.
Related: 5 easy ways to start your morning right and win the day
Looking to the future, Nicola is helping Meta lead the charge to level the playing field for women around the world. She shares, “Our goal is to have an all-female workforce globally and an underrepresented minority in the US. I’m proud to have doubled the number of women since 2019. We continue to grow the number of women in leadership roles.”
Although Nicola has faced countless challenges between her health and her career, she has learned that life is too short to waste time on the things that matter to you. She hopes that her journey will influence other women and entrepreneurs to achieve their dreams, big or small, no matter how difficult the situation.
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