When Nada Noaman landed her dream C-suite job at The Estée Lauder Cos. just hours after finding out she was pregnant, she felt unbridled joy — and panic.
"I accepted that it would be much harder at my age to get pregnant, that it might not be in the cards for me," Noaman, now 46, adds.One of the first people Noaman told she was pregnant — besides her doctors and husband — was her potential new boss, Michael Smith, Estèe Lauder's chief information officer.
"I wanted people to build a rapport with me and know that I wasn't going anywhere anytime soon so that by the time I did go on maternity leave, we had a plan and it felt as seamless as possible," she says. To prepare for maternity leave during her first year in the C-suite, Noaman set up what she calls a"self-governance committee" of business leaders within her department to make decisions and lead team meetings on her behalf. She coordinated with Smith to delegate some of her higher-level duties, like leading meetings or dealing with tech emergencies.