Design the Leader First: Why Identity Is a Founder’s First Asset
If I had to offer one piece of advice to any woman standing at the threshold of entrepreneurship, irrespective of her life-stage, it is this: build your enterprise from the inside out – beginning with the identity you choose to lead from.
In the noise of pitch-decks, scaling strategies and everyone’s favourite ‘top ten rules for founders’, this can sound almost countercultural. But when I look back at my own journey, the decision that shaped everything wasn’t about timing or funding or the perfect team. It was something far quieter, and far more enduring.
It was the moment I decided to lead from an identity that I had designed – thoughtfully and deliberately. so, as a third time founder I cherish and continue to grow from the identity rooted in my values: from the cultural intelligence gathered across multiple countries and contexts, and from a deep understanding of how my presence lands in a room, of what it signals, what it builds and, occasionally, how it unintentionally gets in the way.
My identity has been my compass – both personally and professionally – long before I realised it would one day form the backbone of my book – Vitruvian Woman – and the work I now do with organisations and other leaders, those aspiring to both leadership and the elusive balance.
The early bricks of identity
My working life began with movement, psychology and education. Five days studying and one day performing on stage. I didn’t know it then, but those early passions – shaping minds, reading bodies, expressing presence – were laying down my foundations of leadership. They taught me to be attentive, to listen with more than my ears, and to trust the subtle information carried in posture, breath and silence.
Entrepreneurial life, of course, was not linear. It felt more like a Scottish shower – warm one minute, icy the next. But in those extremes, you learn who you are. You learn resilience and your non‑negotiables.
Years later I found myself pioneering technology solutions as a non‑technologist in post‑communist Eastern Europe, leading teams of brilliant engineers, and building a business from scratch under conditions that were more chaotic than catalytic. It became clear that an identity grounded in early passions was not a luxury, but stamina and self-belief. And it still is strategy.
On the day we cut the ribbon, the British ambassador told me: “Success here depends entirely on your stamina”. He was right. Stamina is not only physical; it is emotional, intellectual and ethical. It comes from knowing what you stand for, from Firmitas – inner strength – the first Vitruvian principle.
Identity as a leadership tool
As founders and leaders of teams, we are encouraged (especially in business school) to optimise strategies and build efficient systems. Yet the deeper truth is this: your identity is the first system you ever build. And its architecture has a profound effect on every decision that follows.
For me, that meant anchoring myself in three commitments:
1. Non‑negotiables
Knowing what I would not compromise: integrity, cross‑cultural respect, and showing up as the same person across contexts. This is the foundation – the ‘core’ – I later wrote about in Vitruvian Woman.
2. Adaptability without self‑erasure
As a founder, especially a woman founder, adaptation is constant. But adaptation must not slip into self‑abandonment. So, in my book, Utilitas, the Vitruvian value of relevance, is not about pleasing every room; it is about aligning to context while staying anchored in self.
3. Leadership as emotional resonance
People remember how you made them feel long after they remember what you said. Presence is a felt sense, a type of quiet magnetism that arises from being aligned internally.
These principles became the spine of my leadership, even before I had the vocabulary for them.
When identity meets cross‑cultural reality
My interest in human and economic geography taught me early that people and places are inseparable. Later, as I navigated negotiations with decision‑makers across cultures – including one particularly memorable encounter involving my elegantly dressed paratrooper‑trained driver who altered the energy in the room without saying a word – I learnt how profoundly identity interacts with environment.
Cultural intelligence is never an optional extra for founders; it is their very differentiator because it informs judgement, reduces friction and strengthens trust. It also teaches humility – with a warning note that success in one culture does not guarantee fluency in another.
In Vitruvian Woman, I wrote that cultural intelligence is a core pillar of leadership because it affects communication, credibility and connection. I experienced all of this in real time decades before naming it.
That ability to read context without losing self – the dance of firmness and flexibility – is, I believe, one of the most powerful assets women founders can bring to the table.
The danger of déjà‑vu founders
Many founders, especially women, feel the pressure to resemble the business book template of what leadership should look like. From conversations I have had, it is clear that many might have felt this in their early days: the pressure to sharpen, harden, minimise flair, conceal creativity, or adopt the tone and posture of the dominant archetype in the room. I survived that pressure simply because of core strength, literally and metaphorically. I also hardly had a role model apart from my mum and a few witty muses in my world at that time! Suffice to say, my experience doesn’t agree with ‘you cannot be with what you cannot see’. I had not seen exactly what I had developed into in my various stages – and that had not stopped me in my tracks.
Attempting to embody someone else’s leadership identity always comes at a cost. In some cases, it’s credibility, in others, vitality. In all cases, it is unsustainable.
Authenticity is never soft but always strategic. In fact, I consider it one of the most potent forms of executive presence. In Vitruvian Woman I emphasise that authenticity works because it aligns character, image and brand all into one coherent narrative. When they are in harmony, trust follows. But this one still doesn’t guarantee resonance and engagement (more on this as you read on), especially when you are an immigrant and bring a different frame of reference.
Irrespective of such cultural context, though, this is still why I tell aspiring women founders:
Build something aligned with who you actually are – not who the world tells you to emulate.
For me, that meant leaning into those qualities I chose to never relegate to footnotes: be strategic while quietly observant, stay instinctively cross‑cultural, remain fascinated by human connection, and be genuinely committed to relationships where identity and belonging are lived practices rather than platitudes and slogans.
These qualities became my differentiation – not despite the market or environment, but because of it.
The moment identity shapes impact
One of the most important decisions I wish I had made earlier was this:
Only surround yourself with people who recognise your resonance and engagement before they recognise your usefulness. There may not be many at any one time but they are worth their weight in gold.
This simple shift – from being valued for utility to being valued for your identity – can save years of misalignment, disappointment and the slow erosion of energy that comes from working with those who cannot ‘see’ you.
It also doubles your impact. When people perceive your resonance – your vision, your values, your integrity, your way of being – they join in. They build with you, not around you. But don’t be surprised if many do not choose to despite the brilliant lip service they pay to what you do. Mimicking is not the same as engagement.
This mirrors what I’ve seen repeatedly in my coaching and consulting work: leaders who build from their core do not need to shout to be heard. Their presence does the work – even if it might not be recognised by everyone.
A full‑circle return to early passions
Decades after those early days of mapping, modelling and modernising data infrastructures, I found myself returning to the passions that shaped me: movement, presence, psychology, and the aesthetics of leadership.
A multinational client once asked me to train their board in etiquette when I was there to sell data science. It was a clue I ignored for more than a decade. But it later fuelled the creation of Image Ability – a full‑circle return to what I now call image literacy, the ability to shape one’s presence intentionally, authentically and strategically.
Identity, I realised, is not static. It evolves with context, with crisis and, with culture. But it must remain anchored in authenticity if it is to serve us well. As a founder, at any stage of life, identity and your ‘otherness’ will continue to be your first asset.
So, to every woman stepping into entrepreneurship, here is the distilled truth:
Design the leader you want to be before you design ‘the company’.
Your model, your culture, your resonance and engagement – and your genuine partnerships – will follow the identity you bring into the room – every room, every time.
Your presence is never a soft skill and your identity will never be a decorative attribute. They are your first strategic assets. So, build from there and the rest becomes far more navigable. Even sheer indifference to the value you bring might turn into a new, rewarding path.