Petra Beekmans van Zijll

“I never saw myself as a leader. I just focused on hard work.”

What’s your personal story?

I’ve spent most of my career in communications. I studied communications at Fontys Hogeschool and later completed my Master’s in Business/Corporate Communications at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University.

After several years on the agency side, as an Account Manager/Communications Advisor at Philips Design, I switched to the business side. My role involved providing key communication advice to senior marketing and VPs in complex B2B medical domains for Philips Healthcare. But then the strategic team I was part of suddenly ceased to exist. I saw a recommended job on LinkedIn, which led me to NXP. There, I started as Director of Marketing Communications for one of the Business Units, and also worked on branding and thought leadership programs as part of the corporate team. Then I joined Nexperia, a spin-off from NXP, and had the privilege to develop and roll out the new brand identity for the new entity. As Senior Director Communications, I have led all aspects of Nexperia’s strategic global communication since 2017.

Looking back, some of my career trajectory seems to have happened by accident. But on closer inspection, there was always a reason for every move I made.

Share some of the key challenges or breakthroughs in your career that have led to where you are now

Learning and building on your strengths
Looking back, when my kids were young, I never really had a part-time job. I worked 4 days a week and sometimes felt social pressure, especially from other mothers. In the Netherlands, we seem to still have many old-fashioned beliefs about working women that we need to get rid of. I was raised with the belief that if you want to achieve and accomplish something, you have to put in the effort. There’s no such thing as a ‘free lunch’.

As the youngest of four, most discussions at the dinner table went over my head. Later, I realized this enabled me to develop a certain skill in identifying tensions or conflicts. I saw the signs of a conflict from afar. For instance, early in my career, I would step out of a meeting with my colleague and ask, ‘Did you see the dynamics in the meeting?’. My colleague had no idea what I was talking about, but I felt I was getting a different message from a meeting. I learned to take advantage of my skill and even name it.

Learning from behavior that holds you back
In our interviews, we like to talk about ’12 behaviors holding you back’ – researched and published in the book ‘How Women Rise’ by Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith. We asked Petra if she could identify with any of these 12 behaviors that hold women back in their careers.

I recognize several habits: the perfection trap, putting my job above my career, focusing too much on details, and overcompensating. Believing that if I just worked hard enough, I would be recognized. But I’ve realized that if you want to move forward in your career, you need to explicitly say what you want to achieve.

Another challenge I faced was that I never saw myself as a leader. I worked with a coach at one point, and she said, ‘You’re a director, a manager.’ I said, ‘I don’t want to be that.’ For some reason, I never considered myself a leader. I just focused on hard work. In my mind, being a leader meant that you had to be mean. Or you had to get angry to get your way. This was literally suggested during one of my performance reviews. That just didn’t work for me. My coach helped me see how I could rely on my own leadership qualities.

Setting an example
The women in my team work incredibly hard. Sometimes it’s not even what I’ve asked them, but I see it happening. I don’t consider myself a leader who stands on the sidelines. I’ll run alongside my team as part of the team and set a good example.

When you find yourself in a difficult situation, what is your go-to skill?

Take a step back to gain perspective. Don’t get swept up in the emotion. Understand what needs to be done and manage expectations while you act.

When it gets tough, I visualize myself in my abaya
I’ve developed my own way to empower myself for a challenging day. For example, I carefully choose the outfit I’m going to wear where I feel good and powerful. And I visualize the role I’m going to play in a particular situation. Then I visualize the situation as a big yellow coat that I imaginarily put on before I leave the door to give me a boost of confidence. Something my coach taught me, and it works.

But I once had a completely opposite experience. I had to travel to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia for Philips Healthcare. Although I had read beforehand that women are usually not recognized in a professional role there, my colleagues convinced me to go. That meant buying an abaya, a loose black dress designed to hide the curves of the body, and wearing a scarf over my hair. That took me far out of my comfort zone.

We met a delegation in a hospital. They shook all my male colleagues’ hands, but skipped me as if I wasn’t even there. During the presentation, it was my turn to present my recommendations. I had to stand in front of a room of doctors and administrators, in my shapeless black outfit. I thought, ‘All I have is my story, so I’m just going to focus on telling my story as best as I can’. I told the audience why I thought it was important for their hospital to think about how they wanted to be seen in their community and how they could achieve that. And the mood changed. I made a connection with the people in the room. They came up to me afterward and talked to me. All I had were my strengths and my story. Then I learned that you can strip everything around you, but you always bring yourself into the room.

So when it gets tough, I visualize myself in my abaya. It doesn’t get tougher than that.

What advice would you give to other professional women looking to shine in their careers?

Be authentic. Don’t try to compare or compete with other women. Don’t copy male behavior by becoming louder or more aggressive in leadership. Whatever comes out of your mouth won’t work because it’s not authentic. It will take more energy than it gives you.

Be aware that as a woman, you bring diversity to teams, and the best teams thrive on diversity. If you only have goalkeepers in a soccer team, you won’t score. You need a good variety to make it work.

It’s okay to be vulnerable; I think a lot of women are afraid that they are too emotional. But the truth is that most male leaders who can be loud and aggressive can also be vulnerable. If you talk to them about really basic things, you make a connection. Don’t try to compete on their level. Just be yourself.

Take good care of yourself. Running faster doesn’t necessarily lead to better performance. Get enough sleep, eat well, and take care of yourself. Exercise or get your nails done, whatever makes you feel good. Take time for yourself. And a small tip, if you have an important presentation, arrive on time. Don’t rush. The trick is to make sure all these elements fit you. If you’re out of balance or low on energy, you can’t perform well.

What was helpful for me was a technique I learned to help realize what my good points are. Every morning, I would put the things I wanted to focus on in the top right corner of my planner. Then I would internalize those topics throughout the day.