HR director on balancing career and parenthood

Anu Villarosa successfully balances a position as HR director for Pitcher Partners and parenthood. She spoke to The HR Leader about her journey and gave insight to inspire other people in similar circumstances.

Ms Villarosa shared how took on a managerial role while three months pregnant. While doubt was there, the decision ultimately benefited her career.

“It definitely crossed my mind: ‘Do I take this opportunity? Do I not take this opportunity because I'm having a second child? It might be difficult.’ But mindset wise, I'm definitely someone who takes challenges and turns them into opportunities,” she said.

Ms Villarosa notes that there may come times where you’ve got to prioritise.

“It's certainly a challenge. So, I think a ball always has to drop. That's my philosophy. So, my house is very messy. I think it's about prioritisation,” she said.

Ms Villarosa continued: “I've taken [my daughter] on that career journey with me a little bit. She really wants to be a vet when she grows up and she'd like to balance that with being a mum. So, I feel like I've started my role model journey with her and I'm really proud of that as well.”

Having a support network makes balancing career and parenthood easier. Ms Villarosa says that asking for support is important and shouldn’t be something to be afraid of.

“I've got a very supportive partner. He supports me in my work. I surround myself with people that can help with the children, but also helping my work, and I set some really clear boundaries in terms of my time and how I'm spending my time, and put my efforts where I think I'm going to create the most value for the organisation I'm working for and for my family as well,” outlined Ms Villarosa.

“So, if that's spending time watching my children for an hour at basketball, I spend an hour later on in the evening doing my work; that's what I do. I do everything in a planful way, but I'm also really intentional about what I do.”

She added: “I lean on others. I ask for support. And when people say, do you need help? I say yes, which has been a really big journey for me because I don't normally do that. I [used to] say I can take it on all myself – I quite proudly now say I can't do it all myself.”

The transcript of the podcast episode with Anu Villarosa, when quoted above, was slightly edited for publishing purposes. The full conversation with Anu Villarosa is below.