#12 Sohaila Ouffata – Purpose-driven leadership

Today’s guest is Sohaila Ouffata from BMW iVentures. In our conversation we talk about her different leadership roles from starting off in a management consultancy leading a project team in India, to leading more than 120 developers in Tel Aviv as someone born & raised in Germany with Moroccan-born parents. We also talk about her current leadership role as an investor supporting start-ups to succeed. What I especially enjoyed was talking to Sohaila about how she puts her strengths & network into practice for her passion project, the African Tech Vision. It’s a private initiative empowering African female entrepreneurs at scale. Its aim is to nurture the next ecosystem of purpose-driven female founders on the continent. 

As I know Sohaila has been very selective so far with podcasts, I am very proud that she accepted my invitation to join Destination Leadership to share her learnings and inspire a diverse community of listeners!

We talk about: 

• Starting her career in management consulting leading project-based teams
• Working with Indian developers & learning to lead across cultures 
• How to deal with someone more senior than you with different values and workstyle 
• What she would tell her younger self
• What to do so that team members feel responsible
• Her experience in the telecommunications industry in Israel as someone born and raised in Germany with Moroccan-born parents leading a tech team of over 120 developers in Tel Aviv
• There not having been a role model for her when she was younger and how it became a driver for her in the work that she does 
• What you can learn from bad leaders & questions you can ask yourself from observing them
• Daring to ask for help & know what you are good at and what you are not good at 
• How it’s good and authentic to say when you don’t know something – own what you know and don’t know! 
• The different leadership role she has as investor when working with start-ups
• Making use of her strengths & network for her passion project: the African Tech Vision, a private initiative empowering African female entrepreneurs at scale. Its aim is to give purpose-driven female founders access to financing, business networks, education and real commercial opportunities alongside an entrepreneurial journey with experienced mentors.
• How great it would be if people really listen to each other