VO2 Group

<p><i><strong>Nadia Hilmi is a whirlwind of energy and determination. Consultant, Product Owner seconded to a global insurance company, VO2 Manager for Morocco … and a mum. She shares for 50inTech the daily life of a woman who juggles multiple hats and never lets one fall. Warning: When you encounter a force of nature, it will rock your boat!</strong></i></p><h2>Nadia Hilmi from VO2: juggling time with steady hands and a keen heart</h2><p>At the start of spring&nbsp;2022, Nadia Hilmi finds herself at a crossroads: for years, she and her husband have been toying with the idea of returning home to Morocco. Despite having many friends in France, their hearts and roots remain in the land of their childhood. With two growing kids, the house is getting smaller and smaller by the day. What should their next step be? They still have vivid memories of the pandemic confinements, where they were separated from their loved ones for months. Stay? This means buying a larger property in the Paris region and committing for years. Go? Leaving a job she enjoys and a company she’s already built strong connections with, just as a major promotion looms on the horizon… Back home, parents and friends worry: ‘You don’t give up a good position on a whim!’</p><p>‘Should I stay or should I go?’&nbsp; While she discusses it with her partner, he makes it clear that it’s up to her. The entire family’s future may be in her hands, but Nadia isn’t one to procrastinate. It only takes her a few minutes to make the decision: they’re returning to Morocco! yet, even if she’s confident that she made the right choice, as the reality of it sinks in, it’s with a heavy heart that she prepares to resign from VO2.</p><p>But at VO2, people aren’t ready to let her go. They wish to keep her in the group. Better yet, they can promote her to run their Moroccan branch in Casablanca! Nadia’s current client being unable to continue working with her for legal matters is the only shadow in the picture. However, planets have aligned for Nadia: another client wants her to take on a huge project. So, with this relief and VO2’s full support, she throws herself into a whirlwind summer of wrapping up things in France, starting her mission with the client and moving the whole family to Casablanca.</p><p>Nadia Hilmi, VO2 Senior IT Consultant and Product Owner tells us about her new life as Head of VO2 Morocco.</p><h2>Whirl, Swirl, Keep Steady&nbsp;</h2><p>So, I have been seconded to my client as a cross-functional P.O. for about a year now. They’re a France-based global insurance company. A P.O. is like a project manager who controls the entire chain of creation of a product from the initial request of the customer (functional need, uses, technical specificities, etc.). I translate the whole process in short user stories that developers interpret to calculate estimates and make the product.</p><h3>An X-Large Mission</h3><p>Although my work mainly takes place at the VO2 Morocco headquarters, I visit my client in Paris for one week every month.</p><p>I manage the decommissioning and replacement of my client’s current system with a chain entirely built on the Cloud. This is a real shift towards complete digitalization and a huge challenge. My role is a P.O. one, but on a fully agile scale, as I coordinate the activities of six other P.O., each with their own project and respective teams. The success of this project depends entirely on our internal communication and the total transparency of the teams.</p><p>The project is of major scope, particularly in terms of CSR, because one of the main motivations for our client is to free themselves from toxic components. Another is that the Cloud chain will allow perfect clarity in the insurer-insured relationship, with the latter receiving the same dematerialized documents in a much more fluid and less complex dynamic than the current machinery. This will also eliminate the 150&nbsp;million files presently cluttering the system. Such a profound change in the process is obviously highly strategic for the entire group, which brings some pressure.</p><p>It’s such a complex task! We’re mostly starting from scratch, with many talents involved and little documentation to guide us… This demands that all upgrade their skills continuously throughout the mission, and this, in all positions, functional as well as IT. Each team depends on the progress of the others. When one of them falls behind schedule, it causes inevitable friction … and any slowdown leads to additional costs, which the client really doesn’t like. Managing blockages, setbacks, tensions, this is now an integral part of my daily life…</p><p>For all the reasons above, this project requires an immense sense of organization and a pragmatic division of time. At first, I felt that my position was a bit odd, as I was suddenly replacing a colleague who had been overwhelmed with the multiple challenges of the operation. Basically, I had to get on a moving locomotive! But there was no time for fear, so I carried on!&nbsp;</p><p>To say it was easy would be an exaggeration. Missions of this magnitude can have an impact on your personal life; you have to know how to maintain your energy and your health in the long term. I’m not a superwoman, but I have put a number of strategies in place to meet the challenges of this compelling project.</p><p>I’m extremely proud of what the teams and I are delivering! Emotional ups and downs are a daily reality and excitement can be as high as the stakes. But I always keep in mind that I’m also the manager of VO2 Morocco.</p><h3>Manager for VO2 Morocco: The Other Mission</h3><p>As soon as I arrived, I wanted to know my teams on a deeper level, understand their missions, and evaluate their skills. I’m keen to support them on their subjects, their issues: I’m not a ghost manager. Being in touch with the daily lives of collaborators is fundamental. I’m eager to devote the time they deserve, and combining this function and my responsibilities towards my client is sometimes like squaring the proverbial circle. But this is the challenge that I accepted when I decided to go back to Morocco.</p><p>Did I truly know what I was getting myself into? Maybe not completely, but VO2 really placed a lot of confidence in me when they gave me these responsibilities and I have maintained my client’s trust over time. Occasionally, the teams and I are faced with stormy weather conditions, yet we manage to move forward and hold on, sometimes feeling like we’re succeeding against all odds.