Nicola Mendelsohn: Facebook/Meta's Vice President for Europe, the Middle East and Africa; former advertising executive and partner at Karmarama, ex-president of the IPA; living with follicular lymphoma.
What this episode covers
Nicola Mendelsohn traces her path from a confident, questioning Manchester schoolgirl dismissed by teachers to a 20-year advertising career and then a senior leadership role at Facebook/Meta. She speaks candidly about her 2016 diagnosis with follicular lymphoma, an incurable blood cancer, and how she chose to face it openly, keep working, and build a 10,000-member support community. The conversation covers Mark Zuckerberg's leadership through pivots to mobile, video, and the metaverse, plus the trade-offs and guardrails of new technology. She closes with hard-won career advice on knowing your strengths, asking for what you want, bringing your whole self to work, and dismantling biases women face.
Recommended on this episode
Portal
Meta
“thank goodness for portal quite frankly because that became a regular thing in my family in terms of how the grandparents could connect with the kids”— Nicola Mendelsohn
The guest's own work
Make It Work: Lessons from Life in Business
Nicola Mendelsohn
“you know this um this book i have here make it work lessons from life in business she means business”— Stephen Bartlett
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
iPhone
Apple
“same with my parents my parents have a portal and um buying them an iphone and then being able to use whatsapp uh was completely changed our family”— Nicola Mendelsohn
Oculus Quest
Meta
“we had facebook as the biggest app but by now we were all these other apps as well instagram whatsapp you know portal oculus quest etc messenger”— Nicola Mendelsohn
Big reveals from this episode
- Nicola was diagnosed with follicular lymphoma, an incurable blood cancer, three years into her Facebook career.
- Telling her four children was the worst conversation of their lives; her husband had to deliver the news because she couldn't get the words out.
- Her youngest son Zach, then 11, asked if she was going to die.
- She didn't begin treatment for 18 months due to a 'watch and wait' approach for this cancer.
- Treatment came when the cancer grew near her kidney; she had six months of chemo and 18 months of immunotherapy reaching 'no evidence of disease.'
- She sought no formal psychological support, relying instead on openness, telling her story at a company conference and on World Cancer Day.
- Mendelsohn was on the internal team that learned early that Facebook would rebrand to Meta.
- Her She Means Business program has trained over 1.5 million women in digital and entrepreneurship skills.
Worth remembering
- At 15 a Latin teacher told her parents she'd never get on in life unless she changed her personality.
- Despite teachers marking her down, she earned an A in English O level and went on to read English at university.
- Early in her career she negotiated a four-day work week, taking a 20% salary cut while doing the same job.
- She deliberately manages expectations to control both good and bad news as a protective mechanism.
- She practices 'vision writing,' writing a year ahead as if looking back on what she achieved.
- Zuckerberg stopped taking meetings for two weeks until teams brought him mobile products during the mobile pivot.
- Meta's avatar system offers over a quintillion different avatar versions for representation.
- The Rose Review estimated women starting businesses at men's rate would add 250 billion pounds to the UK economy.
- She forced a senior male leader to take paternity leave so other men would feel able to do the same.
- The object she associates with her cancer diagnosis is a pair of soft tracksuit bottoms bought for her PET scan.