CEO at 6 Months Pregnant: How I’m Rethinking Leadership

A month or so ago, I was asked to take on the role of CEO at SMG, a global retail media specialist with offices in the U.K. and the U.S. Somewhat unusually, I was six months pregnant at the time.

The reactions have been fascinating: congratulations, followed by congratulations again. There’s normally an accompanying smile that’s a combination of shock and curiosity, along with a sense that this combination of events, or certainly this timing, isn’t something people are used to seeing.

It’s not unusual because it’s unworkable. It’s unusual because, structurally and culturally, we’ve made it so.

I’ve been with SMG for a long time, through different chapters and roles, from commercial and client leadership to operations and strategy. I’ve been part of this company as it has grown from a challenger into an established retail media specialist. I’ve taken maternity leave here before, and I’ve returned, as has our chief people officer, who is currently eight months pregnant, too. I’ve seen plenty of people progress into bigger roles before, during, or after parental leave. This isn’t treated as an exception, but as part of how we’ve built our culture at SMG. It doesn’t make headlines internally because it’s just how things work here.

That kind of long-term thinking around talent, and particularly female talent, is still far too rare. Across much of the advertising industry, there remains a deeply embedded caution when it comes to progression and parenthood. It’s rarely explicit (in my experience, those days are, thankfully, mostly gone), but it surfaces subtly in the way conversations get delayed, responsibilities softened, and decisions deferred. The logic seems to be that people who are temporarily less available might also be permanently less ambitious. That assumption, however, is just that: an assumption.

The talent we risk losing in these moments is often exactly the talent businesses say they want more of—strategic, committed, experienced, resilient. I’ve seen many times, from watching people in my team, that pregnancy doesn’t diminish leadership potential. In many ways, it cements it.