</p><p>The sizing of my days is X-Large! I don’t spare myself and long hours don’t scare me. In any case, it’s in my character: I can’t sit still; I don’t know how to do nothing. I’d consider this a flaw, but in my job, it’s obviously an asset!</p><p>Multitasking is often seen as a woman’s skill. I do juggle multiple hats: manager, cross-functional P.O., mother, wife… I have to make sure that it’s doable, and although I sometimes come close to overwork, I bounce back very quickly! I carry an agile mind with me in all the spaces of my life, even the most intimate: I break each project into smaller blocks, easier to tackle. And then, I have a secret weapon: I’m a runner.</p><p>Rain or shine, sunny or cloudy, I run every morning. In Paris, Casablanca, even on vacation … if I’m not on a plane, from 7&nbsp;a.m. to 7:30&nbsp;a.m. It’s time to put on my trainers. It’s a reflective moment and this time belongs only to me! It gives me incredible strength and it’s a discipline that is essential to me.</p><h2>VO2: The True Spirit of a Family</h2><p>VO2 makes me happy. I like the teams, the spirit of the group. We think alike and share the same values.</p><h3>From Paris to Casablanca: VO2</h3><p>Right from the start, VO2 made me feel wanted: from the first connection, via LinkedIn, to the signing of my contract, no more than eight days passed. And I’m still amazed that once there, they delivered on everything that had been promised to me during the negotiations, and much more. They really went out of their way to hand over the Moroccan branch to me after just one year. It shows an openness and dare very characteristic of VO2. I want to live up to that trust.</p><p>Even if I now live in Morocco, I remain strongly connected to Paris headquarters. I never feel left out, and they always involve me in internal issues within the group. As overused as the expression is, we’re a family. The philosophy of the founders, Émilie and Florent, has a lot to do with it. The values of VO2, kindness and respect infuse the entire company and each consultant conveys them to their clients! The strength of VO2 lies in the powerful interactions that all of their employees maintain. I know that I can count on everyone at VO2; That’s rare and precious!</p><h3>Consultancy: Soft Skills Required</h3><p>Consulting naturally demands a number of skills. However, soft skills may be more important than anything. They can make or break a consultant. A few immediately come to mind:</p><ul><li>Be organized: that’s essential if you want to optimize your time and not get stuck. I favour continuous days, with few or no lunch breaks. This allows me to spend time with my children at the end of the day. These moments are sacred! Two hours a day, I’m fully a mother. I can always return to work after they go to bed. It often happens…</li><li>Do multitask: being able to do more than one thing at once is a real-time saver. If I can respond to an email in three sentences, I do it in the flash, even in a meeting. My colleagues know this and don’t take offence. Nothing worse than accumulating small actions that turn into extra hours of work at the end of the day. Procrastination is the devil!</li><li>Be flexible and responsive: if your client asks you at 6&nbsp;p.m. for a quick report or an urgent PowerPoint for the next day, it’s not out of sheer sadism! He too is subject to constraints and your role is, again, to support him. Weekends are sometimes a little shortened … but that’s part of the mission.</li><li>Be loyal: always follow through on your mission, even when you feel less than motivated. I experienced such a misadventure before joining VO2. At the time, I was working hard to develop a flagship product for the company I worked at. Despite this being an ongoing project, and against all odds, they were about to let me go. But I remained focused on my task until the end. I must be one of the rare people who received a bonus rewarding their efforts months after their departure… And contrary to popular belief, people have long memories, including of the good you brought them.</li><li>Get out of your comfort zone: it’s not always easy, but you have to be daring. Repetition, habits, routine promise stagnation. In retrospect, I thank the layoff I experienced before VO2. It was the kick I needed to propel me to exactly the right place. Knowing how to accept the discomfort of the unknown is the condition for growing and progressing.</li></ul><p>Men, women… The qualities required for our professions are the same … but women must acquire something they lack: the will to shine. Stand out, speak up, have your say. Too often, women hold back. They don’t talk about money, it’s like a taboo… A man will tell me exactly what he wants, and how much he wants. A woman is worth as much as a man in our professions. It’s up to us to reclaim our worth.</p><h2>The Tech and I: Five Years From Now</h2><p>The next chapter of my story will be written in Morocco, hopefully still in the Tech universe. I had to fight my way into it and I finally feel that I’ve found my place. How Ironic: My father worked in IT; he tried his best to get me to follow the same path. Yet it took years and a long detour into the field of marketing before finding my way back to Tech. Sometimes, life catches you unexpectedly… Daddy was right … as he likes to remind me… But I think he’s very proud of me for walking my own path. I chose Tech, no one did it for me!</p><p>I’m not afraid of my own ambition! I very much want to climb up the hierarchical ladder and occupy higher and more strategic positions in the future. I act on instinct. Had I listened to those close to me and the voice of reason, I would never have made the best decision of my life. Thanks to my instinct, I can live in the country of my choice and work in a company that fulfils me professionally. I don’t regret my choice one bit: it wasn’t without risk and I had to step out of my comfort zone. Yes, it was a bet, and I won!</p><p>I don’t fear the future. I take my chances. Nelson Mandela said: ‘I never lose. I either win or learn.’ I live by these words. If I want something, I’ll try my very best to achieve my goal. Striving for perfection doesn’t always mean success, but you will get closer. There’s nothing wrong with reaching for the stars.</p>

VO2’s Nadia Hilmi: Whirl, Swirl, Keep Steady

Team 50inTech